Gallipoli with Jennifer Kent

This week, we are honored to welcome Australian filmmaker Jennifer Kent to the podcast as we discuss Peter Weir's devastating classic Gallipoli. In addition to bringing much needed context on the history of Australian cinema, this episode also delves into the significance of the Gallipoli Campaign in the Aussie national consciousness, the undersung career of actor Mark Lee, and the genius of Peter Weir's approach to telling this story. Plus, we get to ask Jennifer about her role in Babe: Pig in the City AND we ask her to tell her buddy Justin Kurzel how much Ben loves his Assassin's Creed movie. Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

  Ranking Scorsese at the Bell House in Brooklyn. We did the definitive power ranking of Martin Scorsese things.

• 0:12David Sims?

  Uh, it was so fun. Uh, it was very silly.

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

  Ben and Marie were with us and they're with us right now.

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

  And thanks to our friends at Dynasty Typewriter. It was livestreamed for the first time ever. But also, the replay is still up there, but only until October 30th.

• 0:31Speaker 03

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36David Sims?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 03

  It's $20. We had a blast and the Spreadmaster really got to work.

• 0:43David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around.

• 0:45Griffin Newman?

  Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  I don't know if I'd have seen you that happy.

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

  You were thrilled. You were like a pick and share.

• 0:50David Sims?

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53David Sims?

  Thank you. You were funny. You were also funny.

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57David Sims?

  And if you want to see like, you know, Griffin's shine box on camera, it's the only way to see it.

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're into that sort of content.

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  So once again, that's at dynasty.tv.

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  From a place you've never heard of, a podcast you'll never forget.

• 1:44David Sims?

  Okay, for our guest, uh, just, just for the context of what just happened.

• 1:48Griffin Newman?

  Just to clarify what just happened.

• 1:49David Sims?

  That's the tagline of the film and he's put the word podcast in there.

• 1:52Griffin Newman?

  It's 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.

• 1:59David Sims?

  From a place you've never heard of, a story you'll never forget.

• 2:02Griffin Newman?

  Hey, guys, I know this title's gonna make no sense to you. But but if you watch the movie, you'll be happy about it after the fact.

• 2:10David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:11Griffin Newman?

  You won't forget it.

• 2:12David Sims?

  It's also it's a poster that's the final image of the film.

• 2:16Griffin Newman?

  That's what's fascinating.

• 2:17Speaker 04

  Yes, that that is. That is really bold, I thought.

• 2:22David Sims?

  It is.

• 2:22Speaker 04

  But it's out of context, so I guess you don't know.

• 2:26Griffin Newman?

  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 twice as devastating to now understand what that image was you were looking at.

• 2:43David Sims?

  But Platoon did the same thing, and this is a movie that reminded like Platoon really sort of is drafting off this movie. And that's another movie where they had the the final image, basically, as the poster.

• 2:54Griffin Newman?

  But basically final, not literally.

• 2:55David Sims?

  This is the actual final image.

• 2:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:57David Sims?

  You're right.

• 2:57Griffin Newman?

  Is Platoon the year?

• 2:59David Sims?

  No, it's it's years later.

• 3:00Griffin Newman?

  It's later, it's eighty six.

• 3:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:02Speaker 04

  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.

• 3:12Griffin Newman?

  This was like a new release school field trip to the theater.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Yes, exactly. And I watching it again last night, which is forty five years later. I could not believe that some images were emblazoned in my soul. And one of them was that final image.

• 3:33David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:34Speaker 04

  I remembered that. I also remembered Jack's conversation with his uncle. You know, um, 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 gonna hurl me down the track. How fast can you run as fast as a leopard? How fast are you gonna run as fast as a leopard? Then let's see you do it. And I was just like, ugh. As a kid, that really got to me.

• 4:02David Sims?

  You remembered it.

• 4:03Speaker 04

  Yes, I do.

• 4:04David Sims?

  How how old would you have been when you saw it?

• 4:06Speaker 04

  About ten, around ten. But the thing that was so devastating for me last night is as a ten year old, you see a film like this and you think, what a terrible thing that happened in our history.

• 4:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 4:20Speaker 04

  You know, that's terrible. But then, you know, 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.

• 4:33David Sims?

  Yep.

• 4:34Speaker 04

  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.

• 4:51Griffin Newman?

  Hard agree. Jennifer, some lore on this podcast. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 4:57David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 4:58Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 5:10David Sims?

  Okay, sure, sure, sure.

• 5:11Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 5:28David Sims?

  Yes.

• 5:29Griffin Newman?

  From a place you've never heard of, a podcast you'll never forget.

• 5:32David Sims?

  Hopefully.

• 5:33Speaker 04

  So is Australia the place you've never heard of, or Gallipoli?

• 5:37David Sims?

  Well, that's why, that's why the American tagline is funny. The Australian tagline was just Peter Weir's film of Gallipoli. It was very much a sort of like, you know, this is one of, one of our emerging filmmakers has made a film about a very important historic event in Australia.

• 5:52Griffin Newman?

  Right, I guess it sold itself more in that, in that way.

• 5:55David Sims?

  Yes.

• 5:56Griffin Newman?

  Um, this is a mini-series on the films of Peter Weir. It's called Podnick and Hanging Cast.

• 6:00David Sims?

  That's right.

• 6:00Griffin Newman?

  Our guest today, to my great excitement.

• 6:02David Sims?

  Yep.

• 6:03Griffin Newman?

  Is one of my favorite modern filmmakers, someone I've talked about so much.

• 6:06David Sims?

  And our, and our guest from the furthest away that we've ever had.

• 6:10Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 6:10Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 6:10Griffin Newman?

  A record being broken.

• 6:11David Sims?

  I think so. I don't think we've ever had a guest from so far away beaming on to the show before.

• 6:16Griffin Newman?

  Furthest away geographically, furthest away in time. You are, you are far ahead in the future.

• 6:21David Sims?

  Yeah, it's tomorrow there.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're a day ahead. There's like flying cars and shit around here.

• 6:26Griffin Newman?

  Cause I was, our friend Rob Shearer, our mutual friend, helped us set this up.

• 6:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:31Griffin Newman?

  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?

• 6:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is always, I'm used to it. I'm the master of, okay, so you realize I'm in the future.

• 6:46David Sims?

  Right, you have to deal with this all the time, right?

• 6:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, a day ahead, but further, you know, later in the next day, if that makes sense. But anyway.

• 6:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 6:56Speaker 04

  I'm here.

• 6:57Griffin Newman?

  We made. The great Jennifer Kent, the filmmaker behind The Babadook and The Nightingale, two of my favorite movies of the last ten years.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 7:05David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, is it, well, it's more than ten years for Babadook, right?

• 7:08Griffin Newman?

  Babadook just, it was just the 10th anniversary?

• 7:10Speaker 04

  It was ju, last year was ten, ten years, which is sort of unbelievable to me.

• 7:16Griffin Newman?

  I often contend it is like one of the most influential films of this century.

• 7:22David Sims?

  It's a wonderful film.

• 7:23Griffin Newman?

  And I, beyond just how much I, 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.

• 7:40Speaker 04

  Wow. Well, you know, not, not, we're not here to talk about me, but in, in regards to that film, it was really hard to get made, actually. Because there's a, a big snobbery within the Australian funding systems towards horror. Um, and so I said to them, it was art house horror, and their response was.

• 8:03Speaker 04

  You know, there's no such thing as that. And, uh, but that's the way I, I sort of treated it, that it was, I mean, to call it elevated is, it, it's sort of, is, it's a disparaging term towards horror and cinema. I think all horror is elevated because it's just pure cinema.

• 8:22Griffin Newman?

  I am a hundred percent with you, and I've, I've always found the elevated horror thing very backhanded.

• 8:27David Sims?

  Right, it's backhanded.

• 8:28Griffin Newman?

  But the fact that you had to call it art house horror and trying to get financing to make it shows that it was before the elevated horror conversation.

• 8:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And now I think they're like, okay, bring us your horror, you know?

• 8:42Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  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 the.

• 8:57Griffin Newman?

  Finding a way to tell what is clearly like a story that personally means a lot to you, that has big ideas and big emotions and big like 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

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:21Griffin Newman?

  Of like, oh, this is a pathway for what

• 9:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:23Griffin Newman?

  This genre can be. And it has felt like, I don't know.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  Definitely.

• 9:28Griffin Newman?

  I found it entirely transformative on like the landscape of horror. And it's 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 forty 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.

• 9:43Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 9:44Griffin Newman?

  And like forty 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.

• 9:56David Sims?

  Yeah, he was, he was, he was the little Babadook boy right here.

• 10:01Speaker 04

  Oh, well, me too. I mean, I used to like

• 10:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay, good.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  Go-karts without brakes and, you know, 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.

• 10:18Griffin Newman?

  I don't know if I was seeing the Babadook literally, but yes, the movie did. It certainly helped me a lot in terms of therapy. It unlocked a lot of things.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I had one guy who wrote to me and said that his, he lost his dad very young. And his mom 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 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 filmmaker, I mean, that when you get that kind of, I mean, that's why I do it. You know, I I've really turned down a lot to make films that. Yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  And 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 forty five years later and just ugly crying about, you know, the messages of the film.

• 11:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 11:27Speaker 04

  And the futilities of war. It's like incredible to me.

• 11:31David Sims?

  What 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.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, the interesting thing about, you know, without giving you a lecture on it, but we didn't make.

• 11:46Griffin Newman?

  You were invited to give a lecture.

• 11:47David Sims?

  We we have to just sit here while you give us an Australian film lecture. That would be just fine.

• 11:51Griffin Newman?

  School our asses.

• 11:53Speaker 04

  Well, okay, let me start way back in the beginning. My great great uncles were film producers. Great great in the silent era.

• 12:03David Sims?

  Oh, dang, okay. In in Australian silent film?

• 12:05Speaker 04

  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 then he told me the story that, you know, they they were also film distributors. And they distributed the first film ever made, which is the history of the of the Ned Kelly Gang, the history of the Kelly Gang.

• 12:35Griffin Newman?

  Like a silent film.

• 12:36David Sims?

  How long was it?

• 12:36Speaker 04

  It's the first film ever made, like in the world.

• 12:40David Sims?

  Wow.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  Period. Yeah. And that was, you know, it was a feature length, but a lot, it's lost. There's only bits of it now. But then they went and produced like 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 to, we want that. So what they did was they, Mafiosa style, came in and.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  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 around 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 theatre production.

• 13:41David Sims?

  Right, and I feel like Australian cinema kind of atrophied, right? I mean, like it's sort of.

• 13:45Speaker 04

  Well, so that was in, that was in the 30s. And then for almost 40 years, we didn't make any films.

• 13:53David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 13:54Speaker 04

  Which is insane.

• 13:56David Sims?

  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 whatever. There's not much of a film industry.

• 14:07Griffin Newman?

  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 for the first time in decades.

• 14:27Speaker 04

  That's right. And then, so it puts it into context, right? Because if you look at, okay, in 1969, we had Zero again. I mean, there was one filmmaker, Charles Cheval, who, who made like Jeddah, which is a very odd, kind of intentionally good, but quite racist film. And, and.

• 14:46Griffin Newman?

  We have none of those in America.

• 14:47Speaker 04

  Oh, no, no. But then, so you had nothing and then you had Wake and Fright, which is extraordinary. And Walkabout, which is also extraordinary.

• 14:57David Sims?

  That's 71 and Walkabout.

• 14:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And, 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. We're going, we're going to give you some culture. Yeah, let's get some culture going. And, 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

• 15:42Speaker 04

  new wave, you know, the French new wave, in that they were very critical of our society, our culture.

• 15:46David Sims?

  Right.

• 15:47Speaker 04

  And, um, very dark.

• 15:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 15:50Speaker 04

  Odd and disturbing, yeah.

• 15:51David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 15:52Speaker 04

  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.

• 16:07David Sims?

  Right, Cars That Ate Paris, we've, we've covered, yeah, right, that, his first major film.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, sort of strangely funny. Do you guys get that in terms of its humour?

• 16:20Griffin Newman?

  I, I found it very funny, but I don't know if I'm finding it funny for the reasons he intended.

• 16:25David Sims?

  I, right, I think it's probably, it's making fun of a sort of small town, uh, you know, mindset that I think we both, we did understand, but then we, there's certainly things we're probably not picking up on, on the sort of like

• 16:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:37David Sims?

  small town mindset of the, you know, the, the seventies, that like it's, it's satirizing in Australia.

• 16:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, it just felt sort of quintessentially Australian to me, that film, and sort of Babadook style humour as well. And then I realised, oh, there is such a thing as Australian humour.

• 16:56Griffin Newman?

  Why, it's, just to clarify, in the forty years where theatres 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?

• 17:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 17:08Griffin Newman?

  And from other parts of Europe?

• 17:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think, I think we, yeah, I think, I mean, I wasn't around, but I, I, knowing from my mum, who was a big, you know, sort of, we can call her a cinephile, but she watched everything that came out, and it was mainly Hollywood.

• 17:24Griffin Newman?

  I think that qualifies as cinephile, yeah.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:27Griffin Newman?

  I think we can give her the title.

• 17:28Speaker 04

  Like, unintentional, unintentional cinephile, but we all, we had, 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.

• 17:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 17:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:48David Sims?

  Um, and you know, those early Weir films, I mean, Picnic at 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.

• 18:02Speaker 04

  I mean, yeah, it's, it's one of my favorites. I had to make a list for the age here, um, just today, actually, of my 10 favorite Australian films.

• 18:12David Sims?

  Wait, what are your 10 favorite Australian?

• 18:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I want to hear that.

• 18:15David Sims?

  This was unrelated to the show? You, you were doing it for something else?

• 18:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. So I, 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.

• 18:28David Sims?

  Sure. It's exclusionary to make a list, but it's fun too.

• 18:32Speaker 04

  But I made it. Yeah. So my favorite Australian films are for today were, um, Wake in Fright, Walkabout, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith.

• 18:51David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, that's right. Fred Chepsey. Right.

• 18:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, Skepsy. Yeah. And he, yeah, he's, that film made a huge impression on me, especially for The Nightingale, I think. Gallipoli, Mad Max, Snowtown, Ten Canoes and Chopper.

• 19:10David Sims?

  I don't know Ten Canoes. I'm looking.

• 19:12Griffin Newman?

  I don't know that one either, but I mean. Oh, my God. Three out of 10 slots was Peter Weir.

• 19:17David Sims?

  Yeah, right. You have three Peter Weir movies.

• 19:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:21David Sims?

  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.

• 19:28Griffin Newman?

  Loved it dearly.

• 19:29David Sims?

  It's a very interesting movie. Yes.

• 19:30Griffin Newman?

  But 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.

• 19:36David Sims?

  But it was fantastic.

• 19:38Speaker 04

  I think Join the Club in that it is, you know, it, it's a film about sort of. Climate, not climate change, but it's an environmental film, I think.

• 19:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  And, you know, the Aboriginal presence in it, what I really admired that he did was just let them go.

• 19:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 19:56Speaker 04

  So they, I, so he.

• 19:57David Sims?

  Let them leave what the story is.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  And I mean, that's what I, we did in Nightingale as well was, you know, the script was made in full consultation with Palaua people, Tasmanian Aboriginal people. But that's what I think you prob, is that what you're finding a bit confounding? Like, oh my God, what is this?

• 20:14David Sims?

  Not even confound, I mean, Last Wave, I would say, Last Wave is trying to confound. I think both Last Wave and Picnic at Hanging Rock are, are happy to leave you, you know.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  In the dark.

• 20:25David Sims?

  Yes, a little unsatisfied in terms of explanations and ready to wrestle with it, which is, which is great. Gallipoli's not that at all. Gallipoli's a very sort of straightforward kind of, you know, punching the jaw, which is fine. Like, I mean, that, that obviously works great.

• 20:38Griffin Newman?

  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, 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 try to get like a slight better cultural context on this.

• 21:00Speaker 04

  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, there's a tone to them that's very unconventional.

• 21:12David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 21:12Speaker 04

  And it's really purely from him. And, 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?

• 21:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 21:28Speaker 04

  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?

• 21:35David Sims?

  It worked.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  Who the, who the hell am I? It worked. Walked to the kitchen, got a cup of tea and thought, who am I? You know? But it's very Aboriginal.

• 21:47Speaker 04

  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.

• 21:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 22:00Speaker 04

  That was my, so it was, you know, it is very conventional, but I would argue that now.

• 22:07Speaker 04

  It's like the antithesis of Saving Private Ryan.

• 22:10David Sims?

  Yes.

• 22:11Speaker 04

  Which starts off so gritty and confronting and horrific. And then kind of goes into a much more romantic, everything's gonna be alright, we're gonna save this one dude who, you know, but this film, Gallipoli, is we're mates, everything is gonna be okay, everything's gonna be alright, and then nothing is alright. And like, if you look at the structure of the film, it's like an hour and forty six minutes. And, and I just clocked at this time, you know, that the first hour and fifteen minutes, you don't even sort of realize that 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.

• 22:54Speaker 04

  But it's in that last thirty.

• 22:59David Sims?

  Twenty-five minutes, right.

• 23:00Speaker 04

  Thirty, yeah, thirty minutes. And then, and then it gets serious all of a sudden. And then in the last twenty minutes, you're like, oh my God, this is, this is a horror.

• 23:10David Sims?

  Ridiculous. I mean, and it's horrifying. And I, because Gallipoli is such a, you know, pivotal, you know, I learned about that in school and like the battle.

• 23:19Speaker 04

  Oh, you did?

• 23:19David Sims?

  You know, the, you know.

• 23:20Speaker 04

  David grew up in London.

• 23:21David Sims?

  I grew up in England, so, so, you know, you know, World War One, 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, 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.

• 23:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:47David Sims?

  Over trenches.

• 23:48Griffin Newman?

  The point is that it was meaningless.

• 23:49David Sims?

  Run that way. Yes, exactly.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  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 they didn't achieve any, got anything out of it.

• 24:13David Sims?

  Nothing.

• 24:14Griffin Newman?

  And that it 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, 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 for a first time as a 10 year old. My relationship to war and 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 Pollyannaist child where I go, I don't understand how this is real.

• 24:58David Sims?

  Right.

• 24:58Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 25:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 25:29Griffin Newman?

  This is more a conclusive kind of epic retelling of this important moment in Australian history. And starting off 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?

• 25:44David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 25:45Griffin Newman?

  And, and the fact that the movie is really structured.

• 25:48Speaker 04

  And I love the guy who's kind of out in the middle of nowhere and says, oh, is there a war going on?

• 25:51Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 26:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 26:01Griffin Newman?

  And the war is kind of.

• 26:02David Sims?

  And be friends. These guys are gonna go be friends together.

• 26:05Griffin Newman?

  But the war is like obstructed. These boys are going off on a journey. Yeah. They could just as easily be looking for like a hidden pirate ship, you know? It could be like a Goonies style adventure. And they're approaching it with that energy.

• 26:17Speaker 04

  And there's a word that we, it's very dated. No one says larrikan now, but it's a very Australian word that would, would be used to describe these guys is, you know, larrikins, that,

• 26:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 26:29Speaker 04

  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, it's all gonna 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 Argu in that role. He, cause he was so, in such an innocent, you know? And, 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, they're not giving me food or water. And I just broke down. And from that point on, and even when, um, I forget the actor's name, but the, the young guy at the beginning who's, uh, fighting Archie on the horse and Archie's running.

• 27:16Speaker 04

  Remember when they re.

• 27:17David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. I'm not sure. Uh, let's see.

• 27:20Speaker 04

  And then they, they sort of see each other as the bully character's just about to go over the trench and he's an absolute mess.

• 27:30David Sims?

  Right. Harold Hopkins. That's that actor. Right.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  Harold Hopkins. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

• 27:35David Sims?

  Right.

• 27:35Speaker 04

  It's so well constructed actually as a script, I feel.

• 27:39David Sims?

  It is. Yeah. It's brilliantly constructed.

• 27:42Griffin Newman?

  Well, and also I basically from that moment, like just from the, 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.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 28:01Griffin Newman?

  The beginning of some rip roaring adventure and some coming of age tale, which is what this really is.

• 28:06David Sims?

  World War One, of course.

• 28:07Griffin Newman?

  It's like this is a coming of age movie interrupted by

• 28:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:10Griffin Newman?

  the brutality of the world.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  Yes. And, and he delays it and delays it and delays it.

• 28:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 28:17Speaker 04

  Till the absolute. Till they can't delay it anymore. Even when they they rip off all their clothes and they jump into the water and there's shells firing off around them.

• 28:27David Sims?

  That's my favorite.

• 28:28Speaker 04

  Well, that's, I mean, that you go, oh, I don't feel good here. Cause you know, there's this sort of danger that's introduced underwater so 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.

• 28:49Griffin Newman?

  But it's this like water ballet.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  Go off. Yeah.

• 28:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 28:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Brilliant, brilliant.

• 28:55Griffin Newman?

  Right, 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.

• 29:05David Sims?

  Right.

• 29:05Griffin Newman?

  You know, it's kind of this like visually ecstatic thing.

• 29:08David Sims?

  Well, just the whole thing where they're at the beach and there's just like shelling going on.

• 29:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:13David Sims?

  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.

• 29:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  Until that night, until that night.

• 29:23Griffin Newman?

  Until that night. Yeah.

• 29:24David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, it's it's a sneakily sort of untraditional way to tell the story. Like, you know.

• 29:30Speaker 04

  It is. Yeah. It's not milking the the drama and the the kind of excitement of war. It's not milking that.

• 29:39Griffin Newman?

  Right. No.

• 29:40Speaker 04

  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.

• 29:48Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 29:56David Sims?

  Well, but it wasn't just that. He saw the the case of the the it's Gibson's, Mel Gibson's character gets it in the care package.

• 30:04Griffin Newman?

  The beverage. Yeah.

• 30:05David Sims?

  Yeah, you know, he saw, I have to find it.

• 30:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 30:08David Sims?

  I will look. We have some research we can.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  Like he got he got the bath salts and the and the cookbook.

• 30:14Griffin Newman?

  It's the Eno bottle.

• 30:15David Sims?

  Yeah. So is that a existing Australian brand?

• 30:19Speaker 04

  It's not anymore.

• 30:21David Sims?

  Okay.

• 30:21Speaker 04

  But and it was when I was a kid, it was, it was still a, it was still a thing. So people, so the audiences watching that would have gone, oh, yeah, okay, I know what that is.

• 30:32Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 30:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 30:47Griffin Newman?

  The banality of needing to take like an ant acid 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.

• 31:02David Sims?

  Oh, sure.

• 31:02Griffin Newman?

  It's two consecutive movies where he finds an object and is like, that's a good idea for a movie.

• 31:08Speaker 04

  Wow, wow.

• 31:09David Sims?

  Have you ever met him or interacted with him, Jennifer? I have no idea.

• 31:12Speaker 04

  I haven't, unfortunately. I haven't had anything to do with Peter. But I, I mean, I feel I know him because, not in a kind of stalkery way, but just because as, you know, as a kid, I saw these films and they're like a dream. They're like a dream that I had. Um, and they're, 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?

• 31:48David Sims?

  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.

• 31:57Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 31:57David Sims?

  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's got 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, he kept kind of hopping between, you know, Moses storytelling, which was so interesting.

• 32:34David Sims?

  David?

• 32:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 32:38David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 32:40Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 32:41David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 32:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she's reactivated because she's horny for chicken fingers.

• 32:48David Sims?

  Okay.

• 32:48Griffin Newman?

  And she's excited for the streaming debut of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 32:53David Sims?

  Wow.

• 32:53Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 32:55David Sims?

  Remember cow and chicken? Let's look it up while you tell the great listeners about the great stuff on movie.

• 33:02Griffin Newman?

  What movie is a global film company bringing great cinema to the world and to you? Curating and elevating visionary filmmaking, all handpicked, always. That's what movie does. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 33:14David Sims?

  Yes.

• 33:14Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 33:15David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 33:16Griffin Newman?

  You can feel the rush now at home. There's a hole at the bottom of the lake where the movies come from.

• 33:22David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 33:23Griffin Newman?

  In the new movie from Jane Schomburn, Past and Future Guest.

• 33:26David Sims?

  Past and Future Guest, a great filmmaker, a great podcast guest, a great friend.

• 33:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:32David Sims?

  This movie rocks. It's got, of course, it stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.

• 33:37Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 33:37David Sims?

  Legends, and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 33:39Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 33:41David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 33:42Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 33:43David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 33:44Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 33:45David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. One that queer Paul McCann, if you haven't heard about this movie, I don't know what's going on with you. But like, it obviously has, it was out in theaters this summer and now it's on movie.

• 33:55Griffin Newman?

  Hannah Einbinder plays the filmmaker attempting to reboot the Camp Miasma franchise, trying to track down the original final girl from the first movie to make some sort of legacy sequel, who's played by Gillian Anderson, who lives at the summer camp.

• 34:09David Sims?

  At Camp Miasma, yes. And you know, and then they hang out and it's regular.

• 34:14Griffin Newman?

  What happens? It's, it's one of those Hollywood's out of ideas. No, it's very much a movie about Hollywood being out of ideas while being an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 34:26David Sims?

  It's now streaming exclusively on movie and you can try movie free for 30 days at movie.com slash blank check. That's M U B I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 34:38Griffin Newman?

  They got so many great movies on there to watch, but worth it for 30 days for Miasma.

• 34:43David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 34:49Griffin Newman?

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• 34:50David Sims?

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• 34:50Griffin Newman?

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• 34:54David Sims?

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• 35:00Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 35:01David Sims?

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• 35:09Griffin Newman?

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• 35:17David Sims?

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• 35:41Griffin Newman?

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• 36:12Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 36:12David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 36:13Griffin Newman?

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• 36:20David Sims?

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• 36:22Griffin Newman?

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• 36:29David Sims?

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• 36:35Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:35David Sims?

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• 36:42Griffin Newman?

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• 36:46David Sims?

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• 36:46Griffin Newman?

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• 36:47David Sims?

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• 37:37Griffin Newman?

  See, 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.

• 37:59David Sims?

  Those are probably the four.

• 38:00Griffin Newman?

  And then they go, what else did he make?

• 38:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 38:02Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 38:12David Sims?

  But I know in Australia, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Gallipoli especially are, those are very foundational movies to Australian.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I mean, I think even your average, you know, mom and dad would know of Gallipoli. It's like, it's like a bit like Crocodile Dundee or, you know, it's, it's the kind of film that everyone saw, or even if they didn't see, they think they have, that they feel they've seen it.

• 38:37David Sims?

  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.

• 38:45Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 38:55Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 38:55Griffin Newman?

  In, in deep pandemic, while we were losing our minds. We, 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 like January 2021, losing our minds and started kind of like skeptical, like what is this, what is this fad thing that was popular in the eighties? And then like 20 minutes into the first Crocodile Dundee, we were like, this fucking rules. I love this guy. I'd watch 80 of these movies. The drop off on two and three, I found pretty severe.

• 39:33David Sims?

  Right.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah, right. I, I haven't seen two and three. I've definitely seen one. I mean, did you go into Paul Hogan's kind of history of?

• 39:42Griffin Newman?

  We tried to.

• 39:43David Sims?

  Really? I mean, he's still kicking around, right? I mean, he's quite old at this point.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, he's, he's sort of, you don't hear about him now, but when I was growing up, you know, as a kid of the seventies and eighties, he was this cultural icon and he had, he was known as Hoag's, you know, and he, he used to be a bit, he used, his claim to fame before he became a star was he helped work on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. So he, he was a real Aussie, you know, sort of labourer. And, but he was, 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.

• 40:25Griffin Newman?

  Right. We know that, yeah.

• 40:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. And it was funny. I mean, it was very Aussie, but, and, you know, he had, he had a co-star, like, like, it was like, sort of like the Benny Hill Show or, I don't know, what's the American equivalent?

• 40:43David Sims?

  I mean, what is the, it's sort of like?

• 40:46Griffin Newman?

  Like Carol Burnett's or something?

• 40:48Speaker 04

  But like, yeah, maybe Laugh-In or?

• 40:51David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a big popular sketch show, right?

• 40:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, sketch show, exactly. But, but with ongoing characters.

• 40:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 04

  And so then for him to make Crocodile Dundee, I have no idea how that came, who produced that film? And then I'll be able to tell you maybe how it came about.

• 41:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's a really good question. Cause 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, basically becoming the one reference point?

• 41:27Speaker 04

  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.

• 41:38David Sims?

  Right.

• 41:39Speaker 04

  You know.

• 41:40David Sims?

  Scorpions falling from the sky.

• 41:42Speaker 04

  A drop bear is gonna like attack you and you'll basically be dead before you get to the taxi.

• 41:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 41:48Speaker 04

  And, um, you know, we play on that too. I mean, and there is some truth in it, like my, um, ex, his, 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.

• 42:11Speaker 04

  And I've never seen that in my entire life, but this poor German guy said, I'm never.

• 42:16David Sims?

  That's the first thing he sees.

• 42:17Speaker 04

  I wanna, I wanna go home.

• 42:19David Sims?

  Look, I mean, yes, we're talking, I, I can tell you that it was produced by John Cornell, who I think was his sort of.

• 42:25Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. So that was Strop. That was the guy who played Strop.

• 42:27David Sims?

  Right, Strop, his, his side chick. Okay.

• 42:29Speaker 04

  Okay, only produced by him, must have been other people.

• 42:32David Sims?

  He's the only listed producer.

• 42:33Speaker 04

  What?

• 42:34David Sims?

  The distributor was called Hoyt's Distribution.

• 42:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, that's like a cinema.

• 42:37David Sims?

  It's like a big cinema chain, right? Yeah.

• 42:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a cinema.

• 42:40Griffin Newman?

  Rimfire Films was the production company?

• 42:43Speaker 04

  So then, in that case.

• 42:44David Sims?

  It looks like they got some tax money, yeah.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, in that case, it must have come from, from Hoag's, must have come from those two. I mean, stroke a genius.

• 42:54David Sims?

  No, and, and isn't, didn't Hogan also have the cigarette campaign where he would always say, anyhow, have a Winfield?

• 43:00Speaker 04

  Have a Winfield.

• 43:01David Sims?

  Right?

• 43:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. Oh, my God. And he did that Aussie labourer thing of like having your ciggies in your, in your T-shirt, like on your, on.

• 43:11David Sims?

  Like you tuck the sleeve. Yeah, right.

• 43:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, is a, is a masculine thing to do.

• 43:16David Sims?

  It's so funny that we're talking about Paul Hogan because like he is the, no, I know.

• 43:20Griffin Newman?

  No, I mean, we need to create a, um, what's the word I'm looking for? A tapestry between these two points.

• 43:26David Sims?

  I'll just say the other, the other thing about this movie is that the line Jennifer already quoted, the how fast are you gonna run as fast as a leopard? That.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:34David Sims?

  Bluey, I have young children, so I watch Bluey all the time, which is now.

• 43:38Speaker 04

  Oh, Bluey, yeah.

• 43:38David Sims?

  My closest connection to Australian culture.

• 43:41Griffin Newman?

  The modern Crock Dundee.

• 43:42David Sims?

  And there's an episode.

• 43:43Speaker 04

  That's set in, very close to where I live.

• 43:46David Sims?

  Right, you're, you're from Brisbane, right? Yeah, yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And I lived in Sydney for many decades and then came back here because I, because I wanna be close to my family of origin and. I, I love it here. It's changed. It's not like Bluey, but uh.

• 44:02David Sims?

  It's not like Bluey? I really was hoping it was exactly like.

• 44:04Griffin Newman?

  Did the dogs talk?

• 44:06Speaker 04

  Although there is a Bluey world or something that's been.

• 44:09David Sims?

  There's like a visible Bluey.

• 44:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:12David Sims?

  There's an episode of Bluey called Obstacle Course Vet where he says, how fast will you run? As fast as a greyhound is the line they use. The second, which it's, it's an homage to Gallipoli.

• 44:22Griffin Newman?

  Oh, really?

• 44:22Speaker 04

  Oh, in Bluey. Oh, that's so sweet. I did just said, um, where I am now is the composer is next door to Bluey.

• 44:31David Sims?

  This is incredible. That guy's a genius.

• 44:33Speaker 05

  Name's Jazz. Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 04

  Oh, a woman. Oh, cool. Yeah.

• 44:37Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I'll make the other connected bridge. I, I guess I just forgot this. Russell Boyd shot Crocodile Dundee one and two, who shot Gallipoli.

• 44:46David Sims?

  Who's Peter Weir.

• 44:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I noted, I noted that last night, that, um, Russell Boyd has done a lot. As I wrote down the films, he, he did Last Wave, Year of Living Dangerously.

• 44:59Griffin Newman?

  At Hanging Rock and he did all of them through.

• 45:01Speaker 04

  Picnic at Hanging Rock. That's right.

• 45:02Griffin Newman?

  Living Dangerously.

• 45:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, and, and then did Master and Commander.

• 45:06David Sims?

  He came back from Master and Commander.

• 45:07Speaker 04

  John Seal was a cap, camera operator on.

• 45:10David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 45:11Speaker 04

  Uh, Gallipoli. And then he also did Witness, Mosquito Coast.

• 45:16David Sims?

  Yeah. Um. Had a great Hollywood career. I mean, he made so many.

• 45:19Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah. I mean, he did like Gorillas in the Mist, Rain Man, Children of a Lesser God, Mad Max Fury Road. So, um, yeah, that, uh, I think, um, he's another genius.

• 45:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 45:33David Sims?

  It's stuff like that that makes the Australian film world feel small. Like that it's like, and then he, you know, he hooks up with George Miller at the end of it. But like, I know it's bigger than it seems. It's just these names loom so large, I think, for, uh, American viewers. Like, you know, Peter Weir, George Miller.

• 45:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think we punch above our weight, to be honest, though. In terms of, you know, the, the size of the industry.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  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.

• 46:12David Sims?

  Right, yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:13Griffin Newman?

  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 staid 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

• 46:39David Sims?

  Sure.

• 46:40Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 47:23Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 47:24Griffin Newman?

  So to basically go

• 47:25Speaker 04

  They were responding to a void.

• 47:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:27Speaker 04

  To an absolute void.

• 47:29Griffin Newman?

  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 Holmesdale and the early shorts and whatever.

• 47:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:41Griffin Newman?

  He feels very, very concerned from the get go with trying to

• 47:47Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 48:01Speaker 04

  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, uh, you know, that he had a certain kind of spiritual core that he wasn't afraid to kind of face and, and embrace. And, and that's what I'm feeling when I watch, especially those earlier films.

• 48:27Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm seeing that. I mean, even, did you cover The Plumber?

• 48:31Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:32David Sims?

  Yeah, we did. We did. Did you? Are you a fan of The Plumber? We, we just did that one.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  I love The Plumber. I love, oh, you just did it? Isn't it like, I mean, i- 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, why are you an artist? And I didn't, like, he didn't know me, anything about me. And I said, oh, and then I started offering up information. I thought of The Plumber.

• 49:03Griffin Newman?

  It, it is maybe my second greatest anxiety trigger behind war is people in my home asking me questions.

• 49:10David Sims?

  Yeah, it's, it's, it's a nice kind of very contained idea for whatever, a thriller, a horror film, whatever you want to call the horror, The Plumber. But also a social comedy. I mean, The Plumber is quite funny.

• 49:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, it's funny. And I think he has this beautiful sense of humor, this very black, um, Australian sense of humor. I don't know. Does that translate? I guess in Green Card, it's, that's quite a funny film.

• 49:37David Sims?

  Green Card's very funny, but Green Card's also so interesting. I'm a huge fan of Green Card, but it's, 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, the humor in it is not like big jokes.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  It's not just a rom com. Yeah. Yeah. No, he, and I think Gerard Depardieu is fantastic in that. I mean, it's many years since I've seen that, but yeah.

• 50:01Griffin Newman?

  He, he is excellent in the movie. Yeah, I want to open up the dossier here.

• 50:05David Sims?

  Yes, okay, I'm gonna, this is our research, Jennifer, I'm just gonna take a look. So, the last film he makes before this is The Last Wave.

• 50:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 50:12David Sims?

  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.

• 50:42Griffin Newman?

  But he's going like chronologically, region to region, like filling in all the gaps of his understanding.

• 50:48Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 50:48Griffin Newman?

  This final sentence is so good.

• 50:50David Sims?

  Go ahead, you wanna read it, right?

• 50:51Griffin Newman?

  He said, "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."

• 51:04Speaker 04

  Oh, wow, wow.

• 51:06Griffin Newman?

  So, when he says this whole kind of primitive film thing, and you do look at like Picnic at Hanging Rock, and The Last Wave, and Cars Day at 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 they're 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.

• 51:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 51:40Speaker 04

  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 polished the rough edges off them, I'd be disappointed in that, you know, I think because...

• 51:52Griffin Newman?

  But to have like, three under his belt.

• 51:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:54Griffin Newman?

  Then go through this whole arc.

• 51:56Speaker 04

  Well, four, if you count The Plumber, which I know is like an hour.

• 51:59David Sims?

  No, you should count The Plumber, yeah, he's got, he's got four, four plus, yeah.

• 52:02Griffin Newman?

  Well, 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, which this ended up jumping ahead of.

• 52:15David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, he's also, he's courted to, by Hollywood for the first time, to make The Thornbirds. Oh, which is.

• 52:22Speaker 04

  Really?

• 52:23David Sims?

  Yeah, which is obviously set in Australia, right? It's based on a book.

• 52:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, Colleen McCollough, yeah.

• 52:29David Sims?

  Herbert Ross had dropped out. Peter Weir is somewhat courted. Um, but he basically realizes he's not right for the movie.

• 52:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:39David Sims?

  And, um, 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 seventies and.

• 52:54Speaker 04

  I do that now though.

• 52:55David Sims?

  Right, right. And he just couldn't pick like the, like songs that were like really sort of speaking to him for the Thornbirds. 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.

• 53:11Griffin Newman?

  Like, why can't I find the sound of this movie? Why can't I find the song that triggers the right feeling for this?

• 53:17David Sims?

  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.

• 53:26Speaker 04

  Peter does.

• 53:27David Sims?

  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 Thornbirds. 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.

• 53:45Speaker 04

  Fantastic. And that was made into a mini series, right?

• 53:49David Sims?

  Right. That's, that's the ultimate destination.

• 53:52Griffin Newman?

  With, with Richard Chamberlain from The Last Wave.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right.

• 53:56David Sims?

  Because, 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, forty year story.

• 54:04Speaker 04

  I think it was quite a pulpy, if I'm, I'm not trying to be disparaging. But, uh, you know, it's a bit of a, not quite a bodice ripper, but this is a priest from memory. I, I, 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.

• 54:23Speaker 04

  It's, 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 hadn't, it wouldn't have his name on it. I, I can see that. Yeah.

• 54:36Griffin Newman?

  The other crazy thing in this period of time is he almost makes what would become John Carpenter's The Thing.

• 54:42David Sims?

  Yes.

• 54:43Speaker 04

  What?

• 54:44Griffin Newman?

  Which I had never heard this before.

• 54:45David Sims?

  Right. He's offered, what, what, you know, he's offered an adaptation of Who Goes There, the, the short story, which had already been turned into The Thing from Another World.

• 54:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:55David Sims?

  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.

• 55:02Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 55:11David Sims?

  Right. And then he sees, 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.

• 55:18Speaker 04

  Oh my God. That's amazing. I didn't know that.

• 55:22Griffin Newman?

  But then the, 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's like, well, you should do it.

• 55:35David Sims?

  Right. And he just does it for TV.

• 55:35Griffin Newman?

  And he's 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 Plumber episode, Heart, Head and Hand, which is a documentary about ceramicists.

• 55:58David Sims?

  It's, it's about a teacher called Peter Rushford. I've never seen it. I don't know anything about it, but it's sort of a 25 minute documentary.

• 56:04Speaker 04

  Is that an actual documentary? It is an actual documentary. Yeah.

• 56:08David Sims?

  Yes.

• 56:09Griffin Newman?

  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 it changed his approach in terms of how he, um, Thought about how he made films.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:26Griffin Newman?

  Said he learned from watching the way that ceramics treated their work to apply this craft over art motto.

• 56:33David Sims?

  Right.

• 56:34Griffin Newman?

  And his quote is, he said, Gallipoli was another period where I turned away from any sort of style, attempting to reinvent oneself properly.

• 56:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:41Griffin Newman?

  Some people who didn't care for the film as much as earlier films said, I missed your style, or I preferred the earlier films. And I said, well, style is just another tool for me. I don't ever want to be trapped by style.

• 56:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:53David Sims?

  Don't want to be making same.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  You know, I think like, like watching it with such distance now, as in, you know, so long ago since I saw it. I, I do, I do think his soul is in that film in Gallipoli. I mean.

• 57:08Griffin Newman?

  A hundred percent.

• 57:09Speaker 04

  It's, it's, it's very, 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 they're not, it's not epic. I wouldn't call that film, there are some sort of crowd scenes that would have cost money. But I don't, I feel it's still a very human intimate film. I still, you know, it's him, it's still him.

• 57:44Griffin Newman?

  I think it's an anti epic in a really interesting way because it does have the scale and the production way.

• 57:50David Sims?

  It has some scale, yes.

• 57:51Griffin Newman?

  You know, it has the locations and, and the big sweeping vistas at times and all of that. But it's actually eluding all of the obvious story beats you expect in a kind of epic tale set against the backdrop of a war.

• 58:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, it's nothing like Come and See, the Alan Klimoff film.

• 58:08Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 58:09Speaker 04

  But, but that is also an intimate to anti-war, if you can call these films anti-war. But, uh, you know, it's, it's, that is also two people in a scene and mostly following one or two or three people.

• 58:24David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, Come and See is also, I mean, Gallipoli is, it's, you know. It's a mundane thing in a way, like the all these boys were just told, like go over the come and see, you're right, it's about an atrocity, like it's like it's so hard to watch, it's so very

• 58:38Speaker 04

  I mean, and like, it's a surreal nightmare, that film, it's like, it from the first frame, you know, this boy is, you're wondering what he's doing and he's pulling a gun out of the the sand. I mean, it's one of my favorite films.

• 58:53David Sims?

  It's very cool. I can see that it would be a film that had influenced some of the stuff you did. I mean, I can, yeah.

• 58:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:58Griffin Newman?

  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 Igor 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.

• 59:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 59:27Griffin Newman?

  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 the 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, when is everything gonna get bad? And instead, you're going to end literally at the moment the guy dies, you know?

• 1:00:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, and it's so, and it's so smart.

• 1:00:15Griffin Newman?

  Leading to, yeah, just a flash frame.

• 1:00:18Speaker 04

  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. 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.

• 1:00:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Speaker 04

  And it's, it's the thing at 10 years old, I remember. I remember Freeze Frame and obviously not a filmmaker at that age, but it really worked on me.

• 1:00:52Griffin Newman?

  It's also so funny for this film to come out of him being like, okay, challenge accepted. How do you put a realistic death on screen?

• 1:01:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:00Griffin Newman?

  And yet, he builds this movie that's a machine to narratively get to that point and earn it.

• 1:01:06Speaker 04

  But I don't understand.

• 1:01:08Griffin Newman?

  But the movie ends before you actually have to kind of watch the guy die. He does evade showing you that in a way.

• 1:01:14David Sims?

  In a way.

• 1:01:15Griffin Newman?

  He shows you the moment of the impact.

• 1:01:17Speaker 04

  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, it really hit me hard watching it. I just, I think I'd been watching news all day, actually, and just feeling despairing for humanity.

• 1:01:39Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, that's probably a bad way to pregame Gallipoli is remind yourself what's going on in the world.

• 1:01:45David Sims?

  I watched it while my children were napping and I woke up. 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.

• 1:02:05David Sims?

  And I just sort of forgot like the entire sort of storytelling approach he took. And Ben was kind of blown away by it because I did keep thinking Platoon, which I do, I don't know how consciously Stone is borrowing from it. But Platoon gets you into Vietnam fairly quickly. Like, Platoon is not mostly concerned with them, not, you know, like, you know, like, and whereas this is the opposite. This is basically like the first battle that they're gonna do is the last battle they're gonna do. And it's right at the end of the film.

• 1:02:32Speaker 04

  And I, I mean, this is a sort of a random segue, but I think the film Wolf Creek actually does that too.

• 1:02:40David Sims?

  Yeah, great movie.

• 1:02:41Speaker 04

  To a 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, it's like a video game normally, that genre. You just go, oh, another one, another one. But here is like, I think it's like an hour.

• 1:03:00David Sims?

  In a fine way, like you're like, I can't wait to see what the next one is.

• 1:03:03Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah, yeah. But with these three, you know, 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, 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, is that what he?

• 1:03:30Griffin Newman?

  My, 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.

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  Is that because, is that because people are like looking for the flutter of the eyelid or the chest moving down?

• 1:03:54David Sims?

  It's hard to, I can't find whatever quote he's referencing. This is three year, right? But I could see it.

• 1:04:00Griffin Newman?

  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

• 1:04:09Speaker 04

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:04:10Griffin Newman?

  Two main actors can kiss and they're not really in love, but they can go through the motion of kissing.

• 1:04:15David Sims?

  But yeah, nobody's dying.

• 1:04:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. And, 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.

• 1:04:33Speaker 04

  That is really, that is really interesting, you know, because when I look at this film, everyone dies, but no one is shown dying.

• 1:04:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  So.

• 1:04:42David Sims?

  Gibson's right, but that's it.

• 1:04:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, gives, yeah. So people, but the people who die, die off screen or it's like.

• 1:04:48David Sims?

  They die off screen, they fall down.

• 1:04:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, like snowy, snowy, we know he's on the way out and that's, but, but, you know, Mel Gibson's character, Jack, is it Jack?

• 1:04:57David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  Jack, Jack.

• 1:04:58David Sims?

  No, Frank, Frank, Frank.

• 1:04:59Speaker 04

  Frank, sorry.

• 1:05:00David Sims?

  Jack is Bill Kerr, yeah.

• 1:05:01Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Frank, Frank leaves before it happens, of course, and um.

• 1:05:08Speaker 04

  And, you know, the, the other Barney, it's like Barney's dead. He just is. And that's devastating to hear that news because that's how, that's how people did hear it.

• 1:05:20Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. Rather than getting a big platoon style fall to your knees.

• 1:05:25David Sims?

  Right, with Barbara playing, yeah, exactly.

• 1:05:28Griffin Newman?

  You just get a telegram.

• 1:05:29Speaker 04

  Like I remember, 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, 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.

• 1:05:48David Sims?

  Wow.

• 1:05:48Speaker 04

  Um, so they wouldn't be taken away. And that to me is devastating.

• 1:05:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:54Speaker 04

  And that's, that's, 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, you know, this beloved nephew is going off to, off to war. And the thing.

• 1:06:14Griffin Newman?

  Also, the setup of the movie is that like, this kid has a kind of future ahead of him that's clear.

• 1:06:20Speaker 04

  He does.

• 1:06:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes, he has such an extraordinary ability.

• 1:06:23Speaker 04

  Well, the also, and this probably isn't 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's something so real about it. And, you know, he, he didn't go on to be Mel Gibson.

• 1:06:44David Sims?

  Right, he's, he's an Australian actor who.

• 1:06:47Speaker 04

  He's an Australian actor.

• 1:06:48David Sims?

  Basically.

• 1:06:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. 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, and that's kind of like young in the, uh, no, uh, like, what are your shows?

• 1:07:00David Sims?

  Like a soap opera, right, yeah.

• 1:07:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, like, like a long running, you know, um, Days of Our Lives kind of soap opera. And so I think, but I also think his. His goal wasn't to conquer the world as a as a as a person. I saw him in a lot of stage plays. When I was studying, studying to be an actor at NIDA and, you know, I, he was around then doing, and a beautiful actor, like it wasn't like he wasn't deserving of of more. But see, in the eighties, I mean, because I I graduated in the year above Kate Blanchett and Essie Davis at NIDA. And if we said we were going to Hollywood to to be to be actors, we would have been laughed out of the room.

• 1:07:47Speaker 04

  You know, it was really only after that, that, you know, when Kate.

• 1:07:52David Sims?

  To Hollywood.

• 1:07:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, when Kate and Nicole and Russell Crowe and all these people. But it was, but at this stage, when Gallipoli was made, eighty one, actors weren't, actors weren't doing that. And I think if Mel Gibson didn't have that dual citizenship, he probably would not have either. Or or would have, would have been much more difficult if he wasn't actually born in America.

• 1:08:17Griffin Newman?

  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, we have discovered a new element. We need to figure out how to like build industries around this.

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. Mel, Mel Gibson, yeah, yeah. I mean, he was a force of nature. It was kind of, you know, Mad Max. I mean, he's so wonderful in the original Mad Max. I mean.

• 1:08:43Griffin Newman?

  I mean, he's incredible. Jennifer about like 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.

• 1:08:57David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:08:58Griffin Newman?

  Peter Wreath seeing Mad Max. Inspires him to go, fuck, I should make something for Mel Gibson.

• 1:09:04David Sims?

  Well, let me tell you, let me tell you.

• 1:09:05Speaker 04

  Yes, right, right, right.

• 1:09:07David Sims?

  It really interests me because he 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.

• 1:09:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 1:09:39David Sims?

  Because Mark is this, you know, feels like he's from.

• 1:09:42Speaker 04

  An angel.

• 1:09:43David Sims?

  He feels like he's from decades ago, whereas you feel like a more real person. Now, Gibson 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, the way he's behaving early in the film.

• 1:09:59Speaker 04

  But he still feels time period too. He still feels of the time, like.

• 1:10:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. And the additional layer is this is the guy who survives, right? That this is so much an end of innocence movie for we're through the prism of this specific character, but also that like this is a turning point in the history of Australia.

• 1:10:16David Sims?

  That's what I wanted to ask you, Jennifer, right? Like that, 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 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?

• 1:10:38Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:10:48David Sims?

  Right, the sort of second class.

• 1:10:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, like my friend went to, um,

• 1:10:58Speaker 04

  to work in England as an actress and, and one of the, and he's very famous, but I won't mention who, but he said, oh, you're from the Antipodes to, you know, and it's like, oh, and he mentioned her name and he said, ah, Susan, I had a child woman called Susan as a child. You know, it was, it was sort of really playing on that class system. Whereas Australians, the brilliant thing about living in Australia is we, we don't have an active class system, even though we came from this very sort of regimented class system of Britain.

• 1:11:33David Sims?

  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 I wouldn't fall into the weird traps, but then I would see others. It was like, oh yeah, if you, you know, the word you used 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.

• 1:11:58Speaker 04

  Yes, definitely. I think it's gotten better. I think, you know, as the world becomes more sort of homogenized. But on that point, I, 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. 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.

• 1:12:33David Sims?

  Yes, you have confronted Australian history.

• 1:12:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. But that, that there's an identity that I feel has been lost. And I would say that across the board.

• 1:12:49David Sims?

  Right. The, the kind of guys you're seeing in these movies don't really exist anymore.

• 1:12:53Speaker 04

  No, because now it's, you know, and no slight on you guys, but there's an Americanization of Australia and culture. And, and it's sad. I feel it sad because I want to see, I mean, I want to see Australian films and about Australian concerns.

• 1:13:12Griffin Newman?

  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?

• 1:13:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:22Griffin Newman?

  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 We're in trying to find a project to do with Mel Gibson was an understanding that the American studios were interested in Mel Gibson. That Mel Gibson already, just from the first Mad Max and even more so after Road Warrior, was like Hollywood is Interested in this guy.

• 1:13:49David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:13:50Griffin Newman?

  How do we like 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.

• 1:14:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:03Griffin Newman?

  And it is this weird thing about him where he's like one foot in both worlds.

• 1:14:08David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:09Speaker 04

  Yes, and I, I think, but I think he very quickly became. And this is like absolutely no judgment because he was born in America, but he became American. He's.

• 1:14:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:14:19Speaker 04

  I mean, there would be audience out there who don't even know he's Australian.

• 1:14:23Griffin Newman?

  I, I remember.

• 1:14:24Speaker 04

  Or that he had any time in Australia.

• 1:14:26David Sims?

  Because he, and as a child. He barely had an accent, right? And then he was in movies like The Patriot. I mean, he was, 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.

• 1:14:38Griffin Newman?

  But then it also means that a lot of the other like Amer- uh, Australian exports who crossed over into Hollywood were guys where it was like, well, how good's your American accent?

• 1:14:47David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:14:48Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:14:48Griffin Newman?

  You know, the fact that they like let Heath Ledger be Australian in 10 Things I Hate About You is unusual. Cause very often it was, we like your kind of rugged masculinity, but can we add a little bit of like American ooh rah on top of that? And then we'll let you through the doors.

• 1:15:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, Mel was, you know, he was a pioneer in, in opening up the, the, the talent pool of amazing actors that come out of this country, you know? And, and it's just been an avalanche of them ever since, I feel. Compared to our pop- population size, there's so many beautiful actors here.

• 1:15:27David Sims?

  So the other thing I don't know much about Jennifer is that like the, the, this is Western Australia, right? Like the start of the, you know, where he's from.

• 1:15:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:35David Sims?

  Which I feel like is, is a unique part of the country in and of itself, right? Like, is it 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?

• 1:15:49Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:16:00Speaker 04

  I think, yeah, I think it very beautifully demonstrated that, that you, you know, that, that great scene where the, we were mentioning before of the guy saying, oh, is there war going on? I can imagine that. I can imagine that.

• 1:16:13David Sims?

  Back then.

• 1:16:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I think that's very true.

• 1:16:18David Sims?

  Just to give you a little more research, right? So we're does, we, we mentioned him, he goes to Turkey. He visits the beaches. He's very stirred by it. He brings in David Williamson, who he is, who is a sort of a playwright, you know, first and foremost, who he talked to about Picnic at Hanging Rock, where they hadn't actually worked on it.

• 1:16:35Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:16:35David Sims?

  And, you know, first they're like, okay, do we do, you know, a sort of full accounting of Gallipoli? Like, you know, enlistments, you know, the evacuation of Gallipoli, the whole, you know, do we try to do a 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, or anything like that. They're like, let's just make this much more oblique.

• 1:16:59Griffin Newman?

  Well, it'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.

• 1:17:14David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:17:14Griffin Newman?

  That he will go out and walk straight into his death to represent an ideal.

• 1:17:20David Sims?

  They, obviously, you know, Gallipoli, Winston Churchill was very involved in Gallipoli. Like, there were early drafts that had Winston Churchill as a character. Like, they had a completely, you know, wide aspect, you know.

• 1:17:30Speaker 04

  Which is, it can be a bit boring, right?

• 1:17:33Griffin Newman?

  It would be boring.

• 1:17:34David Sims?

  I mean, it's, it would be an encyclopedia article.

• 1:17:36Griffin Newman?

  That's the kind of thing that immediately turns me off.

• 1:17:38David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:17:39Speaker 04

  Yes, me too.

• 1:17:40Griffin Newman?

  You like it, but yes.

• 1:17:42Speaker 04

  I mean, it's interesting historically, but when you, when you, 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 was 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, it tells you the story of this whole battle that was pointless. I think.

• 1:18:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm with you.

• 1:18:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:18:10Speaker 04

  I'm with you, Griff. I feel, yeah. Yeah. I feel like it, it showed in a nutshell how pointless the whole battle was without showing the whole battle.

• 1:18:19Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:18:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:38Griffin Newman?

  Uh, you know, once we've evolved into having conversation.

• 1:18:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:18:42Griffin Newman?

  Or other options, emails, other abilities to work out issues. Um, but, 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, the battleground training in the desert.

• 1:19:02Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:19:02Griffin Newman?

  And it's just like a bunch of boys wrestling each other in a backyard, basically.

• 1:19:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even that, how amazing, how amazing was that scene where they were incredible. all, all play acting dying.

• 1:19:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:19:15Speaker 04

  It's, 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.

• 1:19:34Griffin Newman?

  That is exciting news. That is so cool.

• 1:19:36David Sims?

  Whoa, okay.

• 1:19:38Speaker 04

  Um, and very exciting, but it's, it's, um, an adaptation of something, but, um,

• 1:19:46Speaker 04

  Even though the, the, the subject matter is huge, the, the, the film is kind of somewhat intimate. And I, I personally, I mean, big films can be amazing. And I, I mean, I watched Ben Hur recently. Oh my God.

• 1:20:01David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, Ben Hur is, you can't believe that they made it.

• 1:20:04Speaker 04

  You can't believe, but it's also brilliant. Yeah, it's a brilliant film. And, and so I'm not saying, oh, I don't like those, but to make them, I'm, I would never choose to make a big, big film. So that's why a film like Gallipoli just is my happy place.

• 1:20:21David Sims?

  Yeah. If you told me you were making like a gigantic action epic, I would be surprised, given the films of yours have like seen so far. I would, I would be like, oh, I didn't know you.

• 1:20:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:30Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry. I just need to call out.

• 1:20:32David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:20:33Griffin Newman?

  Truly two weeks ago, Jennifer, David just texted apropos of nothing. You know what scene really pops in Ben Hur? The chariot race.

• 1:20:41David Sims?

  I mean, it was a joke.

• 1:20:42Speaker 04

  Oh my God.

• 1:20:43David Sims?

  Yes, of course.

• 1:20:45Griffin Newman?

  But you were rewatching it?

• 1:20:46David Sims?

  No, someone else was, someone else.

• 1:20:48Speaker 04

  But you know what, but you know what's amazing about that film? And I, look, maybe it's not true, but no one died.

• 1:20:55David Sims?

  I think no one died.

• 1:20:56Griffin Newman?

  That's insane.

• 1:20:56David Sims?

  Maybe a horse. I mean, I'm not sure.

• 1:20:58Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no horses, no horses. Unless they're telling us fibs.

• 1:21:03David Sims?

  They might be telling us, who knows?

• 1:21:04Speaker 04

  But, but, you know, unlike other productions of the period, no one, no animal or human died on that.

• 1:21:11Griffin Newman?

  That's crazy.

• 1:21:12Speaker 04

  And, and watching it, it's so dangerous, right? When you're watching it, you're thinking, this is gonna, someone's instantly, like they're gonna crash any second. And, you know, it's, I mean, for real.

• 1:21:24David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah. It's sort of like Mam Max as well. I mean, like that's the, the magic of the Mam Max movies.

• 1:21:29Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:21:39Griffin Newman?

  David? Yeah. This episode is brought to you by XYZ Films and the acclaimed new documentary, Capturing Bigfoot. On October 20th, 1967, Roger Patterson captured 59 seconds of film showing a creature walking through the Northern California woods. I wonder if you can log that on Letterboxd.

• 1:21:57David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:21:58Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. Fifty-nine years later, a reel of 16 millimeter film discovered in a safe changes everything. Capturing Bigfoot reveals the untold story behind the world's greatest mystery told for the first time by Patterson's own son and the people who were there. This is a story about family legacy, broken friendships, and how far people will go to protect a secret.

• 1:22:21David Sims?

  Of course, you got the classic, what they call Patterson Gimlin film everyone knows of Bigfoot out in the woods, like the famous Bigfoot picture. This has other stuff shot by him that no one's ever seen. That's what makes this movie different.

• 1:22:33Griffin Newman?

  But we're also talking brand new 4K scans of the original film taken from the Patterson family archives that some historians have called the best rendering of the footage ever seen.

• 1:22:41David Sims?

  I feel like we've all seen that footage as like grainy.

• 1:22:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:22:45David Sims?

  You know, that you see, you know, whatever, you see it in a documentary for two seconds, but this is restoring it and making it look much more clear.

• 1:22:52Griffin Newman?

  There's also a companion podcast, the Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, which goes deeper into the legend and lore of Bigfoot and the Patterson Gimlin film, featuring weekly episodes with experts in cryptozoology, urban legends, and filmmaking.

• 1:23:06David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:23:08Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course, yes, but that's more of a hobby.

• 1:23:10David Sims?

  Yeah, this podcast, Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, is hosted by the director of the film, Mark Evans, and it's available for free on YouTube and Spotify with exclusive episodes and content available on Patreon to members of the Capturing Bigfoot Society.

• 1:23:26Griffin Newman?

  Capturing Bigfoot is now available to rent or own on Amazon Prime Video. Learn more about Capturing Bigfoot at capturingbigfoot.com.

• 1:23:43Griffin Newman?

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• 1:23:44David Sims?

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• 1:23:44Griffin Newman?

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• 1:23:48David Sims?

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• 1:23:49Griffin Newman?

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• 1:23:50David Sims?

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• 1:23:58Griffin Newman?

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• 1:24:01David Sims?

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• 1:24:15Griffin Newman?

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• 1:24:16David Sims?

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• 1:24:22Griffin Newman?

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• 1:24:23David Sims?

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• 1:24:37Griffin Newman?

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• 1:24:37David Sims?

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• 1:24:53Speaker 05

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• 1:25:13Griffin Newman?

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• 1:25:14David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:25:14Griffin Newman?

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• 1:25:35David Sims?

  Yeah, this new full cast thriller locks Mina Harker in a battle of minds with the Count. When Mina's fiance, Jonathan Harker, Louis Partridge, vanishes in Transylvania, Mina pieces together letters, diary entries, and chilling testimony to hunt the predator stalking those she loves, only to discover Dracula's already hunting her.

• 1:25:55Griffin Newman?

  Joined by the enigmatic Van Helsing, Mina and a small fearless band race against time to stop this ancient terror. Using her intellect, her resolve, and a gift for drawing the unseen lines between clues, Mina may just hold the key to bring down the Count if he hasn't already found his way inside her mind.

• 1:26:11David Sims?

  Featuring a haunting original score by Elon Eschery and a spatial dolby Atmos sound design, Audible's Dracula invites you to welcome literature's most shadowy figure into your home. Feel the terror of being hunted and the thrill of the hunt. Don't miss this year's best new audio thriller, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Audible's new full cast original adaptation, written by Robin Ahern, now on Audible. Listen to the darkness. Go to audible.com/listen to Dracula.

• 1:26:48David Sims?

  This film is funded by Rupert Murdoch.

• 1:26:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:50David Sims?

  Associated R and R Films.

• 1:26:52Speaker 04

  I know, I saw that at the beginning and I was like, oh my god.

• 1:26:54Griffin Newman?

  It's fast. It basically was single-handedly funded by him.

• 1:26:57David Sims?

  And Robert Stigwood, who's the guy who made Grease, produced Grease and Saturday Night Fever.

• 1:27:03Speaker 04

  Yes, that's right.

• 1:27:04David Sims?

  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.

• 1:27:11Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:27:31David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:27:31Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:27:39Speaker 04

  Right. So, but, but Peter Weir formed the idea first and then approached.

• 1:27:43Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27:44David Sims?

  Yeah, he's been trying to make it for a while. I think like 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 $3 million Australian dollars, which was the most, the highest budget an Australian movie had ever gotten at that point.

• 1:28:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's huge.

• 1:28:03David Sims?

  But obviously not incredibly high budget.

• 1:28:04Speaker 04

  No, no. And what's that? Probably about 25 now or something, 20?

• 1:28:08David Sims?

  Right. I mean, it's, it's not, 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.

• 1:28:29Speaker 04

  Perfect casting.

• 1:28:31David Sims?

  Right, Mark Lee was sort of something of an unknown, I think that they just sort of found doing like photo calls.

• 1:28:37Griffin Newman?

  Well, he was on the show.

• 1:28:38David Sims?

  I think he started doing.

• 1:28:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was on that, he was on that show. Yeah, so he wasn't, he wasn't a big star or anything, Mark Lee.

• 1:28:45Griffin Newman?

  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 Seal is the camera operator.

• 1:28:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:55Griffin Newman?

  And John Seal 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?

• 1:29:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:05Griffin Newman?

  So we'll all just jump on board and work on this one together?

• 1:29:07David Sims?

  Oh, but this is interesting, Jennifer, you'll be interested to hear this about Mark Lee. Apparently, while he's doing Gallipoli.

• 1:29:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:14David Sims?

  He tells Peter Weir, Milos Forman is offering me Mozart in Amadeus.

• 1:29:18Speaker 04

  Oh, my god!

• 1:29:19David Sims?

  And he says like, "I'm not into it, I'm not gonna do it."

• 1:29:22Speaker 04

  Oh, my god.

• 1:29:24David Sims?

  And, you know, and Weir says like, "Look, he stayed in Australia, he had kids, he kept it simple."

• 1:29:29Griffin Newman?

  This is a Gibson quote.

• 1:29:30David Sims?

  Oh, no, Mel Gibson says that, sorry, yeah, it's not Peter Weir, right, yeah.

• 1:29:33Speaker 04

  Oh, Mel Gibson, oh, Mel Gibson was offered Amadeus?

• 1:29:36David Sims?

  No, no, Mark Lee was offered it. Gibson just recollects him basically saying like, "Eh, I'm not gonna do it."

• 1:29:41Speaker 04

  See, that's what I mean about Mark. I just have this feeling that he, he wasn't, 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 brothers, a musician as well. It's just, you know, not everyone wants that life, right?

• 1:30:01David Sims?

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:30:02Speaker 04

  Because it's, it's not, it's not the greatest to be a star. I mean...

• 1:30:06Griffin Newman?

  The fascinating quote, because this is coming from Gibson, who is recounting Mark Lee's experience.

• 1:30:11David Sims?

  Right, and Mel Gibson is someone who, I think even Mel Gibson, for his flaws, would admit, started and made him insane, like, I mean, yes.

• 1:30:18Griffin Newman?

  Well, if I could read the quote.

• 1:30:19David Sims?

  Right, yes.

• 1:30:20Griffin Newman?

  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."

• 1:30:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:30:41Griffin Newman?

  For Mel Gibson too, in 2001, say.

• 1:30:45Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:30:45Griffin Newman?

  I think that guy maybe had it figured out how to not go crazy.

• 1:30:48Speaker 04

  Oh, my God. And what was Mel doing around that time?

• 1:30:51David Sims?

  I mean, that's.

• 1:30:52Speaker 04

  Was he directing by that stage?

• 1:30:54David Sims?

  It's it's when he's still a huge star, but it's the wheels are coming off pretty soon after. It's like Signs and The Patriot.

• 1:31:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, 2000 is Patriot Chicken Run and What Women Want This Teen Year.

• 1:31:05Speaker 04

  He was like top of the pile in Hollywood.

• 1:31:07Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:31:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:15Griffin Newman?

  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 like sanity and privacy.

• 1:31:34Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:31:43David Sims?

  Yeah, right, right, right.

• 1:31:44Speaker 04

  Of course, he didn't.

• 1:31:45David Sims?

  No, without being insulting to his career, there's like an innocence to the fact that he's preserved for many viewers as just the guy in Gallipoli.

• 1:31:53Speaker 04

  That's right. And and and and like, like a mosquito in amber, you know, he's this perfect angel.

• 1:32:01Griffin Newman?

  But is 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.

• 1:32:13David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:32:13Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:32:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:32:28Griffin Newman?

  But he doesn't save anyone else.

• 1:32:30Speaker 04

  Oh, but can you imagine, like, just on a level of war trauma?

• 1:32:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:35Speaker 04

  If that if that character was real, like, you know, that

• 1:32:39David Sims?

  Right, the survivor's guilt, of course, like the most profound.

• 1:32:42Speaker 04

  Of, um. Of, you know, Mel Gibson's character towards the, at the very end, when he realizes he's missed, it's just blood curdling. Um, you know, it's, it's horrible. And that, that, that human would never get over that, never get over. Cause it wasn't just one man that went up over the trench. It was all of them.

• 1:33:06Griffin Newman?

  It's meta textual stuff that only you can apply forty years after knowing the branching 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.

• 1:33:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:24Griffin Newman?

  Which isn't to say that you have to like throw people in front of a train to get twenty million dollars a movie. But there is that kind of like perseverance and pressure that does tend to break people.

• 1:33:36Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:33:46Griffin Newman?

  Philosophically, it weirdly like lines up. And then this is the movie on the precipice of we're like tentatively going like, do I go to Hollywood?

• 1:33:53David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the next film, you know, is, You're Living Dangerously.

• 1:34:00Speaker 04

  That's right. Yeah.

• 1:34:01David Sims?

  Is an Australian, American sort of co-production.

• 1:34:05Speaker 04

  It's like a hybrid.

• 1:34:06Griffin Newman?

  Right in the in between point.

• 1:34:07David Sims?

  And then Witness is the film after that, in which he's basically, he's going to Hollywood. And he's, yeah, it's Witness is an incredible film. I mean, it's, it's one of my favorites.

• 1:34:16Speaker 04

  Do you guys feel that there was something lost in, in that, in that migration?

• 1:34:22David Sims?

  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 those first few films, right? Like there's, there is. And like 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 movies, so that that never goes away.

• 1:34:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:47David Sims?

  But.

• 1:34:47Speaker 04

  I mean, even a film like Fearless has a deep kind of spiritual.

• 1:34:51David Sims?

  Yeah, it does. And you know, like, I guess it's like things like Witness, Fearless, Green Card, even Dead Poets 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.

• 1:35:05Speaker 04

  Well, that's, yeah, I saw that recently.

• 1:35:07Griffin Newman?

  Clash against each other.

• 1:35:08David Sims?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:35:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, I saw that one recently.

• 1:35:11David Sims?

  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.

• 1:35:20Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:35:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:21David Sims?

  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, it's a little less, 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.

• 1:35:34Griffin Newman?

  But you're, you're right that few people have successfully, um, like, survived that transition better than him.

• 1:35:43David Sims?

  Yeah, he did, right. I mean, he had a fantastic career.

• 1:35:46Speaker 04

  I mean, the, 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.

• 1:36:01Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 1:36:02Speaker 04

  Um, off the back of German Expressionism, this kind of bleak, uh, way of looking at the world that, I don't know if Hollywood would make films like that anymore.

• 1:36:12Griffin Newman?

  That's a great point, though. I think in a way, like, the, the way I look at his career in a smaller quantity is similar to Fritz Lang. Where, like, I, there, I love his German work so much.

• 1:36:25David Sims?

  Right. And then the American films are so, so interesting, but it's not quite the same.

• 1:36:29Griffin Newman?

  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, we only made two Australian films before he jumped over to Hollywood.

• 1:36:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:36:40Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:36:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:36:53Griffin Newman?

  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 motivations.

• 1:37:06David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:07Griffin Newman?

  But he's finding a way to add a thing to an ecosystem.

• 1:37:10David Sims?

  And he can tell stories in a minor key and like Jennifer saying, like, that's that's so new, like, and feel so different.

• 1:37:16Speaker 04

  And maybe he would have made those kind of films here anyway. He would have graduated.

• 1:37:20David Sims?

  Yeah, maybe. Right.

• 1:37:21Speaker 04

  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 true to himself.

• 1:37:31David Sims?

  That's the, because like you do see a lot of Australian and New Zealand filmmakers go to Hollywood and they make like genre movies. And they're not bad, you know, like they're not like, you know, but like I think of Jeff Murphy, right? Like who's like an incredible New Zealand filmmaker.

• 1:37:45Griffin Newman?

  But even Philip Noyce is someone.

• 1:37:46David Sims?

  Or Philip Noyce.

• 1:37:47Griffin Newman?

  Who goes from like being like, oh, this guy makes great genre films too.

• 1:37:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:37:52Griffin Newman?

  Oh, he's kind of doing paycheck-y stuff.

• 1:37:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:37:54Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:38:04Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I mean, I know, I know that personally, you know, having turned down many films.

• 1:38:09David Sims?

  Right. I'm sure you got brought.

• 1:38:10Griffin Newman?

  I cannot even imagine.

• 1:38:11David Sims?

  Still, I mean, no offense to it because it's fine. Like it's fine to make these movies, but.

• 1:38:16Speaker 04

  But you but you'd also suffer by not accepting certain things.

• 1:38:20David Sims?

  Right. Because then they're like, well, you don't want to play the game, then then what do we need you for?

• 1:38:23Speaker 04

  Well, then, you know, your own, the investment in your own projects can mean that there's few, like longer years between.

• 1:38:30David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:38:31Speaker 04

  So I understand.

• 1:38:33Griffin Newman?

  When you would get offered those types of things, what was the kind of calculation you were doing? In in sort of like, how how to test if you felt like there was a worthwhile opportunity there? Versus, you know, the dangers.

• 1:38:48Speaker 04

  I mean, I'm a writer director and I would love to direct other people's things that, but it's unfortunately, it's just, I haven't had those scripts come that, um, that make me go, oh, you know, I get like the goosebump test where I just feel so I have to, I, cause I have to be deeply connected to something like on a very deep level because you, you want, you want, 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?

• 1:39:21Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:39:23Speaker 04

  It's, it's not, it's no slide on that, but it's no, 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,

• 1:39:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, David's got a, a pile of money.

• 1:39:37David Sims?

  God, I got a hundred bucks.

• 1:39:40Speaker 04

  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, that are backed up and, but I'm, 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?

• 1:40:02David Sims?

  He.

• 1:40:03Speaker 04

  Was he?

• 1:40:03Griffin Newman?

  Mosquito Coast is Paul Schrader.

• 1:40:05David Sims?

  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 uh, it's just Green Card and then uh, Master and Commander are the, and then the way back, his final film. He wrote all of those. But obviously in America, he was, I mean, sorry, in Australia, he's, he's credited as a writer on, on, you know.

• 1:40:33Griffin Newman?

  Gallipoli, he has story credit, but not screenplay.

• 1:40:35David Sims?

  On Last Wave, on Cars They Paris.

• 1:40:37Griffin Newman?

  Year of Living Dangerously, his full screenplay credit.

• 1:40:40David Sims?

  Right. But you know, he would work with, he would collaborate. I feel like he's always been a fairly sort of, he collaborates with other writers who, you know, he fucks with

• 1:40:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. But, but not strictly writer director.

• 1:40:49David Sims?

  He's not a like full sort of, yeah, proper auteur type, you know, that's not really.

• 1:40:54Speaker 04

  Like I'm, I'm very. Close mates with Justin Kurzel, who.

• 1:40:58Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:40:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:40:59David Sims?

  We've covered his film Assassin's Creed on this podcast.

• 1:41:03Speaker 04

  Oh, OK. Probably. He would laugh about that, I think.

• 1:41:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm a huge fan of the movie, not so much the game.

• 1:41:11Speaker 04

  Oh, really? Oh, I'll tell him. I'll tell him that.

• 1:41:15Griffin Newman?

  Please do.

• 1:41:16David Sims?

  Please do.

• 1:41:16Speaker 04

  It's not his finest hour from his perspective.

• 1:41:19Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:41:20David Sims?

  From our perspective, it is.

• 1:41:21Speaker 03

  No, come on.

• 1:41:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:41:22Speaker 03

  I think it's so fun. I revisit it all the time.

• 1:41:25Speaker 04

  That's so cool.

• 1:41:25Speaker 03

  It's such a comfort watch for me.

• 1:41:26Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:41:40Speaker 04

  Come.

• 1:41:41Griffin Newman?

  That it was the movie that could calm his anxieties down.

• 1:41:43Speaker 03

  I was in a bad relationship at the time, and I never played the game. I just was like, Assassin's. I can fuck with that.

• 1:41:52David Sims?

  But wait, wait, wait, Jennifer, why did you bring up Justin? I'm sorry. I realized.

• 1:41:56Speaker 04

  Well, oh, the reason I brought him up is because he's a brilliant director.

• 1:41:59David Sims?

  He is.

• 1:42:00Speaker 04

  And he's. And he's a, I mean, Nitram and Snowtown, well, Snowtown's on my, you know, top 10 list, but he.

• 1:42:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, incredible movie.

• 1:42:09Speaker 04

  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, OK, and now we're ready to shoot. It's very much.

• 1:42:24Griffin Newman?

  Macbeth feels very personal and individualistic.

• 1:42:27Speaker 04

  He's very involved in script, but I, you know, I'm envious because it means he can make more films.

• 1:42:34David Sims?

  Right. He can take on a project a little faster. Right.

• 1:42:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, and he may have four or five. I can't 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, 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.

• 1:43:01David Sims?

  It takes forever.

• 1:43:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's actually producing the film that we're making, so.

• 1:43:07Griffin Newman?

  Oh, really?

• 1:43:07Speaker 04

  Justin.

• 1:43:08Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Kozel. OK.

• 1:43:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:43:10Griffin Newman?

  I am just realizing in real time, Jennifer, just because Ben is 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 lyrician.

• 1:43:22David Sims?

  Wow. Yeah, a little bit.

• 1:43:25Speaker 03

  A little bit. I'm from New Jersey, kind of the outback of the States. Was a smoker for many years.

• 1:43:31Speaker 04

  Do you like beer?

• 1:43:32David Sims?

  You've had your boisterous days.

• 1:43:34Speaker 03

  I like to knock back a couple of cold ones from time to time.

• 1:43:38Speaker 04

  The major, I don't know what you would think here, but the major quality of a larrikin, I think, is to bullshit you.

• 1:43:48David Sims?

  Yeah, right, right. Kind of, sort of like a trickster, right? Like a, kind of like a, you know.

• 1:43:53Griffin Newman?

  Now, Ben, you're very honest, but you also do love bits.

• 1:43:56David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 1:43:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And you've met your now wife doing a bit.

• 1:44:00Speaker 04

  Only for a laugh, only for a laugh.

• 1:44:01Griffin Newman?

  For fun, right.

• 1:44:02Speaker 04

  To deceive someone.

• 1:44:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:44:04Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:44:11David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:44:12Speaker 04

  Yes, it comes from, it actually comes from Ireland. I think it's, we, you know, we have a huge Irish lineage here.

• 1:44:20David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:44:21Speaker 04

  Um, so yeah, it's probably an Irish thing, actually. Very.

• 1:44:25Griffin Newman?

  It's all coming together.

• 1:44:25David Sims?

  The other, 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.

• 1:44:34Speaker 04

  Definitely. And that's, that's the essence of Gallipoli, right?

• 1:44:38David Sims?

  That's what we're says is the essence. That's what we realized we were making a movie about, was about mateship. Which is why they have things like the rugby game, sorry, Aussie Rules football game, but like, stuff like that.

• 1:44:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I think when I was younger, I was like, oh, bloody mate, you know, this mate, this mate, that, you know, it's, um, 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, but.

• 1:45:09David Sims?

  Right, there's versions of it, but mateship does feel like this particularly Australian sort of, like, way that men relate to each other.

• 1:45:17Griffin Newman?

  It took Americans a century to define the bromance.

• 1:45:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, like, like another word is digger. I don't know if you came across this.

• 1:45:25David Sims?

  Absolutely, right.

• 1:45:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:27David Sims?

  No, the only reason I know that is also Bluey. They use that word a lot in Bluey.

• 1:45:31Speaker 04

  They, do they? What do they? Cause I don't have kids.

• 1:45:34David Sims?

  Lucky's dad is a classic digger, I feel like. And again, I'm only speaking to people.

• 1:45:39Speaker 04

  That's so cute because they're dogs.

• 1:45:41Griffin Newman?

  It's digging bones.

• 1:45:43David Sims?

  Oh my god. I mean, obviously, you know, you know Blue's parents, you know.

• 1:45:47Griffin Newman?

  Do I know them personally? What? What do I know about them?

• 1:45:50David Sims?

  The joke is, you know, the dad is an archaeologist, so he digs up bones.

• 1:45:54Speaker 04

  And so they call them diggers. Wait, really?

• 1:45:56Griffin Newman?

  That's a really good bit.

• 1:45:57David Sims?

  And then the mom works in Air Force Security, so she sniffs bags. Like, that's the joke. They don't say it, but it's really funny.

• 1:46:03Speaker 04

  That's so good. That's so cute.

• 1:46:05David Sims?

  Blue is brilliant. I mean, Blue is so brilliant. And they really, and Jennifer, it really, Bluey did really turn me on to Brisbane. Like, I'd never thought much about Brisbane before. And like, I realized that 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, all that stuff.

• 1:46:22Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, and those houses, like, I live in a Bluey house.

• 1:46:26David Sims?

  You do? You live in one of those? It's like a sort of a three-decker or however.

• 1:46:30Griffin Newman?

  I've never seen David. This is exciting.

• 1:46:31Speaker 04

  It's like a French colonial design.

• 1:46:33David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, right.

• 1:46:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. I live in like a hundred and twenty-year-old house. Yeah.

• 1:46:38David Sims?

  Well, they're so beautiful, though. I mean, they look so beautiful.

• 1:46:41Speaker 04

  Oh, they are. They're wonderful.

• 1:46:43David Sims?

  Yeah. I mean, I sort of, part of the joke of Bluey 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 like, 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?

• 1:47:03Speaker 04

  I thought, I thought the color palette was really interesting. It was almost, um, what do they call the original photography? That had a, that, that, there were some colors that were really vibrant. So it wasn't just all, um, 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, 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.

• 1:47:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I think that is interesting and just beautifully shot. I love the kind of formal. Quality of it as well.

• 1:47:53Griffin Newman?

  And you have like the kind of natural

• 1:47:54Speaker 04

  No handheld.

• 1:47:55Griffin Newman?

  Hypersaturation 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

• 1:48:11David Sims?

  Blue skies.

• 1:48:12Griffin Newman?

  Just like bright blue skies. Right. And it's just a flat line that they're walking towards.

• 1:48:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:48:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, there was some sort of Lawrence of Arabia almost.

• 1:48:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:20Speaker 04

  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, I love that sort of, yeah, photographic, kind of beautifully composed frame. Um, you know, you think of war films, it's all like handheld and chaotic. And it really wasn't like that, this film.

• 1:48:48David Sims?

  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 sort of like.

• 1:49:00Speaker 04

  Still, even though it was handheld by necessity.

• 1:49:02David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:49:03Speaker 04

  But it, it didn't feel, um, documentary like, I mean, talking about Bergman. Um, 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, it's not, even though the subject matter is very historically, it, it happened. But it's a dream when I watch this film. It's, it's a sad dream.

• 1:49:46David Sims?

  I, are there any other Australian actors I don't really know about here who are, because it feels like some of these older guys.

• 1:49:53Speaker 04

  Oh, Bill Hunter.

• 1:49:54David Sims?

  Bill, Bill Hunter, right. Like, these are guys with the sort of a long. Uh, history in Australia. Bill Hunter's this guy.

• 1:50:01Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. I mean, he was in Muriel's Wedding. He played the sort of bastard dad. Um, but they, all those faces are recognizable. Even the man at the, um, the jamboree, the kind of sprinting carnival that they had. Um, who delivers the, like Bill Kerr is, yeah, he was one of those faces. I, I was thinking, how did these people, they must have come up in theater? Because they're old, they're older men by the time they're in this film.

• 1:50:30David Sims?

  Bill Kerr's interesting because he went to Britain and he did a lot of work in Britain in the fifties and sixties before he came back to Australia.

• 1:50:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, like a lot, a lot of them did. And, and a lot of them, like Robert Grubb, he was a staple on stage when I was studying at NIDA. We, just a wonderful character actor. Um, Tim McKenzie, I tried to see what, like, I tried to find him. I, I, I don't know where he is. Yeah, I, I don't recognize him. David Argu was constantly, um, 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?

• 1:51:14David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:51:14Speaker 04

  He's just a wonderful character.

• 1:51:16David Sims?

  The guy who takes the bribe at the beginning?

• 1:51:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:19David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:20Speaker 04

  Oh, he's got a top hat and he's a, he's a staple in Australian, um, cinema. So, yeah, they're recognizable faces. It's very nostalgic for me watching that because most of them have gone now, you know?

• 1:51:34David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:51:35Speaker 04

  Not the, not the younger guys, not the younger guys, but the older ones.

• 1:51:40David Sims?

  Yeah, Griff, are there any things you?

• 1:51:42Griffin Newman?

  I just want to circle back a little. We don't have to go all the way in the deep end. But this whole like R and R pictures thing is very fascinating to me just for how much that like Rupert Murdoch has obviously become an evil goblin king.

• 1:51:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:51:52Griffin Newman?

  Hoarding over our media for decades and decades.

• 1:51:55David Sims?

  We do not enjoy the work of Rupert Murdoch.

• 1:51:57Griffin Newman?

  This is when he has obviously like founded News Corp and made it into a massive company. But before News Corp has bought Fox and all of that. And this is basically his like. First serious foray into movies.

• 1:52:10David Sims?

  It's his only for, I mean, until he buys.

• 1:52:12Griffin Newman?

  Until he just buys a fucking film studio.

• 1:52:14David Sims?

  Right, but he never produces movies himself again.

• 1:52:17Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:52:53Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:52:54Griffin Newman?

  And that 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, they're giving them a lot of money, but it's like, not that much on a Hollywood scale.

• 1:53:08Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:53:08Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:53:23Griffin Newman?

  But they said Francis O'Brien was there with them the whole time. And Weir came up with the idea of the big dance hall scene late during filming.

• 1:53:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, right, right.

• 1:53:32Griffin Newman?

  And it was gonna cost a hundred thousand dollars.

• 1:53:34David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:53:35Griffin Newman?

  For like a mid-production idea.

• 1:53:36David Sims?

  But Weir is basically like, we need a break, like we need like something before we're getting to the horror, right?

• 1:53:42Griffin Newman?

  It needs 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.

• 1:54:02Speaker 04

  And he was like, it's no question. That scene was so, it, it, it was so essential. I think to put a.

• 1:54:08Griffin Newman?

  A hundred percent.

• 1:54:09Speaker 04

  Put a, a marker on the end of that beautiful sort of period of innocence. It's like the loss of innocence. Cause the next shot is them all traveling in the dark.

• 1:54:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:54:21Speaker 04

  Uh, on those boats, you know, it's, it's like a, a different, not a different film, but it's certainly. The beginning of the end.

• 1:54:29Griffin Newman?

  It's a point of no return. It's, they, yeah.

• 1:54:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:54:31Griffin Newman?

  They hard pivot into war. I just think the setup of this movie was so unique that the intimacy of the money men in this was so tight that even like that guy was sure like, yeah, a hundred thousand, write a check. Dance sequence, not because he didn't care, but because they were actually paying attention to the vision of what was happening.

• 1:54:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:54:49Griffin Newman?

  And they thought it was financially prudent to invest in it.

• 1:54:53Speaker 04

  But I also think, well, I mean, I can't speak for Rupert Murdoch, but it obviously didn't continue to have interest in Australian film. But 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.

• 1:55:07David Sims?

  I think basically what happens is the film comes out in Australia, it's a big hit.

• 1:55:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:12Speaker 04

  Huge hit. It was the biggest, yeah, biggest of the year.

• 1:55:15David Sims?

  Twelve million dollars, which is a lot for Australia.

• 1:55:17Griffin Newman?

  Many multiples of its budget. A movie that makes its money back.

• 1:55:20David Sims?

  But then in America, it's like a modest sort of art house film that makes a few million dollars and that's, that's the, you know, gets good reviews.

• 1:55:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:28David Sims?

  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.

• 1:55:33Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:55:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:55:42Speaker 04

  Well, it wasn't that.

• 1:55:43David Sims?

  It got a 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, it was not as resonant outside of Australia.

• 1:55:55Griffin Newman?

  Weir said Paramount bought it and Paramount had that same season Reds. And that was their big priority.

• 1:56:02Speaker 04

  Right, of course.

• 1:56:02Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:56:22David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:56:22Griffin Newman?

  Warner Brothers seems to understand they have this small movie that they need to like gradually sell people on.

• 1:56:27David Sims?

  Yeah, but Chariots of Fire is a crap. Loud pleasing film about triumph.

• 1:56:32Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:56:32David Sims?

  And this is a movie that ends with the main character dying.

• 1:56:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is like.

• 1:56:35David Sims?

  Gallipoli's a tougher sell, yeah.

• 1:56:37Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:56:46David Sims?

  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.

• 1:56:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, and so it should. Oh, my god.

• 1:56:57David Sims?

  Weir in eighty six called it his best film, although he also called it his least personal. He says, it has least to do 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 nineteen eighty six.

• 1:57:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:13Griffin Newman?

  There's this quote I love from 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.

• 1:57:38Speaker 04

  Oh, my god. Oh, god, it's just, isn't it just so, they're just so dumb.

• 1:57:44Griffin Newman?

  They're so dumb.

• 1:57:45David Sims?

  I do think, and it's so trite, but this is something Weir says, that he's also like, people couldn't pronounce Gallipoli.

• 1:57:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:52David Sims?

  You know, like fundamentally, it's like.

• 1:57:53Griffin Newman?

  Should have changed the title.

• 1:57:54David Sims?

  You know, in Australia, everyone knows what Gallipoli is, but that's not true in America.

• 1:57:58Griffin Newman?

  What were you about to say, Jennifer?

• 1:57:59David Sims?

  Yeah, what were you gonna say, Jennifer?

• 1:58:00Speaker 04

  Oh, you know, we had investors in America who were saying, yeah, like, you know, we want to, we want to finance. The Nightingale, which, by the way, would never get made in twenty twenty six.

• 1:58:13David Sims?

  No.

• 1:58:13Griffin Newman?

  But a masterpiece, but truly one of the bleakest films I've ever seen.

• 1:58:17David Sims?

  It's a tough, it's a tough film, yeah.

• 1:58:18Speaker 04

  And they said, but can she kill Hawkins?

• 1:58:20David Sims?

  Right, can it be a revenge movie? Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:58:22Speaker 04

  And I said, well, she can if you want her to die in the final scene. And they went, no, no, no, no. And I said, well, no. I said, well, no. Because that's the whole point of the film is how

• 1:58:33David Sims?

  That's the thing, yeah.

• 1:58:34Speaker 04

  Empty revenge is ultimately.

• 1:58:37Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:58:48Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:58:48Griffin Newman?

  I chose which thing I was making.

• 1:58:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is, I mean, hats off to Peter for not even just saying no. I mean, you can't like, okay.

• 1:59:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:00Speaker 04

  What are they, are the guys gonna have a love relationship? Is that what's gonna happen?

• 1:59:04Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:59:16Speaker 04

  I actually feel it was a beautiful love story, platonic.

• 1:59:19David Sims?

  I agree, it is.

• 1:59:20Speaker 04

  Love story.

• 1:59:20David Sims?

  I mean, yeah, right. The one last thing I want to highlight is that the music, the, um, that he uses 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 digitally get it into the film.

• 1:59:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:50David Sims?

  But he was like, it spoke to him, yeah.

• 1:59:51Speaker 04

  I thought the music was really beautiful. And even that, um, who was the composer? It was Brian May, uh, who did that sort of quite vangelist, um.

• 2:00:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 2:00:02Speaker 04

  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 that. You know, some people, I was reading reviews, some people didn't like that, but I, I loved it.

• 2:00:11David Sims?

  I love it.

• 2:00:12Speaker 04

  I thought, yeah. And there was that and the, um, the classical piece as well that I can't.

• 2:00:19David Sims?

  It's, it's, uh, Adagio in G minor.

• 2:00:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

• 2:00:23David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:25Speaker 04

  And it starts with that, right? The opening credits.

• 2:00:28David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:00:28Speaker 04

  The opening credits say, this is, get ready.

• 2:00:31David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:31Speaker 04

  You know, so it kind of preps us with that opening title sequence.

• 2:00:35David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:35Speaker 04

  Um, yeah.

• 2:00:37David Sims?

  Um, we're gonna play the box office game, Jennifer, to wrap up, which is we look at the,

• 2:00:44David Sims?

  the weekend the film came out in America. Cause we, you know, the American box office is all I have here. And Griffin's gonna try and guess the top five here.

• 2:00:53Speaker 04

  Of what?

• 2:00:54David Sims?

  For, for, for late August nineteen eighty-two, uh, nineteen eighty-one.

• 2:00:58Speaker 04

  Oh my god, you're gonna guess them without knowing what film it's?

• 2:01:01David Sims?

  I'm, I'm gonna give them some clues. I'll give them some clues. Gallipoli's not in the top five here, Griff.

• 2:01:05Griffin Newman?

  Where's it open?

• 2:01:06David Sims?

  I don't know. This is the eighties. There's not, it's not in the top ten. But, uh, you know, my guess is it opened very limited. It was, it was a small arty film, you know, in America.

• 2:01:14Speaker 04

  So is this the, sorry, is this the month that it opened? But we're looking at?

• 2:01:18David Sims?

  Yeah, it's a month it opened. So in, in Australia, it opened, it actually, it was all sort of around the same time. Australia, it opened thirteenth of August nineteen eighty-one, and it came out in America on the twenty-eighth of August.

• 2:01:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, wow.

• 2:01:29David Sims?

  Number one, uh, Griff is a, is a, a hit comedy, one of the big comedies of the year. Um, it got sequels. It was, uh, I think it won an Oscar.

• 2:01:40Griffin Newman?

  This is the first. It gets sequels.

• 2:01:43David Sims?

  Gets a sequel, I guess.

• 2:01:44Griffin Newman?

  It won, so is it Arthur?

• 2:01:45David Sims?

  It's Arthur.

• 2:01:46Griffin Newman?

  It's Arthur.

• 2:01:47Speaker 04

  Oh, oh, wow.

• 2:01:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay. It got sequels? Arthur two?

• 2:01:52Griffin Newman?

  It got one.

• 2:01:53David Sims?

  There's one sequel, Arthur on the Rocks. Yes, right, yeah.

• 2:01:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:01:56Griffin Newman?

  I think he loses all his money again.

• 2:01:59David Sims?

  Do you like Arthur, Jennifer? Do you have any take on Arthur?

• 2:02:02Speaker 04

  Uh, I, I saw it. That's what I, and I do love Dudley Moore. Like, I, I thought he was wonderful in, you know, the earlier comedy stuff with Peter Cook. I would, yeah. I mean, I remember John, I remember John Gilgood saying, would you like me to wash your dick for you, sir?

• 2:02:20Griffin Newman?

  He won an Oscar for saying that. They basically handed him the Oscar the second that line was delivered.

• 2:02:25Speaker 04

  Yes, that's a brilliant line. That's my memory.

• 2:02:28Griffin Newman?

  More, I think that movie is perfectly pleasant enough. I did have the experience watching it of what I thought I was gonna feel watching Crocodile Dundee for the first time.

• 2:02:37David Sims?

  I'm gonna love this guy, right?

• 2:02:39Griffin Newman?

  No, watching Arthur, I was like, this is fine. This set like the world on fire?

• 2:02:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was crazy.

• 2:02:45Griffin Newman?

  They like elected Arthur President.

• 2:02:46Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, it's forgot, it's a forgotten, did that win Oscars, did you say?

• 2:02:49David Sims?

  It well, John Gilgood won Best Supporting Actor for it. It was a little bit of a career award.

• 2:02:54Speaker 04

  No, that makes sense. Yeah, totally.

• 2:02:56Griffin Newman?

  But it got a screenplay now?

• 2:02:57David Sims?

  I think it did.

• 2:02:58Griffin Newman?

  It was a humongous hit?

• 2:02:59David Sims?

  It was a big hit. Uh, number two, also a huge hit. Biggest movie of 1981, Griffin.

• 2:03:04Griffin Newman?

  Biggest movie of 1981.

• 2:03:06David Sims?

  Covered it on this podcast.

• 2:03:07Griffin Newman?

  Would be Raiders of the Lost Ark.

• 2:03:08David Sims?

  Raiders of the Lost Ark.

• 2:03:09Speaker 04

  Oh, brilliant. I mean, well, hats off.

• 2:03:11David Sims?

  That's good shit.

• 2:03:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, that deserves it.

• 2:03:14Griffin Newman?

  Hats off. That's the last thing Indiana Jones wants to do. He's a hat on guy.

• 2:03:19David Sims?

  Uh, number three, The Box Office is a comedy horror film.

• 2:03:22Griffin Newman?

  Comedy horror.

• 2:03:22David Sims?

  It is a very good film. Uh.

• 2:03:24Griffin Newman?

  Is it American Werewolf in London?

• 2:03:25David Sims?

  Yes, it is.

• 2:03:26Speaker 04

  Oh. You know, I saw that film as a kid, too, too young.

• 2:03:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:31Speaker 04

  And I had, I had such bad nightmares, but I loved it.

• 2:03:35David Sims?

  Yeah, cause it's got scary nightmare stuff in it.

• 2:03:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. I've got a poster of that, actually, on my wall.

• 2:03:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:39Speaker 04

  My office wall.

• 2:03:40Griffin Newman?

  You know, Jennifer, how I knew that's what movie it was?

• 2:03:44Speaker 04

  What? How?

• 2:03:45Griffin Newman?

  Because David's voice was going up as he was anticipating how to talk about John Landis.

• 2:03:51David Sims?

  That's right. But it's a great film.

• 2:03:53Griffin Newman?

  That I could hear David going, uh, it's a comedy horror film.

• 2:03:56Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 2:03:57Griffin Newman?

  And I went, oh, it's a John Landis movie. It's American Werewolf in London.

• 2:03:59David Sims?

  But it's a good movie. I really.

• 2:04:01Griffin Newman?

  It's a wonderful film.

• 2:04:01David Sims?

  It's a very impactful film.

• 2:04:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:02Speaker 04

  It is. Jenny Agutter is really good in that, too.

• 2:04:05Griffin Newman?

  She's so good in that.

• 2:04:06David Sims?

  So good. Goddamn gorgeous.

• 2:04:08Speaker 04

  They all are.

• 2:04:09David Sims?

  Yeah. All right. Now, number four. So the first three I knew. Number four is not a movie I know at all. Uh, it is a, it's a comedy drama. It's based on a play.

• 2:04:19Griffin Newman?

  Based on a play?

• 2:04:20David Sims?

  Got some Golden Globe noms.

• 2:04:22Griffin Newman?

  It's not like The Dresser, is it?

• 2:04:24David Sims?

  No, that was a, that was a hit. That got Best Picture. And it, it, it's a Supreme Court comedy.

• 2:04:30Griffin Newman?

  Supreme Court comedy?

• 2:04:32Speaker 04

  Comedy.

• 2:04:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:33Griffin Newman?

  In 1981, who?

• 2:04:35David Sims?

  It was, and this is the craziest part.

• 2:04:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:37David Sims?

  So it's about a female justice being nominated to the Supreme Court.

• 2:04:40Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:04:41David Sims?

  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, to like sort of.

• 2:04:49Griffin Newman?

  To beat her swearing in?

• 2:04:51David Sims?

  To essentially, right, to, to, you know, to catch up to the news.

• 2:04:54Speaker 04

  I'm not even.

• 2:04:55David Sims?

  They were like, let's just do it right now.

• 2:04:56Griffin Newman?

  Do you have any idea what this is, Jennifer?

• 2:04:58Speaker 04

  No. No. So it's a, a based around the woman, the female.

• 2:05:02David Sims?

  It's a fictional film. Like, it's not based about Sandra Day O'Connor.

• 2:05:06Speaker 04

  No, but I mean, is it a, is it a female lead?

• 2:05:07David Sims?

  Yeah. So the leads are Walter Matthau and Jill Clayberg.

• 2:05:12Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 2:05:12Speaker 04

  Oh. I love her, but I don't know what that is.

• 2:05:16David Sims?

  It's directed by Ronald Neame, great British director who did, you know, worked with David Lee.

• 2:05:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:05:20David Sims?

  Did a lot of really good movies, including A Prime of Miss Jean Brody.

• 2:05:24Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I can picture the poster.

• 2:05:26Speaker 04

  I don't know what that film is. I don't know what it is.

• 2:05:29Griffin Newman?

  Is it called Yorana?

• 2:05:30David Sims?

  No, it's called First Monday in October, which is a very bland title.

• 2:05:34Griffin Newman?

  I would actually say quite a bad title.

• 2:05:35Speaker 04

  I don't even, I don't even know that film. I don't know it.

• 2:05:39David Sims?

  I've never heard of it. It didn't get great reviews. And then number five, another movie I don't know.

• 2:05:45Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:05:45David Sims?

  Let's see, is a American sex comedy.

• 2:05:49Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:05:50Speaker 04

  Gotta love it.

• 2:05:51David Sims?

  This one has come up before. It stars Sylvia Cristel, who is Emmanuel. You know, who's best known as playing Emmanuel.

• 2:06:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:02David Sims?

  And it's one of her few American films.

• 2:06:04Griffin Newman?

  American films. Oh, gosh.

• 2:06:05David Sims?

  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.

• 2:06:14Griffin Newman?

  You don't have any more clues?

• 2:06:16David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:06:16Speaker 04

  Have to race home and watch it when we find.

• 2:06:19David Sims?

  Ed Begley Jr.'s in it.

• 2:06:20Griffin Newman?

  Okay, well, that, that's helpful.

• 2:06:23Speaker 04

  What is it? Do you have to tell us? So this was the biggest grossing?

• 2:06:27Griffin Newman?

  Okay, can I guess?

• 2:06:28David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:06:28Griffin Newman?

  Is it called Wowzer?

• 2:06:29David Sims?

  It's called Private Lessons.

• 2:06:32Griffin Newman?

  I do know that title.

• 2:06:33Speaker 04

  Private Lessons?

• 2:06:35Griffin Newman?

  Private Lessons.

• 2:06:35Speaker 04

  How saucy.

• 2:06:37Griffin Newman?

  Little double entendre, possibly.

• 2:06:40David Sims?

  Right, right. There you go. There are other movies in the top 10. You've got a movie called Coming at Ya, which is like a

• 2:06:47Griffin Newman?

  Oh, that's a 3D movie.

• 2:06:48David Sims?

  Crazy 3D western movie, right.

• 2:06:50Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 2:06:51Griffin Newman?

  I own that on 3D Blu-ray.

• 2:06:52David Sims?

  You've got Heavy Metal, which I think like it's a Ben favorite, the crazy animated anthology movie.

• 2:06:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Great weed-smoking movie.

• 2:07:04David Sims?

  You've got a movie, I've never heard of, called Take This Job and Shove It.

• 2:07:07Griffin Newman?

  That's a great title.

• 2:07:08David Sims?

  Starring Robert Hayes. Sounds pretty fun. And then you have Body Heat.

• 2:07:13Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorites, yeah.

• 2:07:14David Sims?

  And you've got the Bill Murray movie Stripes.

• 2:07:17Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Stripes, yeah, yeah.

• 2:07:18Griffin Newman?

  I have this opinion that no one remembers what happens in the second half of Stripes.

• 2:07:23David Sims?

  You don't do this. It's late. It's late in America.

• 2:07:25Griffin Newman?

  Jennifer, Jennifer, would be remiss if I didn't ask because I've been so curious for so long.

• 2:07:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:07:33Griffin Newman?

  You, we've been doing this show for 11 years now.

• 2:07:36Speaker 04

  What? That's crazy.

• 2:07:39Griffin Newman?

  I invoke your films a lot as a positive reference point to other things I like in other movies.

• 2:07:44Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:07:45Griffin Newman?

  But you have come up once before on this podcast because of a film you appeared in as an actress.

• 2:07:50Speaker 04

  Oh, which, yeah, I think you, I think you're gonna tell me what it is, but I think I know what it is.

• 2:07:55Griffin Newman?

  Can you guess?

• 2:07:57Speaker 04

  Yeah. Babe 2.

• 2:07:59Griffin Newman?

  Correct. Babe Pig in the City. A great film.

• 2:08:02Speaker 04

  I had quite a large role in that, but as, I mean, before it ended up on the cutting room floor.

• 2:08:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:08:10Speaker 04

  I was thinking, and I said, you know, to people, this is not gonna end up in the film because we were experimenting on animals. And I was really evil in the.

• 2:08:21Griffin Newman?

  Right, you're right. I mean, it's a dark film. During like a mad scientist lab that's like full of nightmares.

• 2:08:26Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then when I saw it, I was like, yeah, I was right. They cut almost my entire role.

• 2:08:31David Sims?

  But was that fun to make? Was that, did they film that in Australia?

• 2:08:34Speaker 04

  It was amazing. I mean, I adore George Miller. I, 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, they would get them young, you know, and they use clickers and go back, Erica, back. And this little, this little pig would kind of reverse, you know? And I'm a big animal lover. I love animals. And so, yeah, it was, it was a big thing. I, 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.

• 2:09:16Speaker 04

  You know, I didn't have, I didn't have any role models really. I mean, Jane Campion was sort of just coming through. And yeah, so. It was interesting.

• 2:09:27Griffin Newman?

  Focusing on acting seemed like the clearer path to get onto sets.

• 2:09:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. So here I am.

• 2:09:35David Sims?

  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, so good to have an Australian perspective on this show.

• 2:09:48Speaker 04

  Likewise, guys. And I really thank you for this wonderful couple of hours. But also thank you for like making me watch Gallipoli again because I wouldn't have watched it and I wouldn't have been so moved.

• 2:10:02David Sims?

  I'm sorry it was upsetting, but it does seem like rewarding.

• 2:10:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:05Speaker 04

  Oh, totally. And it just makes me appreciate our lineage of filmmakers here and Peter Weir. He's a, he's a real master and he deserves, you know, I'm glad you're doing this because he deserves more attention. And for younger people to get in and watch all of his films.

• 2:10:24Griffin Newman?

  I will also say, I imagine almost all of our listeners are very familiar with Mr. Babadook and his work.

• 2:10:32David Sims?

  Yeah, he's great.

• 2:10:32Griffin Newman?

  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 and that is a very devastating watch, but 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.

• 2:10:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:53Speaker 04

  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 seventies, to this incredible slate. So beautiful.

• 2:11:19Griffin Newman?

  That is just, yeah, it is crazy to think about.

• 2:11:22David Sims?

  Yeah, it is.

• 2:11:23Griffin Newman?

  Right. It's like in the 1970s, America was like, what if we made movies again?

• 2:11:26David Sims?

  We should, we should try to make a few of those.

• 2:11:28Speaker 04

  Exactly. And we haven't made them for 40 years. What if we just, you know, flipped the switch and started making them again?

• 2:11:34Griffin Newman?

  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?

• 2:11:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 2:11:42Griffin Newman?

  Uh, thank you so much, Jennifer.

• 2:11:43Speaker 04

  Likewise. Thank you for inviting me on.

• 2:11:46David Sims?

  Yep, thank you. And then, yeah.

• 2:11:48Griffin Newman?

  And thanks again to Rob Shear for making this happen.

• 2:11:50David Sims?

  Yes, thank you to Rob.

• 2:11:51Speaker 04

  Yes, love, love Rob.

• 2:11:53Griffin Newman?

  The best.

• 2:11:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, thanks, Griffin. Thanks, David. Hope, I, um, hope to see you again.

• 2:11:59Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. Yes. Um, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Turn, tune in next week for You're Living Dangerously.

• 2:12:08David Sims?

  Yes, that's right.

• 2:12:10Griffin Newman?

  Uh, with-

• 2:12:12David Sims?

  We'll cut it out if it doesn't happen, but with Tracy Letts, very exciting episode.

• 2:12:15Griffin Newman?

  The King of Physical Media Pulitzer Prize winner himself, Tracy Letts.

• 2:12:18Speaker 04

  Oh, I love Tracy. Amazing.

• 2:12:21Griffin Newman?

  Genius. We're very excited about this. Uh, and as always, Ben is an American lyrician.

• 2:12:29David Sims?

  Hey.

• 2:12:35Speaker 04

  See you, guys.

• 2:12:36David Sims?

  We'll bid you farewell.

• 2:12:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, have a good day.

• 2:12:39David Sims?

  Have a good day, yes.

• 2:12:40Griffin Newman?

  We will go to sleep.

• 2:12:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, you have a nice sleep.

• 2:12:45Speaker 03

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas. And our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and 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.

• 2:13:30Speaker 03

  Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.