Australia (Baz Luhrmann, 2008)

[Barmy]

My problems with the film were numerous. Too much CGI. It wasn't pretty enough because of the dessicated cinematography (Walkabout is far more gorgeous). Etc. Now, if you are telling me the film was taking the piss out of Aborigines, that would mean something to me because that David Gupilil (sp) character was a f***ing joke and the film would have been far better without that noxious bleached-toothed little "creamy" brat.

[Jack Phillips]

I honestly can't see how foreigners could enjoy this film on any level because its so distinctly our kind of humour and there's so many in-jokes about our culture, it would just seem completely alienating, odd and vapid to any outsider.

Could you give us a fer-instance?

[HerrSchreck]

This also begs a question: can genuine camp be a pop culture smash in it's own time? There's an aspect of camp I think, that sort of requires it to go over (or under or around) the heads of the mass center chunk of pop culture and be seen as "fringe" or just flat out unsuccessful for whatever reason.

I don't know-- I'm asking. David can you think of works of genuine camp that 1) went into major release, and 2) were immediately embraced into mass success?

[chaddoli]

completely alienating, odd and vapid

Add excruciatingly long and boring and that pretty much sums it up.

[Anthony Thorne]

First post here. I haven't seen this movie and almost certainly never will, but I thought I'd mention that a Melbourne cinematographer friend of mine knows DOP Mandy Walker (via her being a classmate of his at Swinburne Film School), and she mentioned to him that Luhrmann shot AUSTRALIA twice. The entire film was filmed, when Baz was overtaken by a whim of his usual artistic genius and demanded that they shoot the entire thing a second time. Which they did. Then, following that attempt, Baz was keen to have a third try at it, and would have done so if Murdoch/Fox hadn't shaken their heads and pulled the pin. The $100 million+ budget reflects the costs of shooting essentially two epic movies back to back with the same script, cast and crew, and then throwing the first one in a dumpster.

I'm aware that this story is ludicrous enough to be taken as spam, but it ain't. Co-writer Richard Flanagan is a good writer (and probably the source of the worthwhile 'stolen generations' theme present in the movie, which locally was one of the few things most viewers seemed to genuinely find worthwhile about the movie), but the movie as finalised shows the marks of a lot of on the spot rewriting and lets-salvage-it-in-post redubbing.

The Australian Film Finance bodies (AFC, FFC and so on) should bring back the 10BA tax concession that prompted untold numbers of producers in the 70's and 80's to pump money into making Australian movies, as many of our best genre films (and key directors) benefited immensely from this. Now, everything goes through the sieve of the current government run Film Finance Commission and is geared to the tastes of middle-aged women who look askance at any type of movie that has any energy. The AFC even refuses to recognise the Sitges international film festival as they don't 'like those types of movies'. No wonder our industry is in free-fall down the crapper. Oz director Richard Franklin bemoaned the situation to me at length a year or two before he passed away.

A 3hr+ multi-million dollar Australian western shot by Mandy Walker, set at the beginning of World War 2, with characters on horseback attempting to rustle sheep across land, and ending with the bombing of Darwin, should or could have been an amazing movie if someone with any competence had directed it. Sadly, BL's wayward artistic genius prevented that potentially good movie from being made. Someone please stop him before this madman kills again.

[Dylan]

First post here. I haven't seen this movie and almost certainly never will, but I thought I'd mention that a Melbourne cinematographer friend of mine knows DOP Mandy Walker (via her being a classmate of his at Swinburne Film School), and she mentioned to him that Luhrmann shot AUSTRALIA twice. The entire film was filmed, when Baz was overtaken by a whim of his usual artistic genius and demanded that they shoot the entire thing a second time. Which they did. Then, following that attempt, Baz was keen to have a third try at it, and would have done so if Murdoch/Fox hadn't shaken their heads and pulled the pin. The $100 million+ budget reflects the costs of shooting essentially two epic movies back to back with the same script, cast and crew, and then throwing the first one in a dumpster.

I haven't seen this film, either (I actually think it looks fun, though), but this is fascinating. Pauline Kael's great essay "Hail folly!" comes to mind (which discussed massive, costly epics that are ultimately calamities of some sort, with a focus on Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900). My only question is, how on Earth has it been kept quiet that Australia was shot twice?

[Anthony Thorne]

That post re MI2 cracks me up. I heard a couple of things about that shoot, though only thirdhand. (Editor Jill Bilcock has mentioned some funny, narky things about Cruise and Kidman from the shoot of MOULIN ROUGE that makes it hard for me to subsequently stomach Kidman in anything. Bilcock privately - or it might be publically - disowns Luhrmann's cut of ROUGE, btw).

I haven't followed the Oz discussion boards (I think FilmInk runs one, and IF Magazine probably has another, and or Filmnet(?)... I gather there's a few traffic heavy Oz film industry boards and blogs where this sort of thing might come up, so it might already be common knowledge on those) but it may be the Oz media being so inundated with AUSTRALIA publicity and hype, or the lack of savvy journos looking past the PR handouts, that cause things like that to go unreported. Though I'm sure if word got out Baz would note the reshoot as being integral to his artistic process or something. That said, they might have kept a tight, close-mouthed set. I know that the VP of production at Fox (US) hadn't seen a frame of AUSTRALIA up to a couple of weeks before it opened.

Back on MI2, after DOP Andrew Lesnie was 'let go' and freed up to work on LORD OF THE RINGS, Peter Jackson eventually shipped a 35mm print of MI2 to Wellington so he and Lesnie could sit and have a look at it. The film finished, and Jackson, shaking his head, turned to Lesnie and said, "..I bet you're glad you didn't have to work on THAT one..!"

Maybe lots of local filmmakers will power ahead making cool genre stuff with the RED camera.

[colinr0380]

I hadn't heard that story - that's fantastic! Not to denigrate the series too much (and I sort of like Woo's film if I'm in the right frame of mind) but given the choice between a Mission: Impossible film and The Lord of the Rings there's no competition! I even remember feeling sorry when hearing the (apocryphal?) story that Dougray Scott was originally going to play Wolverine in the first X-Men film but the shooting of the M:I:II film overran so much they went with Hugh Jackman instead. It must have been bad to lose a role like that just to be the generic villain in a Tom Cruise movie.

[domino harvey]

Who would have thought this thread would take such a turn for the wonderful?

[Antoine Doinel]

Few View Pirated Copies Of Australia - "Although pirated copies of the Baz Luhrmann epic Australia have been available on numerous BitTorrent sites since the film premiered last month, few people have bothered to download them..."
And no, this isn't from The Onion.

Well, now that a DVD quality torrent is floating around, its become the most popular download.

[mfunk9786]

I find that so hard to believe. Who's willing to bet that the studio put the screener out then planted this "story" to try to slosh up some interest from the muck that this movie's been long disappeared in?

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Well, now that a DVD quality torrent is floating around, its become the most popular download.

Does the IMDb even read their own sources?

[cantinflas]

‘Faraway Downs’: Baz Luhrmann Expands ‘Australia’ Film Into Limited Series

[Never Cursed]

Hmmm, wonder where the footage came from?

[therewillbeblus]

Hmmm, wonder where the footage came from?

Apparently there was “over two million feet of film from the original piece” according to Luhrmann, so that might explain it. This will be six episodes, premiering at SXSW on Oct and then going to Hulu for U.S., Star+ in Latin America, and Disney+ in other territories on Nov 26.

[spectre]

Someone please stop him before this madman kills again.

Not only has he done so, but he's now returning to the scene of the crime.

I know drawing blood from a stone (via remakes, reboots etc.) is the way of things in the streaming era, but who on earth – even out of morbid curiosity – asked for this?