Australia

[matt35mm]

 

Well I'll briefly defend Romeo + Juliet as being one of the few movies based on Shakespeare that doesn't bring a sense of loftiness to it.  Zefferelli was BORING and his Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet were shit, for presenting the plays too straight-fowardly, realistically, and without much thought.  I think Shakespeare demands some ridiculousness, which was just the nature of productions in those days (boys playing girls, no props or sets and thus huge exaggerations and descriptions needed, the relatively casual and fast-paced nature of theatre at the time where people might just make stuff up on stage or audiences would shout things), and there have been a lot of interesting interpretations of the works in the past few hundred years.

So what Romeo + Juliet has is that sense of ridiculousness (the play is hilarious and so is this movie), as well as the sense of Romeo and Juliet as a couple of young, idiot kids.  It's not realistic, which Romeo and Juliet shouldn't be anyway.  It also had hints at a few of the more interesting interpretations of the play that Shakespeare scholars have come up with through the years, whereas, again, most Shakespeare movies and stage productions just take the simplest, most facile view of the stories and try to be clever with some neat blocking or tacked on elements.

The modernization and relocation that happens in many Shakespeare films and re-stagings are not always interesting, but I thought it was interesting in Romeo + Juliet, because it was part of the over-the-top very saturated quality of the film.  Some might not like that style, and I didn't like it at first.  The more I studied Shakespeare and read Shakespeare scholars, the more I liked it.  Lurhmann was not just concerned with making it hip, that's for sure--he was on top of his shit.  I've asked a few of my theatre and philosophy professors who have studied Shakespeare a lot what they thought of Romeo + Juliet, and they all like it.  They might not know very much about film, but they thought the film brought something new to that old story and it was intriguing and smart.

So yeah.  No one needs to respond really; I just didn't want to let Romeo + Juliet to get shit on while I stood idly by.  Carry on.

[picolas]

 

[MacGuffin]

EXCLUSIVE: Baz Luhrmann addresses big questions about "Australia"—and remains confident in his film
Source: Los Angeles Times

This evening, I had the opportunity to speak with writer/director Baz Luhrmann just before he boarded a flight from New York to Sydney, where he will be completing post-production on "Australia," the epic film that he co-wrote and directed which is due to open nationwide two weeks from tomorrow.

"Australia" has been the subject of intense discussion and speculation ever since it was first announced, but never more so than in recent days, when written reports began popping up across the blogosphere that seemed to echo verbal rumors which had been spreading around Hollywood for weeks: that the film had gone way overbudget (some said $130 million); the initial cut was way too long; and that the film's ending was so poorly received at test screenings that Luhrmann was pressured by Fox to go with a different one — in other words, that it was a trainwreck.

Just when it seemed that the vitriol toward the film couldn't get any worse, Luhrmann flew into New York to be feted by New York's Museum of Modern Art and to join his cast (via Skype) for an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Prior to the show, Oprah Winfrey and her audience were shown an almost-finished-cut of the film, something that only a select few others have seen. When the show went on the air, it quickly became apparent that they had flipped out for it! Oprah's opening monologue began: "I have not been this excited over a movie since I don't know when... it's the best movie I've seen in a long, long, long, long time. It literally swept me off my feet! The audience saw it last night."

She then asked her audience, "Did you not think that was some movie? Was that a movie?! Was that a movie?! Was that a movie?! Oh, my goodness! I mean, they just don't make movies like that anymore, they really don't!" To which the audience shrieked in agreement. They then literally went back and forth: "Didn't you laugh?" "Yeah." "And I know you cried..." "Yeah." "Weren't you on the edge of your seat?" "Yeah." "Oh, my God, and what can we say about Hugh Jackman?" Shrieks all-around.

And, with that, suddenly anything — including a Best Picture nomination that many speculated about early on but most (thought not all of us) gave up on recently — seemed possible again.

With more questions than ever about "Australia," this evening seemed the perfect time time to pose some of the big ones to Luhrmann, the man who envisioned it, brought it to life, and now has its fate, quite literally, in his hands. Following are key excerpts of his complete responses to my questions...


Where the film stands as of 6pm EST on Tuesday 11/11...
"I'm getting back on a plane to go back to Sydney to finish — I've probably got about seven hours left in the mix [sound mixing] of the film."

On comparisons between "Gone with the Wind" and "Australia"...
"I mean, 'Gone with the Wind' is more than a movie; it's an icon, you know? So it's always scary to make that comparison. But in the same way that 'Gone with the Wind' has a passionate love story that is played out on the canvases of a country's landscape and historical events, this movie has that about it."

Reaction from yesterday's Oprah screening...
"I've just had the interesting experience of seeing a show that Oprah did — she saw a rough-cut with an audience, the audience actually watched a rough-cut of it — and what is buoying — and it doesn't mean we're hitting a home run yet, but — is how intensely the audience has reacted to that kind of emotional cinematic banquet."

Identifying his target audience...
"Certainly marketers wouldn't want you to say this, but it is a film that I really believe that the whole family — from, you know, grandparents to the groovy, you know, younger folk — can all come to and eat at the same table, so to speak."

Comparing "Australia" to his past work...
"It's not a musical in any way. I mean, it is a sweeping drama. It's different in the sense that absolutely it's much bigger. It's different in that I suppose it's more inclusive, you know — I think that different kinds of audiences, from young people to older audiences, can see it and have a different of it, you know? But probably where it's not different is that it does have, still, that ultra-romanticism about it, you know? I mean, the imagery of the landscape and the imagery indeed is somewhat heightened, because it's not naturalism, you know? It's a heightened motion picture experience."

On the special meaning of this project to him...
"When I began this film, I had just gotten over not doing 'Alexander the Great,' and we were living in Paris, and we had just had our children, and we thought it was really important that we understood our own home country so that our children understand where they came from and put down roots in their home country — because they obviously live on the road with us a lot. So we went back on our own personal journey to discover our homeland. And that journey was very focused on understand the indigenous side of Australia, the indigenous story."

On Aboriginal child actor Brandon Walters, whose discovery he previously said he counts "up there with the top 5 things I have done in my life, really"...
"The little boy in the film that we wanted to put in the middle of the movie had to be a mixed-race, Aboriginal child. I mean, imagine finding such an actor — you know, a young boy who is both Aboriginal and who could play the role. And my casting team saw a thousand boys, and then we went on the road and saw over 200, and then we brought 10 to Sydney, of which only one was a real possibility, and that was Brandon Walters."

Addressing reports that the ending had to be changed due to a poor response from test audiences...
"What's interesting is I wrote, I think, six endings in all the drafts I did, shot three, and I ended up concluding the film in a way in which I — probably more than anyone — least expected. And there is a death in the ending of the film, by the way — it's a bit of a twist and I won't give it away... And, incidentally, the two endings, by the way, tested completely the same essentially, you know? They really did in the numbers. But I came up with a third ending, and the ending that I've created about the film came from a place of a response, actually, to the thing that I wanted the movie to be — the important, big idea of the movie — how to amplify that big idea. And, essentially, that's, as the little boy says, "The rain will fall. The grass grows green. And life begins again." And that idea — that in a world that is so full of fear, and things are falling down, and people are somewhat concerned — Sending a movie out there that can leave people with a sense that, despite it all, you can go back to Faraway Downs, or that you can go on, and a sense of hope, is something I really felt personally I wanted the movie to give out... But I think the big story is how the actual ending I came up with, which is quite unusual — it's not easy to say it's 'the happy one' or 'the death one' — it's something quite surprising. And it found itself, really."

Addressing rumors that the runtime of the film is much longer than expected...
"The length is the length that I want it to be. It's the length that I think is the right length to be as inclusive as possible. I mean, my rough-cut, by the way, wasn't that long; it was only about three hours. I mean, for an epic, it was quite nothing. And the running length of it was always between two hours-forty and three. And it's probably — once I finish with it — gonna end up around two and a half hours, and I like that length. And, you know, it's kind of what I had in mind, really; I thought the film, ultimately, would be at two-forty. It's not really long for an epic work. I mean, 'epic' doesn't just mean long, you know? It means big in its scale and its ideas, you know?"

How he feels going into the release, responsible for a film with a massive budget...
"Will the film succeed? I cannot guarantee that. But is there a hunger for a movie like this? Yes. I mean, I am inviting all of America to "Australia" for Thanksgiving, and we're gonna serve a cinematic banquet. And what I mean by that is that the film goes from comedy, to tragedy, to action, to drama — and yet, underneath it all is a big, emotional idea. And if it in any way puts out there for an audience a sense of hope, and uplift, and the possibility of going on stronger in times of adversity, then we haven't wasted our time. Now I think the film has a chance of doing that."

[Alexandro]

GT, I totally disagree with you on the acting on The Godfather. And it would be a useless discussion. Let's change the subject.

About my writing comment, I guess I just don't see film like that anymore. I don't know of I can make a big argument on it, because to me it is very simple. Film is film, writing is writing, and the writing aspect on film is barely an outline, wether we like it or not. In the end, what's on the page and what's on the frame have little to do one with the other. I've talked about this before, about the "magic" of cinema, about the feeling. Since cinema nurtures itself with what the other artforms give, it takes things from writing but also from the plastic arts, such as sculpture and painting. And there's no rule saying anywhere that film should borrow more from one of those, or equally from all of them. On that basis, I guess writing shouldn't be all the time, or any time, the most important thing, or any of the others. Because in the end there is an esoteric, wizardly thing going on in arts, which is what makes them so compelling to me. What you see in a film is not only writing, but all the other elements combined, and more than an idea, there is a certain feeling that may or may not be something you can properly described. In a lot of ways it depends on luck too. Who knows? I certainly don't have any answers. All I know is that film as medium of expression works on a different level than writing, which I guess it's obvious, but then why would the writing of it be so important?

Just reading that useless idiotic article posted on the Kubrick thread about 2001 kind of makes it clear for me. That recounting of the "meaning" of that film, stripping it of all the other elements within it, did the job of making it sound stupid, boring and pointless. But it's not the what but the how. Those words were an accurate description of the actions and philosophical musings of 2001, but they of course did not do justice to the effect the visual poetry has on them and the viewer. Thats's why there's cinema and then there are other things.

[children with angels]

^^^Yes.

What has come up here again is what I (and Alexandro) see as a fundamental flaw in your thinking about film, GT. We (I hope Alexandro doesn't mind me speaking for him) can't understand how someone who spends as much time watching, thinking, and writing about movies as you do could possibly say something like: "I believe writing it still the most important part about a film". To me, at least, it's absurd to say that an aspect of cinema that has been around for three thousand years could possibly be more important to what makes a film a film - and therefore to what makes it good AS a film - than do all the particulars and the COMBINATIONS of elements that are unique to film.

And it's not only a question of the 'how' rather than the 'what' - it's the fact that the how IS the what. This is what I was saying way back in the There Will Be Blood discussion. My last post there laid out in some detail what I see as the problem in your, GT's, thinking on film. I was quite surprised to not get a response to it then, since you're usually very good at responding to all challenges. I thought I might copy and paste it below, in case anyone's interested - and in case you want to reply. In a sense, everything that follows is just backing up Pete's excellent one-line argument that "yes, if you make a movie without actors and a camera, then it's just a story.  that is true."

So:

Interpreting standard business scenes from the camera angles is probably looking too much into what is just a lot of standard scenes.

You have consistently objected to the fact that the only thing people have been able to praise in There Will Be Blood (myself included) is its 'form', not its 'content', and your entire argument basically stems from your belief that its 'content' isn't actually very impressive.

You essentially separate 'form' and 'content' as different considerations by implicitly suggesting that 'content' is something you start with (the script, presumably? In fact, many of your problems with the film might be said to in fact be problems with the script), and that this alone is what provides the themes, the characterizations, the "great intellectual ideas" you crave. Then, your way of thinking implies, 'form' is just placed on top of it, and must try to do its best to communicate what is already there in the 'content', and that – if what is there isn't up to scratch – then nothing in the 'form' can make it a good film. As you say:

Content and style are equal in my book, but that goes with specifications. [...]

You might say you believe content and style are equal as far as There Will be Blood is concerned, but I'm trying to point out how the content is severely lacking in the film.

I on the other hand would actually now like to go further than my previous comments about how closely linked 'form' and 'content' should be considered to be, and suggest that in a film, form IS content.

Obviously, the only way we have access to a film is through how it has been made – that means how it's shot, framed, cut, lit, and everything else that usually constitutes 'form'. In fact, all that we are experiencing when we watch a film is the result of 'form', and everything that we might be tempted to call 'content' is only communicated to us THROUGH form, so how can we possibly separate the two?

You object above that I'm overinterpreting a "standard scene" by understanding it to a great extent through its camera angles – and that this constitutes privileging form over content. But I would counter that there IS no scene without the camera angles. For one thing, since we would not see the scene in the first place had it not been filmed (that is: it wouldn't exist as a scene at all), we absolutely have to look at HOW it was filmed to account for our experience of the scene. Next, the camera angles are a major part of what makes that scene THAT scene, and to look at them separately, as if they are somehow tacked-on and irrelevant to the meaning of the scene and how we understand it, is thus nonsensical. A scene is equal parts camera placement/ movement as it is dialogue, staging, acting, décor, sound, lighting – everything. All these things are what make a film a film, and where we get a huge part of our meaning of the film from.

I looked in detail at the camera set-ups and framings of a number of scenes in the film because it is in large part through these things that There Will Be Blood (and any other film) actually MAKES its meanings, not just COMMUNICATES the meanings that already exist in the script. That is why I bring up the nuances of Day Lewis' performance in the brothel scene, or the framing of the pipeline in the scene when H.W. returns, or the consistent marginalizing of the social world into the background. Equally, it is why I give so much importance to the elisions and ambiguities in the storytelling. These 'formal' elements are at LEAST half of the way it creates its 'content' – and the rest of the 'content' (inherent in the script) is only able to communicated to us through these devices.  If all we want to talk about is what is in the script, then we should be 'script fans' or 'script critics' – but we're not: we're film fans and film critics, and that means appreciating the fact that films create their significance – and acquire their value – (and indeed ARE films) because of how they are made, not how they are written.

You say that:

The fact that Daniel says the things about himself later that he does hate people separates him, but it's one of the very few actions that distinguishes the personal Daniel from the businessman. The film shouldn't be reliant on pieces of dialogue to distinguish the animosity he feels from his ability to glad hand local citizens.

You're right that a film shouldn't just rely on dialogue to communicate its meanings – and There Will Be Blood doesn't: it does it through the narrow point of view it establishes via its narrative and narration, and through its camera angles, framings, movements, not to mention its music, its acting – everything that you might call elements of its 'form', but which is in fact in equal parts its content. You say later that to have Daniel flat out say that he hates people is a lazy way to get across that meaning, and if it was the only way that this is done then I might agree, but it isn't; as my entire essay is dedicated to showing, it is doing this (and many other things that I haven't had time to go into) in a multitude of other (non script-related) ways throughout.

In a chapter called "'How' is 'What'" in his brilliant book Film as Film, Victor Perkins says that:

"Asserted meanings cannot be ignored; but equally they should not be overvalued. What matters is the extent to which these bold statements are refined by the pattern of detail built over and around them. In any [good film] we find subtlety and complexity not (where it's nonsensical to look for them) in the initial scheme, but in the organization of details whose relationships simultaneously complicate and clarify the movie's viewpoint. At this level of coherence significance is locked into the picture's form. [.....] Synthesis, where there is no distinction between how and what, content and form, is what interests us if we are interested in film as film."

This is a perfect description of what happens in There Will Be Blood: the 'asserted meaning' that Daniel hates people is refined in many ways: by the ironies that this creates with the position of social reformer we have seen him enact previously, with what this then means for his relationship with the social world around him, and through the complex way the story has been told 'formally'. You also say elsewhere that the film should have started making itself about Plainview's isolation and misanthropy earlier than it does:

Most of his dealings with the townsfolk are too business ordinary to be self reflective of him. The film could speak more about his personal isolation if it decided to devote more study to his deeper conflicts from the outset, but it does not.

But my point is that it already HAS done this through its construction. The "pattern of detail' of all the things I've been pointing out in its 'form', and more, is what makes this film THIS film, and it is this that we must assess if we are to assess the film AS a film. I felt that there was something very strange and very wrong going on with this character long before he came out and announced it later on, and – looking back – I can plainly see why this was and what it was, and can see the intricateness and the richness with which this was already being communicated. This is what makes the business scenes more than just 'standard scenes', because they are not just what is written, but also what is filmed, and what is filmed is telling us a great deal more than you allow for. Each scene creates its significance, and its meanings, and its themes, in many more ways than are accounted for by the words on a page from which they grew. And, as I have repeated now ad nauseam, what these 'formal' properties create is not in fact just 'style', but the very content of the film itself.

There Will Be Blood's characterizations, its themes and its intellectual properties (what you might call its 'content' – all the things you say you want from it) are all intimately wrapped up with its form – as is the case with all films, or at the very least all good films. We should thus look to its 'form' to determine its full significance, its richness, and its value. The fact that it repays such scrutiny, that its 'form' holds such rich 'content', is what makes it, for me, a great film.

[Gold Trumpet]

GT, I totally disagree with you on the acting on The Godfather. And it would be a useless discussion. Let's change the subject.

I doubt it would be a useless discussion. It would be quite fascinating for me.

About my writing comment, I guess I just don't see film like that anymore. I don't know of I can make a big argument on it, because to me it is very simple. Film is film, writing is writing, and the writing aspect on film is barely an outline, wether we like it or not. In the end, what's on the page and what's on the frame have little to do one with the other. I've talked about this before, about the "magic" of cinema, about the feeling. Since cinema nurtures itself with what the other artforms give, it takes things from writing but also from the plastic arts, such as sculpture and painting. And there's no rule saying anywhere that film should borrow more from one of those, or equally from all of them. On that basis, I guess writing shouldn't be all the time, or any time, the most important thing, or any of the others. Because in the end there is an esoteric, wizardly thing going on in arts, which is what makes them so compelling to me. What you see in a film is not only writing, but all the other elements combined, and more than an idea, there is a certain feeling that may or may not be something you can properly described. In a lot of ways it depends on luck too. Who knows? I certainly don't have any answers. All I know is that film as medium of expression works on a different level than writing, which I guess it's obvious, but then why would the writing of it be so important?

Just reading that useless idiotic article posted on the Kubrick thread about 2001 kind of makes it clear for me. That recounting of the "meaning" of that film, stripping it of all the other elements within it, did the job of making it sound stupid, boring and pointless. But it's not the what but the how. Those words were an accurate description of the actions and philosophical musings of 2001, but they of course did not do justice to the effect the visual poetry has on them and the viewer. Thats's why there's cinema and then there are other things.

In a lot of ways I agree with what you say here, but I think my position on writing needs to be clarified because it's being misinterpreted.

When I say writing is the most important, I don't mean it should be the first and last thing considered in making a film. I also don't believe it is most important like it a value to be measured in a hierarchy system. Good writing can still be soured by other parts of a film that are bad, but I believe it is the essential component you need in a film to go off and do all the other things you say are important. The vision in 2001: A Space Odyssey wouldn't have been able to have been there if the writing didn't support a platform for the film to be its kind of visual poetry that everyone applauds it for. If Stanley Kubrick had a more conventional script then he would have been limited with what he could have done.

I look at writing as having both good and bad qualities. On one hand, it can be the philosophical grounds in which the filmmaking can explore its subject on deeper levels and be truly thought provoking. Or the script can be so strutured and detailed that it can limit the freedom of the filmmaking. Some scripts cannot be interpreted besides just recording and filming what is on the page. The point is that the blueprint of a film begins with a script. Sometimes those scripts are more open to cinematic interpretation than others. My point about the Godfather is that the script is so bad that all the other qualities (some of which is good) just try to hide things that should have been originally changed in the script.

Natural Born Killers and The Knack and How to Get It are two of my favorite films. The scripts do little to detail the final films they became. After a while the filmmaking took over in both films and made them to be completely new things, but the films still wouldn't be what they were without the scripts. Without the scripts the films wouldn't have had the chance to be as imaginative as they were. And if the stories were both mundane and conventional no amount of filmmaking would have hidden their hollow stories, but both scripts were adaquate to point the filmmaking in the right direction to make the overall production work a lot better.

A script doesn't make a film, but it does begin the decision making process in making one.

anyone's interested - and in case you want to reply. In a sense, everything that follows is just backing up Pete's excellent one-line argument that "yes, if you make a movie without actors and a camera, then it's just a story.  that is true."

That wasn't an argument, it was a bad reduction of someone's position. The argument given above shows that it does little to accurately combat my position anyways. He just jumped to conclusions without asking for an explanation of my position.

And Children With Agels, I'll still debate you on There Will Be Blood. The only reason I didn't is because I didn't have time originally and I thought too much time had passed before it was reasonable to really reply, but I'll take your comments back to the original thread. No need to reply here.  Expect a responce shortly.

[Alexandro]

Well, when you come up with lines like "the acting in The Godfather is horrible" is hard to even argue. I just don't think Brando is doing a caricature in that film, and Pacino to me is probably doing his best work...second only maybe to Godafther 2. Brando's achievement is his ability to make such a physical characterization work as a palpable human being. But you don't see that I gather. To me, Brando succeeds in making the Don a family man and a business man. Pacino does a great job too. The things you mention regarding his performance are, in any case, writing mistakes (although I don't consider them as such). And if they are writing mistakes, he very notably overcomes them with his performance.

[MacGuffin]

[MacGuffin]

Back to the land for 'Australia's' Baz Luhrmann
A continent-sized vision drove the director to make his epic.
By John Horn, Los Angeles Times

The most recognizable stars of Baz Luhrmann's cattle-drive drama "Australia" are Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. But on a December day nearly two years ago, even as Kidman flitted about Luhrmann's creative compound in the hills above Sydney, all of the Australian writer-director's attention was focused on an actor who is just as important a member of the ensemble: a 10-year-old Aboriginal boy who had never acted in anything. ¶ Luhrmann's new movie is as ambitious as its weighty title suggests. Arriving Wednesday, "Australia" represents an unusual amalgam of his heightened, modern theatricality, perhaps best exemplified in his last film, 2001's mash-up musical "Moulin Rouge!," and classic old-school historical epics such as "Out of Africa," "Gone With the Wind" and "Lawrence of Arabia," three films Luhrmann often refers to. Blending those seemingly incompatible filmmaking styles -- over-the-top outrageous on one hand, formal and restrained on the other -- was not Luhrmann's only goal, although it turned into a daunting challenge. He also wanted to dramatize his native country's less-than-virtuous recent history: One of "Australia's" central conflicts hinges on the government's campaign to separate mixed-race children (half-Aboriginal, half-Caucasian) from their parents, a failed "stolen generation" attempt to make the population more white.

In the film, that half-caste child is named Nullah. It is this young boy who comes between, and ultimately helps bring together, the story's horseback-riding Drover (Jackman) and the English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Kidman) who has traveled to Australia to discover what has become of her husband and their failing cattle station. If the film was to succeed emotionally, Luhrmann knew on that day in late 2006, Nullah must not only captivate Drover and Lady Ashley, but also the audience.

The director and his casting department had discovered Brandon Walters among nearly 1,000 hopefuls in the tiny western Australia town of Broome, and the young boy had come to Luhrmann's estate, called Iona, with his family for a final meeting.

"It will be a little bit of play, and a little bit of serious work," Luhrmann said to Walters and his family of what he had in store for the boy that day, a schedule that included shooting plastic rockets with Kidman and singing beside Luhrmann's piano.

"But we need to find out if it's a good thing -- for all of us to spend the next year together. We still have to say at the end of the week, 'Is this right?' " Luhrmann told them.

As Walters and his family went off, Luhrmann expressed confidence in his choice, but knew how crucial it would be. "Is it right for the movie?" he said. "Is it right for the story? Is it right for them?"

In the end, hiring Walters was among the easiest decisions Luhrmann would face. The production ultimately would go months over schedule, costing Kidman a chance to star in "The Reader,"#/film/thereader/ an adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's novel. The production delays -- some caused by weather, some the result of Luhrmann's shooting a considerable amount of film -- would rekindle the fractious relationship between Luhrmann and 20th Century Fox, which also produced "Moulin Rouge!" (The studio says the film is "great" and that it didn't interfere with Luhrmann's work.)

Well after the film finished principal photography, Luhrmann would be puzzling over his film's final frames and the fate of one of the film's central characters. Even though "Australia" would cost well over $100 million, the production would have to cut its shooting schedule to save money, and buy and later auction several hundred cattle after feuding with Fox over what kind of cows the movie did or didn't need.

Just days before the film's scheduled release, Luhrmann was still working on the movie. A relentless perfectionist (he and his producing partner-production designer wife Catherine Martin held nearly a dozen meetings finalizing their Christmas card), he was adding a scene here, dropping one there, cutting in new music cues, as Fox fended off countless requests to show a film it didn't yet have.

Having tested a longer, unfinished version of the film earlier this year in Minneapolis, Luhrmann was relieved that American audiences didn't reject out of hand a western set in an unfamiliar foreign land. He knew too that, just as early skeptics had dismissed his previous movie, they were fretting over "Australia's" prospects.

"Very, very clever people said to me while I was making 'Moulin Rouge!' that people will never, ever go for it," he said.

But he nonetheless expressed concern. Fox, which has suffered through a woeful year, very much needs a critical and commercial success. And "Australia" faces strong competition this season from several other high-profile films, including David Fincher's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" and Sam Mendes' "Revolutionary Road."

"The risk," Luhrmann said, "is staggering."

Dashed plans for a historical epic

This wasn't supposed to be his next movie. And it wasn't supposed to star Jackman.

Luhrmann and Martin saw "Moulin Rouge!" as the concluding chapter in what they call their "Red Curtain" trilogy: highly stylized productions that emphasized broad theatrics over everyday naturalism.

Those three films -- launched with 1992's giddy "Strictly Ballroom" and 1996's flamboyant "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet" -- established Luhrmann as a distinctive voice, and he and Martin brought their vivid sensibilities to both opera Martin and perfume advertising.Martin

While he was winding down "Moulin Rouge!," Luhrmann started preparing "Alexander the Great," the first in a planned series of historical epics. He would reteam with Leonardo DiCaprio, his "Romeo + Juliet" star, but as happens frequently these days, someone else was making a very similar movie at the very same time.

Luhrmann spent months putting his Greek conqueror movie together, but when Oliver Stone's "Alexander" started filming, Luhrmann had to retreat. But it was not exactly his project's collapse that led him to "Australia." Instead, it was his and Martin's starting a family.

Like so many middle-aged parents (Luhrmann is 46, Martin is 43) who have children after launching successful careers, the two had begun to reevaluate their priorities after their daughter, Lilly, was born in 2003.

" 'Alexander' was about pathos -- that too much is never enough," he said. "And in a way, I found myself reflecting back on making an epic about family -- hardly something I would have chosen easily, because it didn't seem adventurous enough.

"The great motivation to make this film was when we were in Paris -- we had lived in Sydney, London, New York, Paris, and we've got a little girl, our little boy [Will] is on the way, and -- who are our children? Where are they from? Are they Australian? What do I think of my own country? What do I think of the indigenous story, the stolen generation? I wanted to sort that out, while telling this huge romance."

After Luhrmann sketched out the movie's basic story of a woman and a man on their own in the wilderness, he worked with four different writers ("Collateral's" Stuart Beattie, "The Pianist's" Ronald Harwood, Tasmanian novelist Richard Flanagan and his longtime collaborator Craig Pearce) to shape "Australia's" screenplay. (The film is shot by Australian cinematographer Mandy Walker.) While the characters are purely fictitious, the 1940s story is grounded in copious research, including the little-known Japanese bombing of Darwin.

Drover and Lady Ashley anchor the romantic conflict. He wants to be left alone, and her love is reserved for horses and fashion, but they are thrown together by circumstances beyond either's control. When Lady Ashley arrives in Australia from England, she is taken by Drover to Faraway Downs, the huge, inland cattle station owned by Ashley's husband, whom they find murdered the minute they arrive.

The death may be part of a plot by land baron King Carney (Bryan Brown) and his henchman Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) to monopolize the livestock business. Alone in the middle of nowhere, Drover and Lady Ashley decide to push their 1,500 cattle across the empty, rough country to Darwin.

"My first childhood, blown-away experience, was 'Lawrence of Arabia,' " said Luhrmann, who grew up in a tiny town in New South Wales where his father ran a gas station and a movie theater. "I was struck by the raw power of landscape films, where landscape is used to amplify the emotions of the story."

"Australia's" ragtag cattle drive team includes Nullah and several other Aboriginals, as Carney and Fletcher try to sabotage their effort to get to Darwin. When the government comes after Nullah, Drover and Lady Ashley must confront their personal relationship.

Have they become a family? Are they willing to make a sacrifice for one another and Nullah? Are their emotional wounds ready to heal?

At first, Luhrmann pictured Heath Ledger, who died of a drug overdose earlier this year, as Drover, but decided he was too young. Fox pushed Brad Pitt as the film's star; Luhrmann wanted Russell Crowe, only to have the actor leave the movie over his reduced compensation, famously saying, "I don't do charity work for major studios."

Jackman initially had been cast as Fletcher. Because the Australian actor's "X-Men" films had been huge hits for Fox, the studio supported Luhrmann's moving Jackman into the lead role.

With the cast mostly in place, Luhrmann and his team had to figure out how to film a sprawling story that included a stampede, the bombing of Darwin, weeks of location filming miles from any major city and a severe western climate both beautiful and unforgiving.

"With Baz, every breath is like a new idea," said producer G. Mac Brown, who was charged with shaving production days and the budget by a third. Luhrmann helped convince the Australian government to more than triple its local production rebate to 40%, but that still wasn't always enough.

"So you have to allow a way for the film to keep growing and changing," Brown said.

A few months before filming began, Brown was in Sydney shopping for cows. The film wanted short-horned cattle that were not only more accurate to the 1940s but also wilder.

"Every day, it's something new," Brown said, "that you've never done or even thought of before."

'Show and tell' for filmmakers' vision

Luhrmann's movies may be distinctly his own, but he's also a willing collaborator -- the director's personal assistant, Schuyler Weiss, shares a songwriting credit on "Australia's" Elton John song -- and that all-for-one spirit was tangible in late 2006 on Stage 5 at Fox Studios Australia.

A few weeks before production began, Luhrmann and Martin invited more than 100 "Australia" crew members, from hat makers to accountants, for a "show and tell" in which they laid out their vision for the film.

The cavernous stage was filled with set drawings, costume sketches and location photography. Martin presented a slide show of her design ideas, and included a Marlboro cigarette ad. "These are the iconic images," she said, "that we are fighting against." Familiar history, in other words, needed to be reinvented.

Luhrmann, dressed in green cords, a white shirt and narrow tie, tried to prepare everyone for what lay ahead. Full of energy and willing to share stories about how out of place he sometimes felt among real cowboys, Luhrmann started revving up his troops.

"It's going to be hard, because the ambition of the film is absolutely enormous," he said. "It is every single person's responsibility in this room to directly contribute to making this story as good as it can be. If we can just put a little bit of beauty in the world, it will be worthwhile."

Bryan Brown was impressed by what he had seen, but knew what lay ahead would not be easy. "It sounds like a great movie," the actor said. "But it will take 10 years to make."

To Luhrmann, who hasn't yet decided what he will do next, it only felt that long. His production delays were the talk of Hollywood.

"Calamity followed me everywhere," he said.

Director Stephen Daldry waited two months for Kidman to finish "Australia" so she could star in his adaptation of "The Reader," but then he had to recast the role with Kate Winslet when Kidman became pregnant as filming drew to a close. After test audiences gave mixed verdicts, Luhrmann struggled deciding whether the Drover lives or dies at the film's conclusion.

"It was just relentless and endless and everything was harsh and hard," Luhrmann said of the production. "Psychologically, it was just really hard to get up every morning and lead, to hold up people's spirits."

But the film's hopeful message, Luhrmann added, is what kept him going, and he's especially pleased that a movie about half-castes is arriving just weeks after the United States elected a mixed-race man its president.

"The film is ultimately about family, but not a nuclear family," the director said. "And family is defined by those you love and those who love you back. That is what it's about -- that in these times, we come together, through love."

[MacGuffin]

If the film was more like its third act, then it would have easily made my top ten list. Seriously, if you have doubts through the first two acts, the final one makes up for it. The film overall has more to like about it than not; for every scene misstep, a couple of other scenes make up for it. But the film lacks the draw of the classic films that it's trying to emulate. I would not put it on the level of Gone With The Wind or African Queen or even Out Of Africa. And this is due a few key lacking elements. Kidman's character is so cliche; it's another fish-out-of-stuffed-shirt-water character of the woman so used to her high society living that she's so out of her element in the rough terrain. You can guess if she's able to adapt by the end. Also lacking what the aforementioned films, and even Baz's own Moulin Rouge, had is the scope of the romance. And I feel this is due to the addition of the child. He's a core part of the story, and one not annoying, but it takes away from those two trying to work out their love for one another. Also, a sense an overall adventure falls away. But the film is beautifully shot and it does do well by its dramatic storytelling. And it's when the characters have made their arcs at the end that the film does warrant a title of 'epic.'

[cinemanarchist]

If the film was more like its third act, then it would have easily made my top ten list. Seriously, if you have doubts through the first two acts, the final one makes up for it. The film overall has more to like about it than not; for every scene misstep, a couple of other scenes make up for it. But the film lacks the draw of the classic films that it's trying to emulate. I would not put it on the level of Gone With The Wind or African Queen or even Out Of Africa. And this is due a few key lacking elements. Kidman's character is so cliche; it's another fish-out-of-stuffed-shirt-water character of the woman so used to her high society living that she's so out of her element in the rough terrain. You can guess if she's able to adapt by the end. Also lacking what the aforementioned films, and even Baz's own Moulin Rouge, had is the scope of the romance. And I feel this is due to the addition of the child. He's a core part of the story, and one not annoying, but it takes away from those two trying to work out their love for one another. Also, a sense an overall adventure falls away. But the film is beautifully shot and it does do well by its dramatic storytelling. And it's when the characters have made their arcs at the end that the film does warrant a title of 'epic.'

I felt like the film was equally split into two halves and either half could have been made into a separate movie but I much preferred the humor and scope of the first half. Kidman and Jackman were both terrific and the young boy was decent (at first I couldn't understand him, then I found him adorable and by the end I was hoping he would shut up because the narration was just so overwrought.) Could have done with fewer swirling aerial shots in the first half hour, mainly because the landscape was fairly unattractive until after the rains came so I would have saved those shots for that point in the film. Still curious what the other five endings Luhrmann had in mind were and I actually liked the way this ended at the VERY end but there is a climactic scene that I think was the main part that would have been altered with a different ending and that scene was a little too melodramatic for my taste. I also don't understand all the critics saying this was like Luhrmann set to 11 because I felt he actually used a decent amount of restraint here and I thought the film was better for it. Three hours was not needed to tell this story and it felt like Luhrmann just thought that because of the scope of the film it deserved to be that long but I was having a good enough time that I didn't mind at all.

[MacGuffin]

Baz Luhrmann Talks to IGN
Director chats up his latest release, Australia.
by Christopher Monfette

IGN recently had the opportunity to travel down-under – well, not really – to chat up Australia director Baz Luhrmann about the DVD release of his period-piece epic. Luhrmann talks openly about his cinematic influences, as well as a possible return to the musical genre sometime in the near future.

IGN: Australia is obviously the product of your love of classic cinema, illustrating a number of visual and tonal references. What films, modern or classic, inspired your creation of this movie?

LURHMANN: I came from a very small town where my father ended up running the local cinema. I found myself in a kind of Australian Cinema Paradiso, watching reruns of films like Lawrence of Arabia, Giant and Gone With The Wind. These films offered comedy, romance, action, drama all in the one experience. This kind of movie, along with the musical left a grand impression on me.

In the two years before we rolled camera, my wife Catherine Martin and I and our whole creative circus set about evolving a cinematic style or language in which the required broad comedy, action, romance, drama and social comment could play in the one movie. For inspiration we drew on classic cinema. One might easily spot the reference to African Queen as Drover and Sarah travel out to the cattle station. As the drama kicks in and Sarah discovers the dastardly subplot the film may feel more like Giant. And then as our heroes fight the cattle barons, pushing 1500 head of cattle across the unforgiving landscape we call upon John Ford's Red River and David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia as our guide. Through the centre of the film, when it becomes more grounded and naturalistic; the cinematic language evokes Out of Africa. With the almost operatic conclusion one might feel the faint echoes of Gone with the Wind, Shane and with just a pinch of From Here to Eternity. In addition you would see references to War and Peace, Casablanca and Doctor Zhivago.

IGN: As a filmmaker making a film about one's home country, do you feel more at ease throughout the process, or a greater sense of responsibility to get it right?

LURHMANN: Although I attended to this as a pure act of filmmaking there's no doubt that one of the reasons I started on this creative journey, what I sought to get out of it, no matter what the outcome, was a more direct understanding of my country and I've been privileged enough to be on this journey with my wife and my new born children, close associates and friends.

Certainly it's ever present in the back of your mind, that such a high profile Australian movie was going to leave a very big impression in our homeland for better or for worse and yes this does bring with it an added sense of responsibility.

IGN: There was a pronouncement by Hugh Jackman at the recent Oscars – as well as your own involvement in the musical number there – that musicals are no longer dead. One might attribute this, in part, to the prior success of Moulin Rouge. Would you like to return to the genre and is there a specific film or idea you'd like to develop?

LURHMANN: I am passionate about musical cinema and although I haven't committed to my next project I certainly have many musical ideas in mind and hope to be involved in one way or another in the not too distant future.

IGN: Many of the films you've made have been, in essence, period films. What draws you back, again and again, to providing a stylized, modern affectation to films rooted in history?

LURHMANN: I touch upon this in the answer above with the experience I had with classic cinema growing up and though I actively seek to challenge and surprise myself in terms of the work I do I somehow suspect that the elements you mention are intrinsic to my personal cinematic likes and the person that I am. In a way these are the two things that I try to serve most in making creative choices.

IGN: Can you talk in general about what's next for you as a filmmaker?

LURHMANN: I have a room of many projects and ideas and I know I'll never have a chance to realise them all before my time on this planet is up. So I select projects that relate specifically to where I am in a given moment in my life's journey. Having come to the conclusion of the epic experience of making the epic 'Australia' I feel I have to take a moment, take stock and honestly ask the question 'what story or project best serves at this time?'. It's a decision I am trying to avoid making at least for a few months.

[polkablues]

So my girlfriend and I got the blu-ray of this from Netflix back in February, kept putting it off and putting it off, and finally watched it last night. It was fascinatingly bad. Every choice felt like a misstep. For a movie that was clearly aiming to emulate the classical Hollywood style, it failed at the basic grammar of where to put the camera. It was so weirdly structured, we kept checking the time to see where we were in the movie. Everything felt awkward; it was like listening to a pop song with a 5/4 time signature. And I wanted that goddamn kid to die so bad. Easily the worst movie I've seen in the last few years.

[matt35mm]

Sounds just like a review of The Lovely Bones, except that the kid did die in that one.

[squints]

this is funny, as soon as i get to work today the tv at work is on starz and its playing this f'in movie. i didn't even need sound to know it was awful.