Monthly Archives: April 2013

The Tribeca Film Festival – Robert De Niro’s Tribeca mission

Formed just after 9/11, Robert De Niro’s Tribeca film festival helped New York get back on its feet. The veteran actor tells Ed Pilkington about his love for the city, restoring King of Comedy, and how Twitter could redefine cinema – The Guardian,

‘New York has given me everything’ … De Niro.

Robert De Niro has been thinking in recent days about the concept of longevity. The
actor has been in the business of making films so long – his debut on the big screen
was in 1965 – that his work is now being restored.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. Restored, huh? It’s kind of amazing,” he says,
sitting in his production hub in downtown Manhattan, the Tribeca Film Centre.

The restoration in question is the painstaking return to its original glory of King of
Comedy, Martin Scorsese’s dark 1982 satire on modern celebrity obsession, with its
famous punchline: “Better to be king for a night, than schmuck for a lifetime.” The
movie has been digitally remastered from the original camera negatives and will be
shown later this month on the closing night of this year’s Tribeca film festival, with
both De Niro and Scorsese in attendance.

“Rupert Pupkin, now what film was that one?” De Niro quips, feigning to have
forgotten the part of the self-delusional would-be standup he played 30 years ago. “I
haven’t seen the movie in at least 20 years, and I want to see it – it will bring back
memories not just of what I did in the movie, but of that period in my life,” he says.

King of Comedy will be one of the highlights of the 2013 Tribeca film festival, the
celebration of New York and its movie-making tradition that De Niro co-founded in

2001 when the dust of the fallen Twin Towers had barely settled over Ground Zero.
The first festival, in 2002, was framed as a form of economic stimulus, the aim being
to attract visitors back to lower Manhattan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

And it succeeded. Each year the festival has expanded, growing international
tentacles until it can now claim to have screened more than 1,400 films in 80
countries, including through its Arabic offshoot, Doha-Tribeca. In the process, it has
comfortably achieved its initial objective, generating about $750m (£488m) worth of
economic activity for New York.

But therein lies a conundrum. New York City is back on its feet, as seen graphically in
the form of the looming 1 World Trade Centre, the 1,776ft skyscraper nearing
completion in Ground Zero just eight blocks away from De Niro’s HQ.

The city’s revival poses De Niro, together with his co-founder and producer of the
Tribeca film festival Jane Rosenthal, with a fundamental question: in its 12th year,
what is the festival’s purpose now that its initial reason for being has been met and
superseded?

De Niro says it remains his ambition to make the festival “part of the tradition of
New York, part of the fabric; that I hope will be what it will be in years to come, and
it’s partially that now.” His love of the city, and of its cinematic history, remains
undiminished: “It’s given me everything. I was born and raised in New York,
I studied acting here; I love to travel, but I’m a New Yorker.”

He might have added that the city also gave him his champion, fellow New Yorker
Scorsese, who conjured many of De Niro’s greatest performances in Mean Streets
(1973), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980),
Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991) and Casino (1995).

De Niro recalls how he and “Marty” stumbled upon the look for Pupkin. “We were
driving along Broadway, and we saw this shop with mannequins with flashy clothes
like you’d find in places in Vegas. We jumped out of the cab and went in the store and
I said to Marty, ‘What do you think?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, let’s take it.’ And we took the
whole thing off the mannequin, even the hairstyle.”

Tribeca film festival’s struggles with its purpose in life have been exacerbated by the
proliferation of movie festivals around the world and the increasingly clogged nature
of the annual calendar. Tribeca, dubbed “Hollywood on the Hudson”, suffers from its
timing so soon after the Oscars, which deprives it of the pre-Oscar buzz enjoyed by
Venice, say, or Toronto.

Rosenthal accepts that this is a problem. “It does make things more difficult, and
maybe if we have completed a certain mission then we would look to change the
dates. It’s been 12 years, so maybe it’s time to think about it.”

Like any festival, De Niro and Rosenthal are also having to grapple with the challenge
of the internet and the opportunities it offers. This year they are extending across the
Atlantic a films-on-demand experiment that has already proved successful in the US,
exposing independent movies to a far greater audience.

The technique will be rolled out to the UK from 16 April, with an initial slate of six of
the festival’s films being offered for an eight-week run on pay-per-view through
Virgin Media and digital platforms such as iTunes, PlayStation and Xbox. The
selected titles include Greetings from Tim Buckley, a feature that explores the
relationship between the father-and-son musicians Tim and Jeff Buckley; and Fresh
Meat, a horror-comedy that profiles a gang of dysfunctional criminals who make
the less-than-ideal decision to kidnap a family of cannibals.

As a further foray into the world of digital film-making at this year’s festival, there
will be a tieup with Twitter’s Vine to launch a six-second film competition. This will
be a competition for films lasting six seconds and posted through Twitter’s
#6secfilms hashtag.

Can that really be true? Robert De Niro, an actor whose attention to detail is
legendary, lending his name to six-second films? “I think it’s great,” he protests. “It’s
pure image, and I like that. It seems to me a good exercise at finding a beginning, a
middle and an end. I’m thinking, maybe I need to do it for myself.”

The Tribeca film festival opens on 17 April. Details: tribecafilm.com/festival

Sunday 14 April 2013 BST

Will Baz deliver on The Great Gatsby

Whether you hated or adored Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia, are you looking forward to his remake of The Great Gatsby?

My sense is that Baz’s fans are eager to embrace his reinterpretation of the classic F.
Scott Fitzgerald novel, which was adapted on screen most memorably by director
Jack Clayton in the 1974 movie which starred Robert Redford and Mia Farrow.

But will folks who haven’t been enamoured of Luhrmann’s previous, highly theatrical
efforts, or those who loved the novel and earlier screen versions accept his transition
to a more conventionally-framed romantic drama set in the 1920s, albeit in 3D?

Luhrmann’s extravaganza (reported budget $127 million) opens in Australia on May
30 after its US debut on May 10 and the international premiere opening the Cannes
Film Festival on May 15. There seems to be genuine excitement among executives at
Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow, the co-producers, who saw a 2D cut of the
movie in Los Angeles last month.

That optimism is backed up by one member of the crew who tells SBS Film, “I think
it’s the real deal. It might turn a lot of heads. It’s an unusual Baz Luhrmann film, the
straightest and most normal film he’s ever done.” But he adds a caveat, “For those
who aren’t fans of Baz Luhrmann, I’m not sure this will change their minds.”

That person has seen the 2D version but quotes a colleague who has seen the 3D
rendering as saying “it’s a smack in the face,” meaning a positive impact. The
technician describes the performance of Joel Edgerton as the wealthy Tom
Buchanan, whose wife Daisy (Carey Mulligan) has an affair with Jay Gatsby
(Leonardo DiCaprio), as a “tour de force”.

Insiders say one of the most impressive scenes is a confrontation in New York’s Plaza
Hotel where all the principal characters gather to escape the “heat” of the Buchanan
house. However, some of the CGI-created shots were described as “painterly” and not
realistic, similar to the fake scenes of Darwin in Baz’s Australia.

The on-screen chemistry between DiCaprio’s Gatsby and Mulligan’s Daisy is said to

have quite a frisson, far more credible than the romance between Nicole Kidman and
Hugh Jackman’s characters in Luhrmann’s last film. One sequence in which the two
actors ad-libbed, with spontaneous laughter, impressed the crew, as did another
scene in which Gatsby throws his coloured shirts around his bedroom.

Baz and Leo reportedly disagreed at times over how the actor should play Gatsby,
hardly an unusual occurrence on a film set when highly-strung creative types don’t
see eye to eye.

Some of the more mature crew members watched Clayton’s movie during the
production. A few of their younger colleagues tried to sit through the
Redford/Farrow version but gave up after 20 minutes, possibly bored by the
filmmaking style of the 1970s.

Elizabeth Debicki is said to be a knockout as golfer Jordan Baker, who is pursued by
the book’s narrator Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), a bond trader and former Yale
classmate of Tom’s.

Veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan, who plays Jewish mafia head Meyer Wolfsheim,
gave a glowing account of his experiences during filming. “The sets were an eye
opener for me,” the Indian actor wrote on his blog.

“Grand and colossal in its presence and opulence… All about was like an imagination
fructifying to reality. The sincerity of all that worked, including the main stars, the
earnestness of the director, his crew and the unimaginable detail of authenticity, all
added up to an experience which when I returned to my room, could not fathom!!… I
can say that in my 44 years and 180 films I had never worked in such a set up.”

But the expectations among many filmgoers in the US and here are, to put it mildly,
are mixed. When Deadline.com posted the latest trailer, the reactions were sharply
divided.

The positive comments ranged from “No other word for it – sensational!,” and “Not
sure I want to see it in 3D, but this looks spectacular” to “Leo’s a hard worker and
this seems to be a really creative for him and Baz. Pumped!”

The naysayers were vitriolic. ”An overblown, confusing and boring movie made from
the most overrated piece of fiction of the last century. Sounds like a winner!” said
one.

“This will end up exactly like every other Baz Luhrmann film – an indecipherable hot
mess. All style, no substance,” opined another sceptic. “Awful would be too kind…
poor Scott … another film travesty of his great American novel! So, so sad,” said
another.

So what might the romantic drama earn at Australian cinemas? Well, for all its detractors and carping critics, Australia raked in $37.5 million, a fine result, although Rupert Murdoch admitted 20th Century Fox ended up making a small profit on the film thanks to the Australian taxpayer via the 40 percent producer rebate.

The Gatsby remake is said to skew heavily towards females, which might limit its box
office potential slightly. Roadshow is banking that the film, which runs nearly two
and a half hours, will appeal to Baz’s admirers who enjoyed Strictly Ballroom,
Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!, if not Australia quite so much, as well as the
legion of DiCaprio fans and those who read the novel.

On the upside, no other female-oriented mainstream film is opening in June so
Gatsby has a lot of clean air. Maybe $25 million-$30 million is achievable.

Aaddendum: Box Office Mojo/Wikipedia on Baz’s global takings [in $US, not
counting DVD etc]:

1992 Strictly Ballroom: Budget: $3m – US + Aust Box Office: $33m.

1996 Romeo + Juliet: Budget: $14.5m – Global Box Office: $147m

2001 Moulin Rouge: Budget: $52.5m – Global Box Office: $179m

2008 Australia: Budget: $130.5m [but $78m after Australian Government rebates] –
Global Box Office: $211m.

Don Groves / 15 April 2013 / SBS FILM

Matchbox Pictures’ New Series ‘Nowhere Boys’ Starts Shooting

The ABC fantasy series aimed at young audiences has just commenced production in Melbourne.

After producing two of the finest local small screen moments in the past two years with The Slap and Robert Connolly’s Underground: The Julian Assange Story,

Matchbox Pictures – and the projects they announce – are garnering serious buzz.

And the local production house has just announced a new 13-part TV series for ABC3
titled Nowhere Boys, which has just begun shooting in Melbourne.

Created and produced by Tony Ayres, the fantasy action-adventure series follows
four teenage boys who get lost in the forest and discover, when they return home,
that they are in an alternate world identical to theirs except for one startling
difference – they were never born.

Playing the four lead boys is a fistful of up and coming talent – Joel Lok (who was
nominated for an AFI Award for Best New Talent in Ayres’ The Homesong Stories),
Dougie Baldwin (who will be seen in ABC1’s upcoming comedy series Upper Middle
Bogan), Rahart Sadiqzai (Neighbours) and newcomer Matt Testro.

Behind the camera, the project has assembled experienced directorial talent in Daina
Reid (Paper Giants: Magazine Wars, Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War, Offspring, I
Love You Too),Peter Carstairs (September), Alister Grierson (Sanctum, Kokoda) and
Craig Irvin (Tethered), who has also been a writer on the series.

It sounds like promising stuff, especially given the fact that young adult local drama
is a genre that’s sadly lacking on our screen.

Further tapping into the teen market, the series will also encompass a unique online
transmedia project, which will be rolled out to coincide with its runtime on
television. Online participants will take on the persona of a fifth lost boy in a
narrative that will run parallel to the TV series with both storylines set to converge in
a dramatic twist.

Nowhere Boys is set to screen late 2013 or early 2014.

by Cara Nash | April 10, 2013 | FILMINK

MIPTV: Aereo or Not, It’s All About Cable Now

The global success of cable shows from “The Walking Dead” to “Pawn Stars” is
pushing the networks to change course.

CANNES – It’ll be up to the courts — and News Corp. — to decide whether Fox will
really go off the air and become a subscription-only service, as News Corp. President
Chase Carey this week said it might if online streaming services such as Barry Diller’s
Aereo aren’t made illegal. But whatever distribution model wins out in the rapidly
shifting TV world, it’s clear that when it comes to content, cable is king.

It used to be that MIPTV, the world’s biggest television market taking place in
Cannes this week, was all about the networks. Global broadcasters swarmed the
Croisette buzzing about the new season of CBS’ Criminal Minds and The Big Bang
Theory or ABC’s Desperate Housewives. This year, the shows generating the most
heat on the Cote d’Azur are cable fare: A&E’s creepy pre-Psycho horror tale Bates
Motel, FX’s political drama Tyrant, for which Ang Lee is shooting the pilot, or
returning non-broadcast hits like AMC’s The Walking Dead and Showtime’s
Homeland. The only new network show getting similar attention is Hannibal, NBC’s
criminal procedural which has the look and feel of an AMC or HBO series.

The traditionally conservative international marketplace, it appears, is opening up to
cutting edge U.S. drama. “We are seeing the demand is there for higher-end drama
programming in a way it wasn’t before,” says John Morayniss, CEO eOne Television
Group whose productions include AMC’s Hell on Wheels, SyFy’s Haven and

DirectTV’s Rogue. “The big free-TV networks still like those big procedurals but
because there are more platforms, cable networks and digital channels in every
territory that are trying to distinguish themselves, they are all looking for something
different, for the cable-type shows, shows that would see on HBO, on Showtime, on
AMC or FX.”

Even Europe’s free-to-air channels, traditionally risk-adverse, are getting edgier.
Homeland is a hit on Germany’s Sat.1 and Channel 4 in the U.K. The Walking Dead
has sold to 120 countries and pulls in audiences not only on pay and digital networks
but on wide-reach broadcasters including Ireland’s RTE, Britain’s Channel 5 and
German commercial net RTL2.

“I think the TV story of 2013 is going to be the effect that those cable shows —
Walking Dead, Homeland, Sons of Anarchy — are going to have effect the broadcast
landscape,” says Bert Salke, president of 20th Century Fox’s cable production arm
Fox 21. “The best rated drama show in American right now is The Walking Dead, a
show that ostensibly is available to far fewer people than a CBS, NBC, Fox or ABC
show but it’s frankly killing… I live with a woman who programs a network (wife
Jennifer Nicholson Salke, entertainment president at NBC). I know she feels
compelled to keep up with that and you are going to see, I think, this is going to be a
watermark year for changes the networks are going to have to make”.

Another major shift on the international side is the rise of scripted reality. It’s no
secret that the off-network success of shows such as A&E’s Duck Dynasty, BET’s
Real Husbands of Hollywood or TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo have driven
affiliate budgets away from syndication deals with the networks towards investments
in non-fiction. “You can get five reality hits for the price of one network syndication
deal — and they’ll probably beat it in the ratings too,” commented one reality TV
producer in Cannes.

Now those same reality hits are going global. Geordie Shore, MTV Networks
Europe’s English take on the Jersey Shore, is already into its fourth season. Pawn
Stars U.K., a Brit version of History channel’s factual blockbuster set in a family-
owned pawn shop on the Welsh/English border, goes out this autumn. “You’re seeing
these cable formats being spun off as original series internationally — the format
business is becoming more cable driven and not just finished tapes,” says John
Pollak, president of independent production and distribution group Electus
International.

A sign of the times was seeing Kevin Hart, creator and star of BET’s Real Husbands
of Hollywood, at MIPTV to promote the scripted reality series to global broadcasters.
“This is the first show BET has ever had that has sold internationally. I’m in Cannes,
France selling this show. It’s ground breaking,” Hart told The Hollywood Reporter.

As the cable networks break new ground globally, the broadcasters are feeling the
world shift beneath their feet. And over the Aereo.

4/9/2013 by Scott Roxborough – THR

Movie money an easy target but critics miss mark

So why are taxpayers spending more than $20 million to get Walt Disney Studios to
shoot a blockbuster movie in Australia? Isn’t this just throwing cash – not much more
than a bribe – at a hugely profitable Hollywood studio?

Federal Labor backbencher Ed Husic is not alone in questioning why the government
is handing so much money to attract 20,000 Leagues under the Sea – the latest

movie based on Jules Verne’s novel about Captain Nemo’s adventures – instead of
funding hospitals.

After all, the movie will have no more cultural connection to Australia than some of
the big Hollywood films that shot in Sydney when the dollar was half the value – the
Matrix trilogy, two Star Wars episodes and Mission: Impossible 2.

Like so much involving Hollywood, shooting 20,000 Leagues is a numbers game.

Depending on how the movie is set up and who stars in it – Channing Tatum seems
more likely than Brad Pitt but both actors have other films lined up – it is expected to
have a budget of at least $200 million.

Federal and state subsidies could total more than $50 million, when you add the
$21.6 million grant to a tax rebate of 16.5 per cent (the ”location offset” for big-
budget foreign movies), plus whatever NSW, Victoria and Queensland offer to get the
work.

In round terms, even if the star gets a salary of $20 million, the director, producers
and other foreign cast get $15 million and post-production goes overseas, 20,000
Leagues could spend $130 million to $150 million in Australia.

These government incentives will bring Hollywood money into the country for a
movie likely to shoot for six to eight months.

It will pay wages to 200 to 400 crew and cast on a typical filming day, plus fees for
studio, facilities and equipment hire, construction, catering, transport and
accommodation.

Everyone who works on the movie will pay tax and spend their earnings as they go
about their lives.

When he launched The Wolverine, Hugh Jackman estimated that a $100 million
movie immediately returned $20 million to the government in tax revenue.

Without 20,000 Leagues, some of these crew members will take jobs outside the film
industry and others will head overseas to work but many will be under-employed or
unemployed.

Economics professor John Quiggin, from the University of Queensland, argues the
$21.6 million would be better spent on commercial Australian films than a movie
largely set underwater with a US star.

That grant would support just one or two medium-budget Australian films. But
everyone getting paid more on a Hollywood movie helps local filmmaking.

On 20,000 Leagues, the grant leverages up production worth at least $130 million,
provides work for crew and actors, stops facilities and equipment companies making
cuts for lack of business and develops skills that support Australian filmmaking.

True, it’s not producing the next Red Dog or The Sapphires and does nothing for
hospital patients. But it does create jobs and bring economic benefits.

Some of the US-backed movies shot in Australia

The Great Gatsby (2013)
Director: Baz Luhrmann. Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan
(above)

The Wolverine (2013)
Director: James Mangold. Stars: Hugh Jackman, Will Yun Lee

I, Frankenstein (2013)
Director: Stuart Beattie. Stars: Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Miranda Otto

The Lego Movie (2014)
Directors: Phil Lord, Chris Miller, Chris McKay.
Voiced by Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Ferrell

Sanctum (2011)
Director: Alister Grierson. Stars: Richard Roxburgh, Ioan Gruffudd, Rhys Wakefield

Happy Feet and Happy Feet Two (2006 and 2011)
Director: George Miller. Voiced by Elijah Wood, Robin Williams

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
Director: Michael Apted. Stars: Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010)
Director: Troy Nixey. Stars: Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010)
Director: Zack Snyder. Voiced by: Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, David Wenham

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
Director: Gavin Hood. Stars: Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Ryan Reynolds

Comment: Garry Maddox – SMH – April 6, 2013

A legend among the masters

Parky delves deep again to discover the key to greatness: Parkinson: Masterclass is
on ABC1, Sunday at 10pm.

He’s 78 and has been at this game for the better part of 60 years, and Sir Michael
Parkinson says what held true for a young, green Yorkshire newspaperman all those
decades ago still holds him in good stead today.

”Parky” may since have commanded stages more impressive, and conversed with
subjects of often staggering fame and accomplishment, but the rules of engagement
have never changed. He still sees himself as a journalist, asking questions and telling
a story.

”My entire life, that’s what’s guided me … everything you do is about that,” Parkinson
says in an interview from London.

”You learn how to interview when you first become a journalist, that’s what you have
to do. And I don’t know how people who have come from elsewhere other than
journalism manage in a sense, because interviewing is the basis of all journalism. If
you’ve learnt that at an early age, or absorbed that from an early age, it strikes me
that you have a better chance of succeeding than if you haven’t.

”I always say that the first time I think I really understood what might be needed,
apart from asking a question, is how you establish a relationship. Very early in my
career, I went to a murder scene in a village in Yorkshire where nobody wanted to
speak to you, they were hostile. And I thought then that it’s as much about
establishing a contact as anything else. You begin to learn about that, about how to
get people to trust you. It’s one of the most important lessons you can learn.”

Famously, the young Parkinson learned it young, then honed it, and eventually
turned his talents as inquisitor, conversationalist and listener into a storied career.

The description ”talk show host” scarcely does him justice – particularly considering
that six years after his 36-year run in that genre ended, he is returning to our screens
again – still asking questions, though in a somewhat different format.

Masterclass – commissioned by Sky in Britain, but airing on the ABC in Australia – is
a show Parkinson says had long been in the back of his mind. There are six episodes
with only one guest a show. The concept: ”To take somebody who’s very, very good at
what they do and explore as much how they become what they are, as [to explore]
where they came from. You go through all of them, they’re all people with fascinating
stories and, more than that, who stand at the top of their tree in terms of
achievement.”

It’s an eclectic line-up: War Horse author Michael Morpurgo, jazz musician Jamie
Cullum, British portrait artist Jonathan Yeo, war photographer Don McCullin,
Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang and Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta.

For Parkinson, such encounters with masters of their craft are nothing new. In his
decades as the clipboard-wielding, ear-tugging maestro of his talk show, conversing
with legends became his stock-in-trade: from Muhammad Ali to Shane Warne, from
Lauren Bacall to Madonna.

”The great thing about the job was being able to meet my heroes, and not being let
down by too many of them, either,” he says.

”I mean, to be able to meet someone like Orson Welles is a privilege.

”And Gloria Swanson, a great star of the silent era – not quite aware of the modern
world, she was a wonderful 80-year-old innocent. And Miss Bacall. To have lusted
after her as a spotty child … it was wonderful of course, dreams come true.

”But you try to do the same job with all of them, no matter what you feel about them.
And then there are people you don’t like. You think, ‘Christ, I don’t like you too
much,’ but you do the same job. It’s something that you chose to do and you’re very
lucky to have been allowed to do it.”

Regrets? The giants who eluded him: Frank Sinatra – ”He would have been the one” –
and Katharine Hepburn.

”They were the two, about the only two – but that’s not bad.”

Parkinson says that with a chuckle, still in good humour and, he says, good health,
only two years shy of his ninth decade. He has no plans to retire and says it’s a
popular misconception that he’s been twiddling his thumbs since his talk show ended
in 2007.

”I’ve had a very productive six years since I finished the talk show, working all the
time – radio, television and writing,” he says.

And besides, he jokes, those regular jaunts to Australia to visit family, friends and the
nation’s major cricket grounds don’t pay for themselves.

”I just need to earn as much money as I can to get to Australia to watch the cricket –
that’s my ambition, my drive, that’s what keeps me alive.”

Neil McMahon – SMH – April 11, 2013

Biggs’ shoes to fill in an alien land

Sheridan Smith and Daniel Mays play Charmian and Ronnie Biggs in the real-life
story of the woman who fell for an outlaw train robber.

If the powers that be at British production house ITV had prevailed, the Australian
part of its mini-series Mrs Biggs, about the woman behind the legendary Great Train
Robber Ronnie Biggs, would have been filmed in South Africa.

Given the superb result, which traces the Biggs’ life on the run through the outback
and the familiar streets of Adelaide and Melbourne in the 1960s and ’70s with a local
supporting cast, the idea that South African actors might have been hired to attempt
Australian accents just to save a few pounds seems preposterous.

But according to actor Daniel Mays, who plays Ronnie in the five-part drama, only
the persistent protestations of British screenwriter Jeff Pope saved the project from
becoming a joke.

”Jeff Pope was really adamant that [the Biggs] fled to Australia and that should be
the place where we did it,” Mays says on the phone from London, where he is
appearing in Arthur Wing Peniro’s Trelawny of the Wells.

”All of those Australian actors in smaller parts gave it an authenticity and a real
quality that comes through. I think the Australian shoot has made it the show that it
is. In television they’re always trying to cut money, aren’t they? If you want to do
something properly you have to fight tooth and nail to try and get what you want.”

Like his dapper, self-exiled alias, 35-year-old Mays had never set foot in Australia
until fate brought him here. After filming the last English scene on freezing Blackpool
beach, Mays took the longest flight he had experienced to arrive in what he describes
as an ”alien land”.

”It was a complete culture shock,” he says of driving across the outback for two days.

”The Australian shoot became incredibly epic and the landscape opened up, which
was really great for the story and the characters. I can imagine in the ’60s there must
have been this amazing feeling, particularly for Ronnie, that they were so far away
and this was a chance to start again and wipe the slate clean.”

Before researching the role of one of Britain’s most notorious escaped criminals,
which included extensive conversations with the real Charmian Biggs who lives in
Melbourne and was a consultant on the production, Mays subscribed to the urban
legend of Biggs as an outlaw hero rather than the self-loathing fugitive who emerges
in the series.

”In Britain, we only know the tabloid Ronnie Biggs, the guy lording it up in Rio and
sticking his fingers up to the establishment.

”To a certain extent, he lived up to that caricature in order to survive. The great thing
about the length of the show is we were able to really evolve the character. You first
meet Ronnie and he is a petty crook with the gift of the gab and he wears a suit to
work even though he works on a building site. You see him chatting Charmian up on
the train and they fall in love and you see him mellow into family life. He was a great
father and provider but there was another side to him, without question.”

The woman behind the legend impressed Mays. ”I didn’t really know what to expect
because I’d read all the books and seen all the documentaries, in which Charmian
came across as an incredibly astute and intelligent woman, a well-read, an incredibly
powerful woman, and she lived up to that tenfold in the flesh … She was quite taken
aback when we got to the Rio section and I had longer hair and I was wearing blue
contact lenses and the flares. She was just like, ‘It’s quite eerie, Danny, how much you
resemble him’, and she was doing double-takes on the set.”

Mays recalls as ”a bit odd” a train journey to watch an AFL match with Charmian
Biggs. ”She was on the train again with a much younger Ronnie so that was a bit
strange, but her youngest son came and watched the game with us so I got to meet
some of her family and they were all lovely.”

However, not all of Charmian Biggs’ family were initially supportive of the series.

”The youngest son had given Charmian his blessing but it’s such a private and
controversial story. I think they were worried that we not do the story justice, but
once they’d read Jeff Pope’s brilliant scripts and met all the cast and they knew we
had integrity and were telling the story as best we could, then I think they were all
happy to go ahead with it.”

The real Ronnie Biggs and the man charged with portraying his life story never met.
Ronnie now lives in a nursing home in England, and after suffering three strokes, can
only communicate using an alphabet board.

”I think there were a lot of people nervous about me actually meeting him.

”I think he’s surrounded by people still who may have tried to influence the way I
played it, or tried to delve into the scripts and change things, and the great thing
about this story, for me, is the fact that it’s told from Charmian’s point of view. It’s
her last roll of the dice. It was her opportunity to set the record straight, because
there’s been a lot of misconceived ideas about her as well.”

Ultimately, Mays says, it was the love story that drew him to the role, and has made it
difficult to leave behind.

”Every show you do you are in a bubble, but this was weird because I’ve played so
many heavy parts, but this wasn’t a heavy character as such. There was a fun element
to him, but I felt like I was in such a bubble in that project and I found it very difficult
to let go when I’d finished it.

”I think that the key was the believability of that love story. That she would give up
everything and turn her back on the family and up sticks and go all the way out to
Australia.”

Bridget McManus – SMH – April 11, 2013

Mind the (converging) gap…

28 March, 2013 | By Wendy Mitchell.  Screen International UK

The creative and business elements between TV and film appear to be growing ever closer.

Who could have predicted 10 years ago, or even five, that an A-list film director such as David Fincher would be helming a drama series starring Kevin Spacey for an internet-only service? And the resulting project – House of Cards – attracting more attention than most films or traditional TV shows receive?

That’s just one sign of the changing times, in a media world where Mad MenGame of ThronesThe Sopranos and Girls are just as lauded as auteur work on the big screen. For further evidence that the snobbery about TV is being erased from the film world, the highly artistic International Film Festival Rotterdam this year included a programme of TV works; and Sundance and Berlin both screened Jane Campion’s New Zealand TV series Top of the Lake.

I was talking to Warp Films’ Mark Herbert this month about when that company moved into TV with Shane Meadows’ This is England TV show following his same-titled 2006 feature film. Herbert noted that TV in recent years has started to take up more attention in the Warp office among staffers, as well as in meetings with talent, who are happy to move between TV and film.

It’s also a financial consideration to work across both – TV projects can often be greenlit with financing from one or two companies, as opposed to the complicated patchwork of international film co-productions. And the regular income from TV can keep an indie production company buoyant when film financing can take years to piece together.

These are just a few reasons why Screen increasingly covers event-TV productions and other areas of overlap between the film and TV worlds – as content goes multi-platform, the old distinctions aren’t that important.

If you’re making quality stories that people want to see, does it matter if they were intended for the small screen or the big screen?

Those shifts in attitude are one challenge to exhibitors attending CinemaCon. They understandably want to protect the theatrical experience, and the economics of studio blockbusters necessitate they do, but nobody can afford to forget that consumers are also choosing to view on tablets, TV screens and even mobile phones.

The Men Behind the Curtain: A TV Roundtable

The creators of Breaking Bad, Mad Men and Deadwood are this generation’s
auteurs.
Vince Gilligan created Breaking Bad | Matthew Weiner and his Mad Men | David
Milch wrote Deadwood.
In TV, as nowhere else, the writer is king—none more so than those emperors of the
air that control every aspect of an ambitious, ongoing cable drama. The show-runner
is this era’s version of the Creative Titan, and few have done more with the power
than the three GQ recently convened in the Olympian heights of a room at the Soho
House in West Hollywood, to talk deeply about their craft.
The men speak in voices as different as their shows: Matthew Weiner, the man
behind Mad Men, is a high-speed stream of sparkling copy; Vince Gilligan, who
created Breaking Bad, has the straightforward, gracious drawl of a geeky southern
gentleman; and David Milch—who wrote Deadwood, the misbegotten John from
Cincinnati, and Luck, which met an equally early end this spring after the deaths of
three equine cast members—has the baroque gnomic gravity of an archdruid. But
each of these giants expresses, in his distinct way, just how ambitious and deep the
new breed of TV drama has grown.GQ: I think we’ve all gotten used to the idea that television has evolved into its own distinct art form over the past ten years or so, rather than just movies on a small screen.
Matthew Weiner: Seeing movie people trying to get into TV now who don’t
understand that is very interesting.
GQ: What’s the mistake they make?
Matthew Weiner: It’s a different genre. It’s literally comparing a short story to a
poem. Or a play.
GQ: Nowadays nobody would struggle with feeling inferior for working
in television instead of movies, the way someone like The Sopranos’
David Chase once did, right?
Matthew Weiner: Oh, there’s still a hierarchy. Forgetting about remuneration and
public adulation, there’s still a hierarchy in terms of the writer’s Olympic Dream. I
have to warn you, journalism won’t be on this list.
GQ: Thank you for that.
Matthew Weiner: It would start with poetry, then go theater, novel, then film, and
then TV, then maybe radio.
GQ: Why is that still true, when it’s obvious that some of the best work is
being done on TV?
Vince Gilligan: It takes time. It started out when movies were the movies and TV
was this bastard stepchild.
David Milch: The symbol retains its hold long after the substance which the symbol
is supposed to represent has lost its real basis. Look. [pulls a stack of scratch-off
lottery tickets from his pocket] I just stopped and got gas, so, like an idiot, I bought a
bunch of scratch-offs.
[He distributes the tickets. Feverish scratching ensues and continues throughout
lunch.]
Matthew Weiner: If we win, what happens?
David Milch: You keep the money. Please do. What I’m trying to illustrate is that
none of us, thank goodness, needs $10. And yet we willingly submit to the hold the
symbol has on us, associated with luck. In the same way, the mystique of the film
writer holds long after the substance—in which films were a more powerful medium.
That’s not true anymore, but the symbol still has its own autonomous reality.
Matthew Weiner: Part of it is just about scarcity. You can see Jon Hamm thirteen
times a year, and you can see Brad Pitt twice. That in itself creates a magic and a
hierarchy.
GQ: And yet, Vince, you’ve said that Breaking Bad instantly came to you
as a TV show, not as a movie.

Continue reading The Men Behind the Curtain: A TV Roundtable