Gallipoli with Jennifer Kent

16:31Griffin Newman:And, you know, those early weird films, I mean, Picnic and Hanging Rock, I don't know if you have a particular impression of that one. And I know that is sort of, that's such a, you know, totemic one for Aussie cinema. I mean, yeah, it's one of my favorites. I had to make a list for The Age here just today, actually, of my 10 favorite Australian films. Wait, what are your 10 favorite Australian films? Yeah, I want to hear this. This was unrelated to the show? You were doing it for something else? Yeah, yeah. So I had to make a list just because they're asking filmmakers what their favorite. I mean, I kind of hate making lists because filmmaking is not a horse race.

17:11It's exclusionary to make a list, but it's fun too. But I made it. Yeah. So my favorite Australian films today were Wake and Fright, Walkabout, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith. Oh, yeah, that's right.

17:35Griffin Newman:Fred Shepson. Right. Yeah, Skepsy, yeah. Skepsy. And he, yeah, he's, that film made a huge impression on me, especially for The Nightingale, I think. Gallipoli, Mad Max, Snowtown, Ten Canoes, and Chopper. I don't know Ten Canoes. I'm looking at that one. I don't know that one either. Oh my God.

17:57David Sims:Three out of ten slots was Peter Weir.

17:59Griffin Newman:Yeah, right. You had three Peter Weir movies. Yeah. The Last Wave was a film we covered where I think we felt very out of our depth in terms of the sort of like the cultural stuff he's wrestling with there. I loved it dearly. It's a very interesting movie, yes.

18:12David Sims:But you're just kind of aware that there's a bunch of stuff underneath the surface that we don't have the ability to pick up on. But it was fantastic. I think Join the Club in that it is, you know, it's a film about sort of climate, not climate change, but it's an environmental film, I think. And, you know, the Aboriginal presence in it, what I really admired that he did was just let them go. Right. Let them leave what the story is. And I mean, that's what we did in Nightingale as well was, you know, the script was made in full consultation with Palawa people, Tasmanian Aboriginal people. But that's what I think you probably, is that what you're finding a bit confounding?

18:55Like, oh my God, what is this?

18:56Griffin Newman:Not even confounding. I mean, Last Wave, I would say, Last Wave is trying to confound. I mean, both Last Wave and Picnic at Hanging Rock are happy to leave you, you know. In the dark. Yes, a little unsatisfied in terms of explanations and ready to wrestle with it, which is great. Gallipoli's not that at all. Gallipoli's a very sort of straightforward kind of punch in the jaw, which is fine. Like, I mean, that obviously works great.

19:21David Sims:I'd say, I don't think it's that we've been confounded by these early ones, but there's almost like an anti-Dunning-Kruger syndrome thing where the more we try to do some research, either going into the movie or after the fact, then you start to become more aware of how much you don't know, if that makes sense. We're like, oh, let's get a slight bit of cultural context on this. I think that's why I do probably favor his earlier films that were made in Australia. And it's not because they were made in Australia, but there's a tone to them that's very unconventional. And it's really purely from him.

19:57And you really feel that. I mean, in The Last Wave, I love that section where the older Aboriginal character is just saying to Richard Chamberlain's character, who are you? Who are you? Who are you? It keeps saying it over and over. And the first time I watched it, I thought, oh my God, who am I? I was watching at the work. Who the hell am I? Walked to the kitchen, got a cup of tea and thought, who am I? But it's very Aboriginal. It's very authentic in that way. And yeah, my memory of Gallipoli, having not seen it again last night, was that it's a very conventional film that I enjoyed as a kid.

20:42That was my, so it was, you know, it is very conventional, but I would argue that now. It's like the antithesis of Saving Private Ryan, which starts off so gritty and confronting and horrific, and then kind of goes into a much more romantic, everything's going to be all right, we're going to save this one dude who, you know. But this film, Gallipoli, is where mates, everything is going to be okay. Everything's going to be all right. And then nothing is all right. And if you look at the structure of the film, it's like an hour and 46 minutes. And I just clocked at this time, you know, that the first hour and 15 minutes, you don't even sort of realize there's a war.

21:29I mean, you know there's a war because they tell you there's a war. And even when they're in Cairo, they're having fun and it's about their relationship. But it's in that last 30 minutes and then it gets serious all of a sudden. And then in the last 20 minutes, you're like, oh, my God, this is a horror.

21:53Griffin Newman:I mean, it's a horror thing. And because Gallipoli is such a pivotal, you know, I learned about that in school. and like the battle. You know, David grew up in London. I grew up in England. So, you know, you know, World War I, we're all, you know, we were taught all this stuff. Like, I think I thought of this movie as like a sort of definitive accounting of like what happened at Gallipoli and what went wrong and what, you know, about the big battle. And then that's what I love about the movie is that it's not that at all. It's like, they're like, you don't need to understand like what happened here except that it was lunacy.

22:26Griffin Newman:Except that they were just throwing people, you know, over trenches. The point is that it was meaningless. Run that way. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And no one was, everyone was dispensable. No one was going to survive that. I mean, it was an absolute failure in terms of, you know, if you look, I mean, I'm no army historian, but any, most Australians can tell you that that was a failure. And, you know, 130 ,000 plus lives were lost on both sides. And they didn't achieve anything out of it. And that it was a failure

22:57David Sims:before they sent all these boys to die. Like, it was already a conclusive failure, and then there was this completely unnecessary mass sacrifice pushed on top of it. To establish some lore within the history of our show, Jennifer, when you were saying watching this, you view this as a period piece and then go, I can't believe this kind of stuff is still happening today. You know, you were comparing it back to your experience of watching this film for the first time as a 10-year-old. My relationship to war in movies is, like, perpetually frozen at the age of 10, where more so than any other type of film, war movies tend to just make my brain short circuit for that exact reason.

23:35David Sims:I just become like a Pollyanna-ish child where I go, I don't understand how this is real. Right. More so than any fantastical genre film, I just go like, I don't understand how this is still how things get settled. And I become so overwhelmed with anxiety that it's really hard for me to engage with them. And I would say the war films I do like tend to by and large be movies that are not actually war films, quote unquote, as a genre. They are films where war is a backdrop and there is some emotional story being told in front of the war. I did not know what to expect from this film. And I think I expected much like David.

24:11David Sims:This is more a conclusive kind of epic retelling of this important moment in Australian history. And starting and immediately realizing 10 minutes in, oh, they find out the war is happening in the newspaper. There's just this kind of like, did you guys see there's some war happening? Right, right. And the fact that the movie is really structured. And I love the guy who's kind of out in the middle of nowhere and says, oh, is there a war going on? Yeah. And this movie is really structured more as like a boy's adventure film in the sense that it is like these guys going off to join the circus. Right.

24:43David Sims:And the war is kind of. And be friends. These guys are going to go be friends together. But the war is like obstructed. These boys are going off in a journey. They could just as easily be looking for like a hidden pirate ship. You know, it could be like a Goonie style adventure. And they're approaching it with that energy. Yeah, exactly. And there's a word that we, it's very dated. No one says larrikin now, but it's a very Australian word that would be used to describe these guys is, you know, larrikins. That they're up for a bit of fun and they're a bit naughty and, you know, break the rules.

25:16But it's all going to end well with a beer and a joke. And that's why, like, and Snowy. I remember as a kid we all cracked up laughing at David Ague in that role because he was so, such an innocent, you know. And then to, that's when I lost my shit last night watching it was when he was in the tent. He said, they're not giving me food or water. And I just broke down. And from that point on, and even when, I forget the actor's name, But the young guy at the beginning who's fighting Archie on the horse and Archie's running. Remember when they re-create? Oh, yeah. I'm not sure. Let's see. And then they sort of see each other as the bully character's just about to go over the trench and he's an absolute mess.

26:13Griffin Newman:Harold Hopkins. That's that actor. Harold Hopkins. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Right. It's so well constructed, actually, as a script, I feel.

26:22David Sims:It is, yeah. It's brilliantly constructed. And also, I basically, from that moment, like just from the tone and where the story was starting at the beginning, I went, oh, I see what this is. And he is setting me up for like the grand tragedy of this movie, which is these guys aren't thinking of themselves as being in a war movie. They don't understand what war is. Exactly. They think this is like the beginning of some rip-roaring adventure and some coming-of-age tale, which is what this really is. The story of World War I, of course. It's like this is a coming-of-age movie interrupted by the brutality of the world.

26:54Yes. And he delays it and delays it and delays it. Yeah. Till the absolute, till he can't delay it anymore. Even when they rip off all their clothes and they jump into the water and there's shells firing off around them. That's my favorite. Okay, well, that's, I mean, you go, oh, I don't feel good here because, you know, there's this sort of danger that's introduced underwater so brilliantly like that. But then when the guy comes up, he's only had his arm hit and not badly. So you think, oh, good, you know, back to sort of laughing and having fun. But it's just like water ballet. Right. And then when those shells go off.

27:34Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant stuff.

27:38David Sims:Right, because even until that guy is like nicked by the one bullet, even as there are bullets floating past them, it feels like it's just adding to like the beauty and the ambience. Right. You know, it's kind of this like visually ecstatic thing.

27:51Griffin Newman:Well, just the whole thing with her at the beach and there's just like shelling going on. Yeah. And they're just kind of like, yeah, well, that's over there. You know, like, you know, like just that feeling of it's like, yeah, it's close, but it's not here yet. Yeah. Until that night. Until that night. Until that night. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like it's a sneakily sort of untraditional way to tell the story. Like, you know. It is. Yeah. It's not milking the drama and the kind of excitement of war. It's not milking that. No, right. No. Because when war hits, it hits. And that's game over. It's it.

28:27It is. That's the end of them all. Well, not all of them, but almost all.

28:31David Sims:Weir said that part of the big inspiration for this film, part of it was that he went to visit the site and he saw the bullet casings and such that were still there.

28:38Griffin Newman:Well, but it wasn't just that. He saw the case of the, it's Gibson's, Mil Gibson's character gets it in the care package. The beverage. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he saw, I have to find it. Yeah. I will look. We have some research we can. Like he got the bath salts and the cookbook. It's the Eno bottle. Yeah. So is that an existing Australian brand? It's not anymore. Okay. And it was, when I was a kid, it was. It was still a thing. So the audiences watching that would have gone, aha, yeah, okay, I know what that is.

29:15David Sims:That was the big thing he said is he went to visit the site, there were still bullet casings there, and then he saw an Eno bottle, and it was like immediately conjured the idea of, oh, these were just kids. These were kids who were using the same products that I use today. The banality of needing to take like an antacid in the middle of this thing made him conjure the whole thing, which is also weirdly similar to how Last Wave came about. where he talked about envisioning seeing the object in the cave. Oh, sure. It's two consecutive movies where he finds an object and is like, that's a good idea for a movie.

29:50Wow.

29:51Griffin Newman:Have you ever met him or interacted with him, Jennifer? I have no idea. I haven't, unfortunately. I haven't had anything to do with Peter. But I mean, I feel I know him because, not in a kind of stalkery way, but just because as a kid, I saw these films and they're like a dream. They're like a dream that I had. And they're so important to our psyche as Australians, especially people in the arts and in film. So, yeah, he's an absolute master to me. And I would guess that many people don't know who he is in America. Do you think? I think that he's, yes, a little bit on that edge. It's part of why I really wanted to cover him.

30:35Griffin Newman:He's made a lot of very, very well-remembered films that do linger in the cultural consciousness, but he's not thought of as an auteur. I mean, obviously, by film fans, he's very well-regarded, but in the larger public, and he should be more. He should be, yeah. He's got such an interesting and varied filmography, and he worked in every genre, and even when he came to Hollywood, he kind of never had one thing that he did. He kept kind of hopping between, you know, modes of storytelling, which was so interesting.

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33:11David Sims:See, I think, Jennifer, when my experience in telling people that we're about to cover Weir, it's usually who is that? And then I can list a couple films. I'll say Picnic at Hanging Rock. I'll say Witness. I'll say Truman Show. I'll say Master and Commander. And they'll go, oh, I didn't know one guy made all of those. or I say Peter Weir, they repeat back those four movies. Those are probably the four. And then they go, what else did he make? Right. And then I'll name the other movies and they'll go, oh, I didn't realize the same person made all of those. It doesn't feel like anyone has a very complete notion of him here even if they know his movies.

33:46David Sims:But I know in Australia,

33:47Griffin Newman:Picnic and Hanging Rock and Gallipoli especially are, those are very foundational movies to Australians. Yeah. And I mean, I think even your average, which, you know, mom and dad would know of Gallipoli. It's like a bit like Crocodile Dundee or, you know, it's the kind of film that everyone saw or even if they didn't see, they think they have. They feel they've seen it. And maybe they saw it in school or something like that. It does, right. Yeah, I mean, and it's the Mel Gibson sort of breakout movie.

34:18David Sims:You know, there's a lot of, right. Okay, before we get into the context and open up our research dossier here, now just only because you brought it up, I must ask Jennifer we covered the three Crocodile Dundee movies oh sure in deep pandemic while we were losing our minds we had never seen them before and we were kind of fascinated by being a little too young for them and knowing that they were such a good cultural phenomenon and there was one day where we watched all three of them in a row in like January 2021 losing our minds and started kind of like skeptical like what is this what is this fad thing that was popular in the 80s.

34:57David Sims:And then like 20 minutes into the first Crocodile Dundee, we were like, this fucking rule. I love this guy. I'd watch 80 of these movies. The drop-off on two and three, I found pretty severe. Yes. Yeah, right. I haven't seen two and three. I've definitely seen one. I mean, did you go into Paul Hogan's kind of history? We tried to. Really? I mean, he's still kicking around, right? I mean, he's quite old at this point. Yeah, he's sort of, you don't hear about him now, But when I was growing up, you know, as a kid of the 70s and 80s, he was this cultural icon. And he was known as Hoag's, you know.

35:33And he used to be a bit, his claim to fame before he became a star was he helped work on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. So he was a real Aussie, you know, sort of labourer. Yeah. But he was a larrikin. If ever there is a use for the word larrikin, that's him, you know, with a capital L. And he had a show called The Paul Hogan Show. Right. We know that. Yeah. Yeah. And it was funny. I mean, it was very Aussie. But, you know, he had a co-star. It was sort of like the Benny Hill show. Or, I don't know, what's the American equivalent? I mean, what is the...

36:19David Sims:It's sort of like Carol Burnett or something. Yeah, like it's like, yeah, maybe laughing or. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a big popular sketch show. Yeah, sketch show, exactly. But with ongoing characters. Yeah. And so then for him to make Crocodile Dundee, I have no idea how that came. Who produced that film? And then I'll be able to tell you maybe how it came about. Yeah, it's a really good question. Because my two-pronged question was like, Like, how was it received in Australia at the time? And then how did Australians feel about Americans for the next three decades being like, oh, Australia, like Crocodile Dundee?

36:57David Sims:Yeah. Basically becoming the one reference point. Yeah. I mean, I find it kind of hilarious how Americans view Australia anyway. You know, that you get off the plane and you grab your luggage and there's spiders all over it. Right. You know. Scorpions falling from the sky. Yeah, a drop bear is going to like attack you and you'll basically be dead before you get to the taxi. Yeah. And, you know, we play on that too. I mean, and there is some truth in it. Like my ex, his cousin came from Germany and we went to the sea and we were at an estuary and we were on this bridge and this kid went to his dad, Dad, look down, look down, there's a ray.

37:40And it was like a manta ray the size of a car. and I've never seen that in my entire life but this poor German guy said I'm never I want to go home

37:53Griffin Newman:look I mean I can tell you that it was produced by John Cornell who I think was his sort of oh yeah so that was Strop that was the guy who played Strop only produced by him must have been other people he's the only listed producer the distributor was called Hoyt's Distribution

38:10David Sims:which is like a big cinema chain Yeah, it's a cinema channel. Rimfire Films was the production company? So then in that case... It looks like they got some tax money, yeah. Yeah, in that case, it must have come from Hoag's. It must have come from those two. I mean, stroke a genius.

38:29Griffin Newman:And didn't Hogan also have the cigarette campaign where he would always say, anyhow, have a Winfield? Have a Winfield. Yeah, oh my God. And he did that Aussie laborer thing of like, having your ciggies in your t-shirt, like on your... Like you tuck the sleeve, yeah, right. Yeah, is a masculine thing to do. It's so funny that we're talking about Paul Hogan because, like, he used the... No, I know.

38:54David Sims:No, I mean, we need to create a... What's the word I'm looking for? A tapestry between these two points.

39:00Griffin Newman:I'll just say the other thing about this movie is that the line Jennifer already quoted, the how fast are you going to run as fast as a leopard, that Bluey... I have young children, so I watch Bluey all the time, which is now my closest connection to Australian culture. The modern Croc Dundee. Well, that's set very close to where I live. Right. You're from Brisbane, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I lived in Sydney for many decades and then came back here because I want to be close to my family of origin. And I love it here. It's changed. It's not like Bluey. It's not like Bluey? I really was hoping it was exactly like Bluey.

39:39Griffin Newman:Did the dogs talk? Although there is a Bluey world or something that's been... Yeah, there's like a visible Bluey. There's an episode of Bluey called Obstacle Course where he says, how fast will you run as fast as a greyhound is the line they use. The second, which it's an homage to Gallipoli. Oh, really? Oh, in Bluey. Oh, that's so sweet. Adib just said where I am now is the composer is next door to Bluey. This is incredible. The guy's a genius. James Jazz. A woman. Oh, cool.

40:11David Sims:I'll make the other connected bridge. I guess I just forgot this. Russell Boyd shot Crocodile Dundee 1 and 2, who shot Gallipoli. I noted that last night that Russell Boyd has done a lot. I wrote down the films. He did Last Wave, Year of Living Dangerously. He started on Picnic at Hanging Rock and he did all of them through Year of Living Dangerously. Yeah, and then did Master and Commander. He came back to Master and Commander. But also John Seale was a camera operator on Gallipoli. And then he also did Witness, Mosquito Coast. Yeah.

40:50Griffin Newman:And had a great Hollywood career. Yeah. I mean, he did like Gorillas in the Mist, Rain Man, Children of a Lesser God, Mad Max Fury Road. So, yeah. I think he's another genius. Yeah. It's stuff like that that makes the Australian film world feel small. Like that it's like, and then, you know, he hooks up with George Miller at the end. Yeah. But like, I know it's bigger than it seems. It's just these names loom so large, I think, for American viewers. Like, you know, Peter Weir, George Miller. Yeah. I think we punch above our weight, to be honest, though. No question. In terms of, you know, the size of the industry.

41:31Because when I was looking at making that list of 10 favorite films, I got a bit depressed because I went on, I don't know, I checked a few sites, including Wikipedia, but that was the one that had most of the films. And there's not a lot of films that have come out of Australia. Right, yeah. Yeah.

41:47David Sims:It's also just fascinating, though, to what you were saying earlier that, you know, there's the American New Wave happening and the French New Wave happening. And both of them are happening in response to what are like massive film industries, but industries that have started to become a little staid and are dealing with the like, you know, coming out of decades of things like the Hays Code and like the Nazi occupation and all these things that were like really tightening and restricting movies. and then the industry doesn't kind of know where it's at and then they finally empower this like younger group of film school graduates to start making whatever the fuck they want and they start making these films that are more wild and funny and out there and genre films and political films and movies that are speaking to like the disenfranchisement and irritations of the moment.

42:35David Sims:But that's like films that are made in response to what those filmmakers were frustrated other films weren't tackling versus the Australian New Wave, as you're saying, where films made in response to what was going on in the culture, but they weren't responding to a deficit of those films in conversation. They were responding to a deficit of movies, period. Yes, they were responding to a void. Yeah. To an absolute void. But then to come out of that and have the films be kind of so strong-minded in their messaging and looking at the early weird stuff and even watching like Holmesdale and the early shorts and whatever.

43:14David Sims:He feels very, very concerned from the get-go with trying to work through the kind of like politics of the young people of Australia at that moment and also like constantly trying to reckon with the history of the land he lives on and the murky cultural mess of that. Yeah, I think he was just really true to himself. That's the feeling I get just from his films, not from knowing him, but, you know, that he had a certain kind of spiritual core that he wasn't afraid to kind of face and embrace. And that's what I'm feeling when I watch, especially those earlier films. I'm seeing that. I mean, even, did you cover The Plumber?

44:05Oh, yeah.

44:06Griffin Newman:Yeah, we did. We did. Are you a fan of The Plumber? We just did that one. I love The Plumber. Oh, you just did it? Yeah, I loved that one. I mean, isn't it like, you know, when you get that, it's usually a guy, but when you get that person in your house and they start asking questions about your life or, you know, I had one in the other day, well, are you an artist? And I didn't, like, he didn't know anything about me. And I said, oh, and then I started offering up information that I thought of The Plumber.

44:36David Sims:It is maybe my second greatest anxiety trigger behind war is people in my home asking me questions.

44:44Griffin Newman:Yeah, it's a nice kind of very contained idea for whatever. A thriller, a horror film, whatever you want to call the plumber. But also a social comedy. I mean, the plumber is quite funny. It's funny. Yeah, it's funny. And I think he has this beautiful sense of humor, this very black Australian sense of humor. I don't know. Does that translate? I guess in Green Card, that's quite a funny film. Green Card's very funny, but Green Card's also so interesting. I'm a huge fan of Green Card, but it's also very sincere. It's also quite a sort of, you know, it is a straightforwardly romantic movie, but yes, it is.

45:24Griffin Newman:You know, the humor in it is not like big jokes. It's not just a rom-com. Yeah Yeah Yeah No he And I think Gerard Depardieu Is fantastic in that I mean it's many years Since I've seen that But yeah

45:35David Sims:He is excellent in the movie Yeah

45:38Griffin Newman:I want to open up The dossier here Yes okay I'm gonna This is our research Jennifer I'm just gonna take a look So the last film he makes Before this is Is The Last Wave Yeah Yeah So after that Weir apparently Takes a year off Of filmmaking Decides that he needs To watch more movies To teach himself To be a better filmmaker So he calls himself Sort of a primitive filmmaker and says, like, I just, I started with D.W. Griffith. I watched Russian silent movies. I watched Hitchcock movies. I watched Chaplin movies. I watched French cinema. I watched, you know, whatever. He's basically doing a sort of syllabus for himself in the 70s, I guess.

46:13Griffin Newman:So he's probably doing mostly like sort of pre-war cinema.

46:16David Sims:But he's going like chronologically region to region, like filling in all the gaps of his understanding. This final sentence is so good. Go ahead. You don't read it, right? He said, I was astounded, astonished and fascinated with the great gift of these films and so glad that I hadn't looked at them earlier. If I had, I don't think I would have made films because I was at the bottom of the hill. Oh, wow. Wow. So when he says this whole kind of primitive film thing and you do look at like Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Last Wave and Cars They to Paris, they're so accomplished and they're so clear in their vision but they also do feel like outsider art in a certain way i almost on the level of what you're saying jennifer of like his spiritual connection rather than them feeling like they're conforming to the rhythms you know from other movies and then he suddenly watches a bunch of other movies realizes if he had known how differently he was doing things he would have been too anxious to ever make anything right i mean thank god he didn't watch other films that was going to be or even if it influenced those films and kind of polish the rough edges off them i'd be disappointed in that you know i think have like three under his belt yeah then go through this whole well four if you count the plumber which i know is like an hour no you should count the plumber yeah he's got i think so four four the plumber happens right after the sabbatical of watching movies for a year that's when he's in this state of what do i do next and the next thing he was trying to do was Year of Living Dangerously, which this ended up jumping ahead of.

47:49Griffin Newman:Yeah, he's also, he's courted by Hollywood for the first time to make The Thorn Birds. Oh, really? Yeah, which is obviously set in Australia, right? That's based on a book that's set in Australia. Yeah, yeah, calling him metallic. Yeah. Herbert Ross had dropped out. Peter Weir is somewhat courted. Right. But he basically realizes he's not right for the movie. Yeah. And he has this thing where he talks about how when he's trying to, when he's prepping to make a film, he gets this enormous collection of music that he has and he sort of picks out the tapes that he wants to listen to. I mean, it's the 70s.

48:28I do that now.

48:29Griffin Newman:Right, right. And he just couldn't pick like the songs that were like really sort of speaking to him for the Thorn Birds. And he's thinking like, I'm not right for this, but I can fudge it. I'll do it. and he's sitting at a bar afterwards and he's waiting for the writer to join him.

48:45David Sims:Like, why can't I find the sound of this movie? Why can't I find the song that triggers the right feeling for this?

48:51Griffin Newman:And he says, and this is, he gives such interesting quotes in these interviews. He says, he puts a swizzle stick in his mouth, he clenches it, he starts, like, making a buzzing noise with it, basically, between his teeth. Peter does. Peter Weir does. And he says, you know, that's what my films are. They have the sound of tension to them. That's the fundamental sound I want and I'm just not feeling it with the thorn birds. You know, like he's like, I'm not going to be making a movie that has that kind of quality to it. So he drops out. That's how he describes dropping out of the project. It's very interesting.

49:19That's so fantastic. And that was made into a miniseries, right? Yeah, right.

49:24Griffin Newman:That's the ultimate destination. With Richard Chamberlain from The Last Wave. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Because I mean, I haven't read it, but it's like an epic story, right? It's like a sort of generational, like an East of Eden type sort of like, you know, 40 year story. Yeah, I think it was quite a pulpy, if I'm not trying to be disparaging. But, you know, it's a bit of a, not quite a bodice ripper, but this is a priest from memory. Look, I don't even know if I've seen it, but a priest who gets, you know, falls in love with Rachel Ward's character. Right. Yeah, it serves that purpose. I mean, maybe it's more, maybe the book, I haven't read the book, but maybe the book is deeper than that.

50:04But yeah, I can see why it wouldn't. It wouldn't have his name on it. I can see that. Yeah.

50:10David Sims:The other crazy thing in this period of time is he almost makes what would become John Carpenter's The Thing. Yes. What? Oh, my God. Which I've never heard this before.

50:20Griffin Newman:He's offered an adaptation of Who Goes There, the short story, which had already been turned into The Thing from Another World. Yeah. Then he sees Ridley Scott's Alien, and he's kind of like, well, that's really good. And that kind of has a vibe.

50:36David Sims:Beyond that, he was like, I feel like I'm close, but I can't quite crack the right way to dramatize this. And then he sees Alien, and he's like, well, that's what I should have done and would have done.

50:46Griffin Newman:Then he sees the thing, and he's like, that was also good. I don't think, you know, like, so, you know, that all works out.

50:52David Sims:Oh, my God. That's amazing. I didn't know that. But then the two big things. Yeah, the plumber comes about basically because he's at a dinner with a bunch of people and the story gets told of someone having a similar experience. And he's like, that's a good idea for a movie. A producer at the table's like, well, you should do it. Right. And he just does it for TV. I don't know if it's a full movie. And he goes, well, but there's this TV thing. You could do it quickly. And I think in him trying to get out of his head after this movie watching sabbatical year, he goes, I'll just make this. It'll be simple.

51:21David Sims:I'll get it up on its feet. but then he makes this thing we referenced in the plumber episode heart head in hand which is a documentary about ceramicists it's it's about a teacher uh called peter rushforth

51:35Griffin Newman:i've never seen it i don't know anything about it but it's sort of a documentary documentary

51:40David Sims:it is an actual documentary yeah yes yeah it's a short documentary but the thing i gotta find the quote here the reason i bring it up and i haven't been able to find the thing to watch it is that he basically it changed his approach in terms of how he thought about how he made films. He said he learned from watching the way that Ceramics treated their work to apply this craft over art motto. Right. And his quote is, he said, Gallipoli was another period where I turned away from any sort of style, attempting to reinvent oneself properly. Probably. Some people who didn't care for the film as much as earlier films said, I missed your style or I preferred the earlier films.

52:22David Sims:And I said, well, style is just another tool for me. I don't ever want to be trapped by style. Yeah. You know, I think like watching it with such distance now, as in, you know, so long ago since I saw it, I do think his soul is in that film, in Gallipoli. I mean... 100%. It's very intimate, actually. I mean, a lot of it is really about two people in a frame or four people in a frame. And yeah, sure, there's some dance. You know, there's like that tragic scene where Bill Hunter's character realizes that they're going to war the next day. So he lets them have a drink, you know, but they're not, it's not epic.

53:05I wouldn't call that film. There are some sort of crowd scenes that would have cost money, but I don't, I feel it's still a very human, intimate film. I still, you know, it's him. It's still him.

53:18David Sims:I think it's an anti-epic in a really interesting way because it does have the scale and the production way. It has some scale, yeah. You know, it has the locations and the big sweeping vistas at times and all of that. But it's actually eluding all of the obvious story beats you expect in a kind of epic tale set against the backdrop of a war. Yeah, I mean, it's nothing like Come and See, the Ellen Klimoff film. but that is also an intimate anti-war if you can call these films anti-war but you know that is also two people in a scene mostly following one or two or three people

53:57Griffin Newman:yeah I mean Gallipoli is it's a mundane thing in a way all these boys were just told come and see it's about an atrocity it's hard to watch Yeah. So very, very good. I mean, and like, it's a surreal nightmare, that film. It's like, from the first frame, you know, this boy is wondering what he's doing. And he's pulling a gun out of the sand. I mean, it's one of my favorite films. It's very cool. I can see that it would be a film that had influenced some of the stuff you did.

54:31David Sims:I mean, I can guess. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. The big animating idea that I just got really hung up on here in the dossier is, he said, and it's sort of what got him starting about the idea of how to make a war movie, a thing he hadn't considered before, is he read an interview with Igmar Bergman where he had said, you can do most anything on screen except kill somebody, and that's where you can't suspend disbelief. And Weir kind of took that as a challenge.

55:01Griffin Newman:Right.

55:01David Sims:And he said, that wasn't a bad observation, but you can achieve everything with the suspension of disbelief, which is a Samuel Taylor Coleridge phrase. In war films, you see all kinds of injuries, like arms and heads blown off and people dying, the horror of war. But I thought, what if you didn't see much of that? What if you just killed one person whom you've gotten to know and like? And that was part of my structure, apart from the key vision that these were young athletes at the peak of their condition. And it's like, right, that's the whole idea of the movie of, you have these guys who seem kind of blissfully unaware of what lies ahead of them, and you just kind of string along the tension of, okay, but when is everything going to get bad?

55:42David Sims:And instead, you're going to end literally at the moment the guy dies. You know? Spoiler, the movie is just leading to, yeah, just a flash frame. Yeah. And you know what? Like, it's such a, to me, like a lot of German films end on a freeze frame and it really annoys me. Yeah, I generally don't like it. It's a stylistic thing. But here is the only, I think the only film I can think of where I cannot think of a better ending. It's like a bullet to your own chest, that ending. And it's the thing at 10 years old, I remember. Yeah. I remember Freeze Frame and obviously not a filmmaker at that age, but it really worked on me.

56:26David Sims:It's also so funny for this film to come out of him being like, okay, challenge accepted. it how do you put a realistic death on screen yeah and yet he he builds this movie that's a machine to narratively get to that point and earn it but i don't understand before you actually have to kind of watch the guy die he does evade showing you that in a way in a way he shows you the moment of the impact yeah that's the thing and and maybe it was just the mood i was in or whatever but i I really, I really, it took me an hour or more to really come out of that state of, you know, really hit me hard watching it.

57:06I just, I think I'd been watching news all day, actually, and just feeling despairing for humanity.

57:14David Sims:I was going to say, that's probably a bad way to pregame Gallipoli is remind yourself what's going on in the world today. I watched it while my children were napping and woke up.

57:23Griffin Newman:I had to just turn off the movie and go get him up. I think I had maybe seen it in school, truly. I could not remember this movie at all. Like, if I saw it, it was in high school, so I don't really remember. And I just sort of forgot, like, the entire sort of storytelling approach he took and then was kind of blown away by it because I did keep thinking of Platoon, which I don't know how consciously Stone is borrowing from it, But Platoon gets you into Vietnam fairly quickly. Platoon is not mostly concerned with them. And whereas this is the opposite. This is basically like the first battle that they're going to do is the last battle they're going to do, and it's right at the end of the film.

58:06And I mean, this is sort of a random segue, but I think the film Wolf Creek actually does that too, to very different effect. But you're, you know, you're, I mean, the slasher, if you call it, I'm not calling Wolf Creek necessarily a slasher, but, you know, it's like a video game normally, that genre. You just go, oh, another one, another one. But here, I think it's like an hour. Yeah, and it's formulaic in a fine way.

58:36Griffin Newman:Like, you're like, I can't wait to see what the next one is. Right. Yeah, yeah. But with these three, you know, you spend an hour with them and you think, oh, they're idiots, but they're kind of endearing and charming. and then, you know, the shit hits the fan and that's what makes that film terrifying is the emotional investment. And I think here as well you invest. But I just want to ask you, what did Bergman mean by that? Because I don't quite understand what he's saying. So he felt that if you showed a death on screen, people weren't going to believe it? Is that what he was on?

59:05David Sims:My interpretation is that he was saying that it is the hardest thing for audiences to suspend their disbelief on because it is the thing that you can't really... There's no way to show an even partially real version of it in front of cameras, right? Is that because people are looking for the flutter of the eyelid or the chest? I guess so.

59:28Griffin Newman:I can't find whatever quote he's referencing because this is pretty weird, right? But I could see it.

59:34David Sims:As an actor, it's playing a thing you have no experience of actually living through. And as an audience, you know it's kind of weirdly the fakest thing on screen because yes yes two main actors can kiss and they're not really in love but they can go through the motion of kissing but yeah nobody's dying right and i think weir's point was the way death usually is depicted on films is like in a war film you show bloody squibs going off you know you show crazy explosions and you don't get the intimacy of death but you get the kind of like the viscera of death and to try to do that is really that is really interesting you know, because when I look at this film...

1:00:12Everyone dies, but no one is shown dying. Yeah. Gibson is right, but that's it. Yeah, I mean, Gibson. Yeah. But the people who die, die off screen. They die off screen. They fall down. Yeah, like Snowy. We know he's on the way out. But, you know, Mel Gibson's character, Jack? Is it Jack? Yeah, yeah. No, Frank, Frank, Frank. Jack is Bill Kerr.

1:00:35Griffin Newman:Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Frank leaves before it happens, of course. And, you know, the other Barney, it's like Barney's dead. And that's devastating to hear that news because that's how people did hear it. Right, right.

1:00:56David Sims:Rather than getting a big platoon-style fall to your knees down. Right, like Barbara playing. Yeah, exactly. You just get a telegram or whatever. Like I remember my dad, who was too young for World War II, but his brothers weren't. They were quite a bit older. And I didn't know my granddad because he died before I was born. But my dad said to me that when conscription came around, my granddad would hide his sons in the cupboard. Wow. So they wouldn't be taken away. And that to me is devastating. Yeah. And that's the face of war. Like at the beginning when his uncle says, I can't even remember what he, but his response almost made me, I choked up at his uncle's response knowing that his, you know, this beloved nephew is going off to war.

1:01:47And the thing.

1:01:48David Sims:Also, the setup of the movie is that like this kid has a kind of future ahead of him that's clear. He does. He has such an extraordinary ability. Well, also, and this probably isn't maybe meaningful for audiences outside of Australia, but I think the unsung hero in this movie is Mark Lee, like the actor. I think his performance is so beautiful and innocent and there's something so real about it. And, you know, he didn't go on to be Mel Gibson. Right.

1:02:19Griffin Newman:He's an Australian actor who stayed in Australia, basically. Yeah, and I think, I don't think, I mean, look, he was on this show called The Restless Years while he was doing this, and then he went back to that, and that's kind of like Young and the, no, like, what are your shows? Like a soap opera, right, yeah. Yeah, like a long-running, you know, Days of Our Lives kind of soap opera. And so I think, but I also think his goal wasn't to conquer the world as a person. I saw him in a lot of stage plays when I was studying to be an actor at NIDA. And, you know, he was around then doing – and a beautiful actor.

1:03:02Like it wasn't like he wasn't deserving of more. But see, in the 80s, I mean, because I graduated in the year above Kate Blanchett and Essie Davis at NIDA. And if we said we were going to Hollywood to be actors, we would have been laughed out of the room. You know, it was really only after that, that, you know, when Kate. But that starts out when you start exodus to Hollywood. Yeah, when Kate and Nicole and Russell Crowe and all these people. But at this stage when Gallipoli was made, 81, actors weren't doing that. And I think if Mel Gibson didn't have that dual citizenship, he probably would not have either or would have been much more difficult if he wasn't actually born in America.

1:03:51David Sims:He's such a fascinating case, but I even think beyond that, there just was this energy around him of everyone going like, holy shit, we have discovered a new element. We need to figure out how to build industries around this. Mel Gibson, yeah. I mean, he was a force of nature. It was kind of, you know, Mad Max. I mean, he's so wonderful in the original Mad Max. I mean, you're talking, Jennifer, about like this small group of filmmakers punching above their weight class. It is crazy not just like, we've already kind of established this thing where seeing the cars that ate Paris is the thing that inspires George Miller to make Mad Max.

1:04:32David Sims:Peter Weir seeing Mad Max inspires him to go, fuck, I should make something for Mel Gibson. Well, let me tell you, let me tell you.

1:04:39Griffin Newman:Yes, right, right, right. It really interests me because he meets with Mel Gibson, I think, for Last Waiver, an earlier film. And when he meets him, he says, like, look, I don't think I'm going to cast you in this. I don't think you make sense for it. You're not old enough, but I really wanted to meet you. And then so he brings him back for Gallipoli and he says, look, I've cast Mark Lee, who's this like angelic Australian boy. Like, and that's who he's playing. And I need someone who feels modern and you feel modern. Like, because I need someone who's going to resonate with, like, contemporary viewers, you know, in one.

1:05:13Griffin Newman:Because Mark is this, you know, feels like he's from... An angel. He feels like he's from decades ago, whereas you feel like a more real person. Now, Gibson is relating that, but I believe it completely, because that is how he feels in the movie. You're like, this guy's a little out of, you know, out of the ordinary, like, you know, the way he's behaving early in the film. But he still feels time period, too. He still feels of the time. Right.

1:05:37David Sims:And the additional layer is this is the guy who survives, right? That this is so much an end of innocence movie or we're through the prism of this specific character, but also that like this is a turning point in the history of Australia.

1:05:50Griffin Newman:That's what I wanted to ask you, Jennifer, right? Like that. Yeah. This is the context I only have a little bit. But Gallipoli is the moment when Australians are like, why are we serving the British Empire? Right. Like, you know, like it's a very definitive sort of transformational moment for the country a little bit in terms of like, why have we been shipped, you know, halfway across the world to fight a war that barely, you know, involves us? I think we've always had that towards the Brits. I think there's, we were, especially in that period, seen as kind of like the scum. Right, the sort of second class.

1:06:26Yeah, like my friend went to the Brits. to work in England as an actress and one of the, and he's very famous but I won't mention who, but he said, oh, you're from the Antipodes to her, you know. And he mentioned her name and he said, ah, Susan, I had a child woman called Susan as a child. You know, it was sort of really playing on that class system, whereas Australians, the brilliant thing about living in Australia is we don't have an active class system, even though we came from this very sort of regimented class system of Britain.

1:07:07Griffin Newman:Yeah, no, I think that's right. That's one of the worst things about Britain is, I mean, which as living there, obviously I was sort of outside the class system because I was American, right? So I wouldn't fall into the weird traps, but then I would see others. It was like, oh yeah, if you talk, you know, the word you used to describe dinner or the bathroom, like immediately slots you in you know to a sort of into a sort of social class for everybody else definitely I think it's gotten better I think you know as the world becomes more homogenized but on that point I actually felt sad last night watching it on some level beyond the tragedy of the film that I'm watching these iconic Australian actors who are really Aussie who are really Australian.

1:07:55Right. And I'm seeing our history and this beautiful Australian culture. I mean, it's also, it's not perfect. Like, I think, you know, I know that from the Nightingale. Yes. Yes, you have confronted Australian history. Yeah. But that there's an identity that I feel has been lost. And I would say that across the board.

1:08:23Griffin Newman:Right. The kind of guys you're seeing in these movies don't really exist anymore. No, because now it's, you know, and no slight on you guys, but there's an Americanization of Australia and culture. And it's sad. I feel it's sad because I want to see, I mean, I want to see Australian films about Australian concerns.

1:08:45David Sims:But this is an interesting question. Like, how much is Mel Gibson, the canary in the coal mine for that? Talking about his weird kind of like dual identity, right? Yeah. And that beyond just thinking he was a talented actor and, you know, seeing him in Mad Max and the fact that Mad Max had crossed over to the States more. One of the motivating things for Weir in trying to find a project to do with Mel Gibson was an understanding that the American studios were interested in Mel Gibson. that Mel Gibson already just from the first Mad Max and even more so after Road Warrior was like, Hollywood is interested in this guy.

1:09:23David Sims:Right. How do we build a bridge to him? If any Australians are making movies with him, we're more interested in importing them over here. And if anyone can help us figure out how to translate him into a Hollywood star, that's infinitely valuable to us. Yeah. And it is this weird thing about him where he's like one foot in both worlds. Yeah. Yes. Yes, but I think he very quickly became, this is like absolutely no judgment because he was born in America, but he became American. I mean, there would be audience out there who don't even know he's Australian. I remember finding out for the first time.

1:09:59Or that he had any time in Australia. Because he barely had an accent, right?

1:10:03Griffin Newman:And then he was in movies like The Patriot. I mean, he went full America. Like he made all these sort of war movies and like, you know, he really leaned into it.

1:10:12David Sims:But then it also means that a lot of the other like Australian exports who crossed over into Hollywood were guys where it was like, well, how good's your American accent? Sure. Yes. You know, the fact that they like let Heath Ledger be Australian in 10 Things I Hate About You is unusual. Because very often it was, we like your kind of rugged masculinity, but can we add a little bit of like American oorah on top of that? And then we'll let you through the doors. Yeah. I mean, Mel was, you know, he was a pioneer in opening up the talent pool of amazing actors that come out of this country, you know?

1:10:51And it's just been an avalanche of them ever since, I feel. Compared to our population size, there's so many beautiful actors here.

1:11:01Griffin Newman:So the other thing I don't know much about Jennifer is that, like, this is Western Australia, right? Like the start of the movie, you know, where he's from. Which I feel like is a unique part of the country in and of itself, right? Because it's so massive and it's kind of hugely underpopulated. It's mostly desert. I don't, like, does this capture the culture of that part of the country very deeply? Well, I think it's very true to the fact, like, Perth is the most isolated city in the world. It's the furthest away from any other major city. um i think yeah i think it very beautifully demonstrated that that you you know that that great scene whether we were mentioning before of the guy saying oh is there war going on i can imagine that i can imagine back then yeah yeah yeah so i think i think that's very true just to get a little more research right so weird does we mentioned him he goes to turkey he visits the He's very stirred by it.

1:11:58Griffin Newman:He brings in David Williamson, who is sort of a playwright, you know, first and foremost, who he'd talked to about Picnic and Hanging Rock, but they hadn't actually worked on it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, you know, first they're like, okay, do we do, you know, a sort of full accounting of Gallipoli? Like, you know, enlistment, you know, the evacuation of Gallipoli, the whole, you know, do we try to do a sort of big thing? And then they just sort of narrow it down to make up a story about two men. Like, it's not a true story, right? Like, or anything like that. They're like, let's just make this much more oblique.

1:12:33David Sims:What's also allegorical, like this whole notion of this was a loss of innocence moment for the Australian identity, have a character who represents that innocence down to the point that he will die in the name of a meaningless cause. Right. That he will go out and walk straight into his death to represent an ideal.

1:12:54Griffin Newman:They obviously went, you know, Gallipoli, Winston Churchill was very involved in Gallipoli. Like there were early drafts that had Winston Churchill as a character. Like they had a completely, you know, wide aspect, you know. Which can be a bit boring. Yeah, it would be incredibly boring.

1:13:08David Sims:I mean, it would be an encyclopedia article. That's the kind of movie that immediately turns me off. Right. Yes, me too. You like it, but yes. I mean, it's interesting historically, but when you take something down to the super personal and it becomes epic, actually, emotionally, there's room for it to be that. Whereas if you've got, you know, all these scenes, was like masses of, I mean, there are battle scenes there, but it's not focused on that. It's actually very intimately shot. Then it tells you the story of this whole battle that was pointless, I think. Yes. I'm with you, Griff. I feel, yeah, I feel like it showed in a nutshell how pointless the whole battle was without showing the whole battle.

1:13:53David Sims:I think our brains process these things in similar ways, Jennifer. And it is that thing of like, Like if I just see a sprawling battle scene of 80 ,000 people killing each other, my brain kind of turns off because I can't even calculate what I'm seeing. And I've lost the personal connection to that beyond just like ideologically not understanding how anything could get to that place. Yeah. You know, once we've evolved into having conversation or other options, emails, other abilities to work out issues. but yes this is a movie that keeps everything framed through such a personal lens and such a tight kind of two-person story and even like the kind of biggest scenes you see are when they're doing like the the battleground training in the desert yes and it's just like a bunch of boys wrestling each other in a backyard basically yeah yeah i mean even that how amazing how amazing was that scene where they were incredible all play acting dying Yes.

1:14:49It's just so beautifully structured, this film. And I think going back to that intimacy, as a filmmaker, I am much more attracted to that style of filmmaking myself. You know, I'm working on a sci-fi that looks to be shooting this year. That is so cool.

1:15:11Griffin Newman:Whoa, okay. And very exciting. that it's an adaptation of something. But even though the subject matter is huge, the film is kind of somewhat intimate. And I personally, I mean, big films can be amazing. And I mean, I watched Ben-Hur recently. Oh, my God. Well, Ben-Hur, you can't believe that they made it. You can't believe, but it's also brilliant. I don't understand why they made it. Yeah, it's a brilliant film. And so I'm not saying, oh, I don't like those, but to make them, I would never choose to make a big, big film. So that's why a film like Gallipoli just is my happy place. Yeah, if you told me you were making like a gigantic action epic, I would be surprised, given the films of yours I've seen so far.

1:16:01Griffin Newman:I would be like, oh, I didn't know you were.

1:16:03David Sims:Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, I just need to call out. Yes. Truly two weeks ago, Jennifer, David just texted, apropos of nothing, you know what scene really pops in Ben Hur? The chariot race I mean it was a joke Oh my god

1:16:17Griffin Newman:Yes of course But you were re-watching it? No someone else was But you know what's amazing about that film and I look maybe it's not true but no one died I think no one died That's insane Maybe a horse I mean I'm not sure No no horses No horses No horses Unless they're telling us fibs They might be telling us Who knows But you know So unlike other productions of the period, no one, no animal or human died on that. That's crazy. And watching it, it's so dangerous, right? When you're watching it, you're thinking, this is going to, someone's instantly, like they're going to crash any second. And, you know, it's, I mean, for real.

1:16:58Griffin Newman:Yeah. Yeah. It's sort of like Man Max as well. I mean, like that's the magic of the Man Max movies. Oh, yeah.

1:17:13David.

1:17:14David Sims:Yep. You and I have a lot of shared interests. Sure. Common interest. Film. The movies, comedy, podcasts, life, New York City, bagels, sandwiches. These are all true. Sleep. Oh, I love sleep so much. Sleep rules so much. It is kind of wild how sleep is constantly underrated. I don't think people give it enough credit. And it gets credit. And nonetheless.

1:17:43Griffin Newman:Even when it's bad, it's good. I mean, it's just so true. It's true. I am living proof right now. You are. Because Lisa sponsored the show. And when they sponsored the show, they said, would you like a mattress? Sent over a big honking mattress. And I was like, it's time. I'm switching to a king mattress. You're a king. I'm getting a bigger bed. My kids sometimes will pile into it. I need as much square footage as possible on this sucker.

1:18:09David Sims:Yeah, you need hop-on pop space. I do.

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1:18:49Griffin Newman:That's huge. Partner with organizations like Clean Hub

1:18:51David Sims:to remove harmful plastic waste from the ocean. It's nice to hear that they care. And it's nice to hear all those endorsements. But really, I think there is no stronger endorsement than David Sims, the sleepy king, the most tired man in America, saying that Lisa hits just right. I love it, and I use it,

1:19:14Griffin Newman:and this is a true endorsement. Oh, boy, do I use it, yeah. I mean, they're all endorsements, but this is about as endorsement-y as an endorsement gets. I don't know what to tell you. Go to Lisa.com for 20 % off mattresses, plus get an extra$50 off with promo code BLANKCHECK, exclusive for our listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A dot com promo code blank check for 20 % off mattresses plus an extra$50 off. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout. That's Lisa dot com promo code blank check.

1:19:52David Sims:David. Yes. I've been known to order products off the Internet. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear. I sometimes like purchasing things and then receiving them and then placing them in our workspace. Right. That's cool. And you know what is one of the greatest feelings I can have as a collector? You have to tell me. That purple shop button.

1:20:13Griffin Newman:Okay. Popping up on my screen. I do know what you're talking about because... The different logins.

1:20:19David Sims:Oh, did I register? It's going to make everything easy. But if we're talking about that purple shop button popping up, you know, there's the one login across the multiple retailers. And here's what I love, David. Truly, the shop app on my phone helps me keep track of all the open orders I have in one place. Here are some things. It always knows like where to send it. Everything's pre-filled. And I'm seeing what's arriving, what's shipped, what's pre-ordered. Can I tell you some things I purchased recently? replicas of the sunglasses from They Live. The newly announced 4K limited edition of No Other Choice.

1:21:03David Sims:Oh, love that. Matt Johnson's The Dirties, all the way from Australia, the fine folks at Umbrella Entertainment. These are some of the products I'm able to track right now on my shop app, thanks to Shopify and that purple shop button. Okay, Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S. from household names like... Some of the retailers I just talked about. Fight rags. I've got... Neon Cinema.

1:21:34Griffin Newman:Yeah, I've got that Vinegar Syndrome disc badge 373 where like Robert Duvall is like a crazy New York cop. And like I looked it up and the reviews were like, bad! And I was like, 40 bucks. Cha-ching! Send it to me right now.

1:21:49David Sims:But the packaging's good. I just ordered a Terra Firma, the trauma film and Reviver 2. I mean, we're talking about movies, but we do need to mention Shopify.

1:21:58Griffin Newman:It's an e-commerce platform.

1:21:59David Sims:You can get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. I have a question, though. Please. What if I have my own store, but I get stuck setting it up? Ben, Ben, Ben, don't worry. Shopify is always around to share advice with their award-winning 24-7 customer support. And that's better than 23-6.

1:22:22Griffin Newman:See less carts go abandoned and more sales go, cha-ching, with Shopify and their ShopPay button. Sign up for your$1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash check. Go to shopify.com slash check. That's shopify.com slash check.

1:22:37David Sims:It is true. If I - Cha-ching. Cha-ching. If I see someone use a Shopify, I am embarrassingly more quick to order. Yeah, right, right, right, right. Yeah.

1:22:56Griffin Newman:This film is funded by Rupert Murdoch. Yeah. Associated R &R Films. I know. I saw that at the beginning and I was like, oh, my God. It basically was single-handedly funded by him. And Robert Stigwood, who's the guy who made Grease, produced Grease and Saturday Night Fever. Yes, that's right. And Murdoch is basically like, you know, let's make a movie in Australia.

1:23:18David Sims:I mean, I don't know how else to describe it. They formed this company. This ends up being the only film they ever make. But to your point, Jennifer, they basically were like, it seems like something's going on in Australia. And they hire like an American film executive. And they're like, go there and like give us a rundown on the scene. and he's like, I've seen every Australian movie over the last two months and there were like 12 extraordinary filmmakers here. There's absolutely a scene that's worth putting money into. And they were very committed to that as a long-term project and then this ends up being a one and done.

1:23:47Right. But Peter Weir formed the idea first and then approached. Yes.

1:23:52Griffin Newman:Yeah, he's been trying to make it for a while. I think he spent a lot of 1979 trying to get it made. Some investors withdrew. He starts working on other stuff and then they come in and they fund it. It cost three million Australian dollars, which was the most, the highest budget an Australian movie had ever gotten at that point. But obviously not incredibly high budget. No, no. And what's that probably about 25 now or something? Right. I mean, it's not insane. It's well below obviously what American films cost at the time. So yeah, as I said about Gibson, he was basically brought in because he already has a lot of heat, but also because Weir loves the contrast between him and Mark Lee.

1:24:38Perfect casting.

1:24:39Griffin Newman:Right. Mark Lee was sort of something of an unknown, I think, that they just sort of found doing, like, photo calls. Well, he was on the show. I think that he started doing that. Yeah, he was on that show. Yeah, so he wasn't a big star or anything, Mark Lee.

1:24:53David Sims:Like, the embarrassment of riches in this moment of this, like, generation of talent all coming up together is that Russell Boyd's the DP, but John Seale is the camera operator. And John Seale basically had already ascended to being a DP, but everyone was like, this kind of feels like the big graduation movie for the Australian film industry. So we'll all just jump on board and work on this one together. Oh, but this is interesting.

1:25:17Griffin Newman:Jennifer, you'll be interested to hear this about Mark Lee. Apparently, while he's doing Gallipoli, he tells Peter Weir, Milos Forman is offering Mozart in Amadeus. Oh my God! And he says, like, I'm not into it. I'm not going to do it. Oh, my God. And Weir says, like, look, he stayed in Australia. He had kids. He kept it simple. This is a Gibson quote. Oh, no, Mel Gibson says that. Sorry, yeah, it's not. Oh, Mel Gibson. Oh, Mel Gibson was offered Amadeus? No, no, Mark Lee was offered it. Gibson just recollects him basically saying, like, eh, I'm not going to do it. See, that's what I mean about Mark.

1:25:52I just have this feeling that he didn't want to set the world on fire. I know that he's also a musician. Like, he had bands in Sydney for many years, you know, and would play live. His brother's a musician as well. It's just, you know, not everyone wants that life, right? Because it's not the greatest to be a star.

1:26:14David Sims:I mean... The fascinating quote, because this is coming from Gibson, who is recounting Mark Lee's experience.

1:26:20Griffin Newman:Right, and Mel Gibson is someone who I think even Mel Gibson, for his flaws, would admit, stardom made him insane. Like, yes, if I could read the quote.

1:26:28David Sims:And this is from a 2001 interview. Mark Gibson, Mel Gibson recounts the Amadeus thing. And he said, so it's a choice you make in a sense. I don't think the full consequences of it hit me till later. And I think Mark had more of an insight into it. He stayed in Australia, got married, had some kids. He wanted to keep it simple. Didn't want it to get nuts. Right. For Mel Gibson to in 2001, say. Yes. I think that guy maybe had it figured out how to not go crazy. Oh, my God. And what was Mel doing around that time? Was he directing by that stage?

1:27:03Griffin Newman:It's when he's still a huge star, but the wheels are coming off pretty soon after. It's like signs in The Patriot. Yeah, 2000 is Patriot, Chicken Run, and What Women Want this same year. He was like top of the pile in Hollywood.

1:27:16David Sims:He was the highest paid actor in Hollywood. And he's like calling like, hey, I guess maybe that guy kind of had a good idea. yeah yeah um but that's i mean you know in this movie it's like this grand tragedy that this young man doesn't get to live there is a similar thing even though the outcomes are very different of this guy kind of stayed true to his vision of his notion of what he wanted his career to be in australia and maintain some sense of like sanity and privacy that's what i mean yeah that's what i was talking about before of the resonance of this actor who kind of effectively disappeared I mean of course he didn't no without being insulting his career there's like an innocence to the fact that he's

1:27:58Griffin Newman:preserved for many viewers as just the guy in Gallipoli that's right and like like a mosquito in amber you know he's this perfect angel

1:28:09David Sims:but it's all accounts also like happy and balanced you know and then the Mel Gibson character in this movie the whole film is like building to this guy seeing how bad things are about to go right and trying desperately running in circles to do anything he can to stop it and he is powerless and all he can do is just choose to as mal gives him put it like he has the power to be a coward in this moment right which is the smart thing to do right but he doesn't save anyone else but can you imagine like just on a level of war trauma yeah if that if that character was real like you know that that the survivor's screams those screams of um of you know mel gibson's character towards the at the very end when he realizes he's missed it's just blood curdling um you know it's it's horrible and that that that human would never get over that never get over because it wasn't just one man that went up over the trench.

1:29:13It was all of them.

1:29:15David Sims:It's metatextual stuff that only you can apply 40 years after knowing the branching paths of people in their careers. But it is like, right, there is like the kind of survivor's guilt that you gain to push through whatever you need to push through to become the level of movie star that he did. Yeah. Which isn't to say that you have to like throw people in front of a train to get$20 million a movie. but there is that kind of like perseverance and pressure that does tend to break people yeah and it's interesting that they've gone similar ways to their i mean mark is still alive so he didn't die but it's it's perfect casting philosophically it weirdly like lines up and then this is the movie on the precipice of weird like tentatively going like do i go to hollywood Yeah.

1:30:03David Sims:I mean, the next film, you know, is You're Living Dangerously. That's right, yeah.

1:30:09Griffin Newman:Is an Australian-American sort of co-production. It's like a hybrid. Right in between. And then Witness is the film after that, in which he's basically going to Hollywood. Yeah, Witness is an incredible film. I mean, it's one of my favorites. Do you guys feel that there was something lost in that migration? I mean I think that he's an incredible Hollywood filmmaker and he made great movies here but yes there is there is something very whole about those first few films right like there is and like that you don't you know he made really good movies in Hollywood but like you don't see it in the Hollywood movies in the same way there's a soulfulness to his Hollywood movies so that never goes away yeah yeah I mean even a film like Fearless has a deep kind of spiritual contingent.

1:31:00Griffin Newman:Yeah, it does. And, you know, I guess it's like things like Witness, Fearless, Green Card, even Dead Poets Society. He makes great movies about outsiders. Like, he makes great movies about feeling out of yourself. The Truman Show is like a masterpiece of that, right? And realities and cultures are clashing against each other. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. I saw that one recently. So he's very good at that. But he also, I mean, the stories you hear with the, you know, in our research about the Hollywood movies is like, he's just an extremely consummate professional. Like, it's, you know, he's being handed other people scripts and he's coming in and he's going like, yeah, I think I know how to do this in a really good way.

1:31:36Griffin Newman:Like, it's a little less the story of like, oh, right, I had a weird dream and began a creative process, you know? Like, you don't hear that as much.

1:31:43David Sims:But you're right that few people have successfully, like, survived that transition better than him.

1:31:52Griffin Newman:Yeah, right.

1:31:53David Sims:I mean, he had a fantastic career. I mean, the people that I think thrived in the migration to America were the European Jewish community. Yeah. I mean, they, you know, went across and created film noir in a way. Right, right. Off the back of German expressionism, this kind of bleak way of looking at the world that I don't know if Hollywood would make films like that anymore. That's a great point, though. I think in a way, like the way I look at his career in a smaller quantity is similar to Fritz Lang. Yeah, right. Where, like, I love his German work so much. Right. And then the American films are so, so interesting.

1:32:36David Sims:But it's not quite the same. But it's like two distinct chapters of his career. They're both great. I would be more frustrated, I think, if we were doing this series and you're like, oh, Peter Weir only made two Australian films before he jumped over to Hollywood. Right. And if the Hollywood films were of a lesser integrity, it would be more frustrating. The fact that he has kind of a whole proper career of Australian films, that he has this five film arc. Right. And I would have loved to see him do more, but there's also enough there. And then when he goes to Hollywood, it's like Fritz Lang doing noir where it's like, well, this is not entirely driven by his personal motivation.

1:33:15David Sims:Yeah, yeah. But he's finding a way to add a thing to an ecosystem.

1:33:18Griffin Newman:stories in a minor key and like Jennifer's saying like that's so new like and feels so different and maybe he would have made those kind of films here anyway he would have graduated I'm not saying he could have because we don't have the money we don't have the stars but what I mean is I don't think he was selling out or not being true to himself because like you do see a lot of Australian and New Zealand filmmakers go to Hollywood and they make like genre movies and they're not bad you know like They're not like, you know, but like I think of Jeff Murphy, right? Like who's like an incredible New Zealand filmmaker.

1:33:53David Sims:But even Philip Noyce is someone who goes from like being like, oh, this guy makes great genre films too. Oh, he's kind of doing paycheck-y stuff. And then when he does Rabbit Proof Fence, it's like now he's getting back to what he cares about versus the paychecks. It did feel like there was a consistency across Weir's entire career. Yeah. And I mean, I know that personally, you know, having turned down many films. Right, I'm sure you got brought. I cannot even imagine. Still.

1:34:20Griffin Newman:No offense to it, because it's fine. Like, it's fine to make these movies. But you also suffer by not accepting certain things. Right, because then they're like, well, you don't want to play the game, then what do we need you for? Well, then, you know, the investment in your own projects can mean that there's longer years between. Right. So I understand.

1:34:41David Sims:When you would get offered those types of things, what was the kind of calculation you were doing? in sort of like how to test if you felt like there was a worthwhile opportunity there versus, you know, the dangers. I mean, I'm a writer-director and I would love to direct other people's things, but unfortunately it's just I haven't had those scripts come that make me go, oh, you know, I get like the goosebump test where I just feel so... I have to, because I have to be deeply connected to something like on a very deep level because you, you want, you want, you're going to stick with this story for a number of years.

1:35:24So it has to be meaningful. And, you know, I didn't watch Marvel films. So why would I want to direct them? Right, right, right. It's, it's not, it's no slight on that, but it's knowing. And I mean, you know, I have like six scripts piled up that just no one wants to make. but no I mean that's not David's got a

1:35:44David Sims:tale of money I got a hundred bucks I don't know no I mean it's not true because they're they're actually there's a few down it's an investment because there's a few now that are that are backed up and but I'm very devoted to them and I think being a writer director I mean these films actually I don't know if Peter wrote did he write Mosquito Coast Once he goes to America I feel like Green Card is the rare

1:36:17Griffin Newman:Movie that he wrote himself By and large in America He's making other people's scripts Now he's working on the scripts or whatever But it's just Green Card and then Master and Commander And then the way back his final film He wrote all of those But obviously in America he was In Australia his credit is a writer on

1:36:41David Sims:Gallipoli he has story credit but not screenplay

1:36:44Griffin Newman:on Last Wave, on Cars of the Paris

1:36:45David Sims:on The Year of Living Dangerously

1:36:47Griffin Newman:his full screenplay credit he would collaborate I feel like he's always been a fairly he collaborates with other writers but not strictly writer-director he's not a full proper auteur type that's not really a thing I'm very close mates with Justin Cozzell Oh yeah We've covered his film Assassin's Creed on this podcast Oh okay He would laugh about that I think I'm a huge fan of the movie Not so much the games Oh really? I'll tell him that Please do It's not his finest hour From his perspective From our perspective I think it's so fun I revisit all the time It's such a comfort watch for me

1:37:35David Sims:Yeah, Jennifer, the reason we covered it on the show is that Ben had a period of months where he would watch it every night to try to fall asleep. And it wasn't as some backhanded this movie bores me way. It was that he found it so comforting that it was the movie that could calm his anxieties.

1:37:51Griffin Newman:I was in a bad relationship at the time and I never played the game. I just was like, assassins. I can fuck with that. But wait, wait, wait, Jennifer, why did you bring up Justin? I'm sorry. I realized. Well, the reason I brought him up is because he's a brilliant director. He is. And he's a, I mean, Nitrum and Snowtown. Well, Snowtown's on my, you know, top 10 list. But he... Yeah, incredible movie. He is a great... I mean, he's also in there. I think a director who makes films with other people's scripts, it's not like they just mail him the script and then he goes, okay, and now we're ready to shoot.

1:38:32David Sims:So it's very much McClick. Well, even Chick-Beth feels very personal and individualistic. He's very involved in script. But, you know, I'm envious because it means he can make more films. Right.

1:38:43Griffin Newman:He can take on a project a little faster. Right. Yeah. And he may have four or five. I can't write four or five. I can maybe write three scripts maximum a year before I have to go on a holiday and have a sleep. But he can, you know, work on more. I think directors who don't necessarily write their own stuff or all of it can be more prolific. I think even Tarantino has said that. He said, I've got to write the thing. He's actually producing the film that they're making. Oh, really?

1:39:16David Sims:Oh, Curzel. Yeah, yeah. I am just realizing in real time, Jennifer, just because Ben is behind the producer console and he's not on the computer screen, And I'm realizing just to paint a picture for you, Ben is kind of an American lyrican. Wow. Oh, really? Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. I'm from New Jersey. Kind of the outback of the States.

1:39:38Griffin Newman:I was a smoker for many years. Do you like beer? Yeah, you've had your boisterous days. I like to knock back a couple of cold ones from time to time. Sure. The major, I don't know, Div, what you would think here, but the major quality of a larrikin, I think, is to bullshit you. Yeah, right. Sort of like a trickster, right? Yeah. Kind of like a, you know.

1:40:02David Sims:Now, Ben, you're very honest, but you also do love bits. Swindler.

1:40:05Griffin Newman:I don't know.

1:40:05David Sims:And you make your now wife doing a bit. Only for a laugh. For fun. To deceive someone. Yeah.

1:40:12Griffin Newman:I mean, I remember when I watched Barry Lyndon for the first time, I was like, hmm, I'm really relating to this Irish scoundrel. Yes. Yes, it actually comes from Ireland. I think it's, you know, we have a huge sort of Irish lineage here. Yes. So, yeah, it's probably an Irish thing, actually. It's all coming together. The other word is mateship, right? Which is sort of like, that's a very Australian word for like kind of brotherhood or whatever you want to call it. Oh yeah, definitely. And that's the essence of Gallipoli, right? That's what Weir says is the essence. That's what we realized we were making a movie about was about mateship.

1:40:51Griffin Newman:Which is why they have things like the rugby game. Sorry, Aussie rules football game. Yes. But like, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. And I think when I was younger, I was like, oh, bloody mate. You know, this mate, this mate. You know, it's, but I actually understand it. And I think, you know, I think that it's quite peculiar to Australian men. I mean, well, there's probably all forms of it in various cultures. Right, there's versions of it. But mateship does feel like this particularly Australian sort of way that men relate to each other.

1:41:26David Sims:It took Americans a century to define the bromance. Yeah, like another word is digger. I don't know if you came across this. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, right.

1:41:35Griffin Newman:No, the only reason I know that is also Bluey. They use that word a lot in Bluey. Do they? What do they? Well, just like Lucky's dad is a classic digger, I feel like. And again, I'm only speaking to people. Oh, that's so cute because they're dogs. He's digging bones. Oh, my God. I mean, obviously, you know Bluey's parents. Do I know them personally? What do I know about them? The joke is, you know, the dad is an archaeologist. So he digs up bones. Oh, my God.

1:42:04David Sims:Wait, really? That's a really good mix. And then the mom works at airport security, so she sniffs bags.

1:42:09Griffin Newman:Like, that's the joke. They don't say it, but it's really funny. That's so good. That's so cute. Blue is brilliant. I mean, Blue is so brilliant. And Jennifer, Bluey did really turn me on to Brisbane. Like, I never thought much about Brisbane before. And, like, I realized it has its own kind of, whatever, unique kind of climate and character. And it's so green and it's so beautiful and all that stuff. Yeah. And those houses, like I live in a Bluey house. You do? You live in one of those? It's like a sort of a three-decker or however? I've never seen David this exciting. It's like a French colonial design.

1:42:42Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. I live in like a 120-year-old house. Well, they're so beautiful, though.

1:42:48Griffin Newman:I mean, they look so beautiful in Bluey. Yeah, they are. Oh, they are. They're wonderful. Yeah. I mean, part of the joke of Bluey is that the house sort of has like strange physics to it because it's like a kid's view of a house, right? so you never can quite figure out the layout. Anyway, is there anything else in Gallipoli we need to touch on? I don't want to keep you here all day, Jennifer, but are there scenes we haven't talked about that we want to talk about? I thought the color palette was really interesting. It was almost, what do they call the original photography? There were some colors that were really vibrant, so it wasn't just all, there was a vibrancy to it, like especially in the racing scenes when they were doing sprints and stuff, you know, there were pops of colour.

1:43:36It wasn't just all sort of beige and grey and it got more desaturated. Like they took, they didn't take the colour out of the frame and the grey, but they took the colour obviously out of, you know, the costumes there was no longer any vibrancy. Yeah, so I think that it was interesting and just beautifully shot. But I love the kind of formal quality of it as well.

1:44:02David Sims:And you have like the kind of natural hypersaturation of like the early scenes, especially the one where they're finally running off to try to join the war. And they're going off into the horizon. And it is just like a straight line. It is just like, you know, super bold orange sand and super blue sky. Just like bright blue sky. Right. And it's just a flat line that they're walking towards. Yeah, there was some sort of Lawrence of Arabia almost kind of compositions as well. So yeah, there was something very formal. Like I felt that he was, you know, not conventional, just formal. And I dig that as a filmmaker.

1:44:42I love that sort of, yeah, photographic kind of beautifully composed frame. um you know you think of war films it's all like handheld and chaotic and it really wasn't like that

1:44:55Griffin Newman:this film yeah no it's not at all right it's very and the most sort of uh distinctive stuff is stuff like the underwater scene but that's like you know that's like a painting or you know like just these yeah still even though it was handheld by necessity right but it didn't feel um documentary Like, I mean, talking about Bergman, you know, he famously says in his autobiography that film can be two things. It can be documentary or it can be dream. And I feel this film really still, it sits in the dream. It's not, even though the subject matter is very historically, it happened. But it's a dream when I watch this film.

1:45:41It's a sad dream.

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1:47:05Griffin Newman:Are there any other Australian actors I don't really know about here? Who are, because it feels like some of these older guys. Oh, Bill Hunter. Bill Hunter These are guys with a long history in Australia Bill Hunter's this guy He was in Muriel's wedding He played the bastard dad But all those faces are recognizable Even the man at the Jamboree the kind of sprinting carnival that they had who delivers the Bill Kerr he was one of those faces I was thinking how did these people they must have come up in theater because they're old they're older men by the time they're in this film and bill kerr's interesting because he went to britain and he did a lot of work in britain in the 50s and 60s before he came back to australia yeah so like a lot a lot of them did and and a lot of them like robert grubb he was a staple on stage when i was studying at night i was just a wonderful character actor um tim mckenzie i tried to see what like i tried to find him i i i don't know where he is yeah i i don't recognize him david argue was constantly um in film independent films and on stage he's sadly passed away quite recently reg evans is the guy the athletics official do you remember him oh yeah he's just a wonderful guy who takes the bribe at the beginning Yeah, yeah, I think so.

1:48:40Oh, he's got a top hat. Right. He's a staple in Australian cinema. So, yeah, they're recognizable faces. It's very nostalgic for me watching that because most of them have gone now, you know. Right, of course. Not the younger guys, but the older ones.

1:48:59David Sims:Yeah, Griff, are there any things you... I just want to circle back a little. We don't have to go all the way in the deep end, but this whole R &R pictures thing is very fascinating to me just for how much that like Rupert Murdoch has obviously become an evil goblin king hoarding over our media for decades and decades. We do not enjoy the work of Rupert Murdoch. This is him when he has obviously like founded News Corp and made it into a massive company before News Corp has bought Fox and all of that. And this is basically his like first serious foray into movies. It's his only foray. I mean, until he buys Fox.

1:49:31David Sims:I'm saying until he just buys a fucking film studio. Right, but he never produces movies himself again. They hired this guy, Francis O 'Brien, who was the guy I mentioned, who they sent to sort of investigate the landscape and say, do you think there's a good enough industry here? And he kept on publicly saying, like, this isn't some tax shelter thing. This isn't some, like, weird, like, dodge. This is a real belief that there's money to be made in putting more into the Australian film industry. And, you know, was just sort of scanning for, like, who are the filmmakers who are ready for this level up?

1:50:04David Sims:who has a project that seems appetizing to us, and that Murdoch's father was a journalist covering the First World War in Australia. And that he has this strong attachment to this era and, like, trying to understand what his father lived through in sort of seeing all of this. And so they're giving them a lot of money, but it's, like, not that much on a Hollywood scale. It feels like a reasonable amount. And they're trying to understand, like, what's the right business practice for this. And I think because of Mad Max, they just thought, like, if we have Mel Gibson, it'll be an easy sell domestically.

1:50:38David Sims:They set it up at Paramount. They were ready to go. But they said Francis O 'Brien was there with them the whole time. And Weir came up with the idea of the big dance hall scene late during filming. Yeah, right, right. And it was going to cost$100 ,000. Yes. For, like, a mid-production idea.

1:50:56Griffin Newman:But Weir is basically like, we need a break. Like, we need, like, something before we're getting to the horror. He needs a lyrical break before we go to war.

1:51:05David Sims:And Francis O 'Brien said, like, if I had been at a desk in Hollywood and I got that call, I would have said this guy's ego is out of fucking control. I'm not giving him$100 ,000 for a dance sequence. But being there throughout the productions, what you're saying, Jennifer, of understanding the poetry of what he was doing. Oh, yeah. I mean, that scene was so, it was so essential. I think to put a. 100%. Put a marker on the end of that beautiful sort of period of innocence. It's like the loss of innocence. Because the next shot is them all traveling in the dark. Yes. On those boats. You know, it's like a different, not a different film, but it's certainly the beginning and the end.

1:51:48It's a point of no return.

1:51:49David Sims:Yeah. Yeah. They hard pivot into war. I just think the setup of this movie was so unique that the intimacy of the money men in this was so tight that even like that guy was sure like, yeah, 100 ,000, write a check, dance sequence, not because he didn't care, but because they were actually paying attention to the vision of what was happening. And they thought it was financially prudent to invest in that. But I also think, well, I mean, I can't speak for Rupert Murdoch, but it obviously didn't continue to have interest in Australian film. So, you know, it must have been like, okay, we can make some money, but we can't make the kind of money we can make in America.

1:52:26Griffin Newman:I think basically what happens is the film comes out in Australia. It's a big hit. Huge hit. It was the biggest of the year. $12 million, which is a lot for Australia. Many multiples of its budget. It more than makes its money back. But then in America, it's like a modest sort of art house film that makes a few million dollars. And that's the, you know, it gets good reviews. But that's the end of it. And they probably were kind of like, right. Yeah, that's sort of the ceiling of a movie at this point. I imagine it would have been seen as a rather sort of underwhelming film in terms of, you know, like an action-packed war film.

1:53:01Right. It wasn't that.

1:53:03Griffin Newman:It got a little bit of attention. It played at the Venice Film Festival. It got a Golden Globe foreign film nomination. But it was not as resonant outside of Australia.

1:53:14David Sims:Weir said Paramount bought it, and Paramount had that same season Reds. And that was their big priority. and that was here's a big sweeping three-hour movie star romantic epic. That made sense to them. They didn't know what to do with Gallipoli. And over across the lot, Warner Brothers has Chariots of Fire, which of course ends up beating Reds for Best Picture. And Weir was saying like, I kind of wish we were over there. Warner Brothers seems to understand they have this small movie that they need to like gradually sell people on.

1:53:47Griffin Newman:But Chariots of Fire is a crowd-pleasing film about triumph. And this is a movie that ends with the main character dying. Gallipoli's a tougher sell. It's as dark as it gets. And also, it's like, I mean, Mel Gibson obviously became a huge star, but it's like, who are all these foreign actors? We don't know any of them. Yeah, and Gibson's not really a star yet. It's more that this is the origin story and this is part of that early, you know. It gets good reviews. Yeah, and so it should. Oh, my God. Weir in 86 called it his best film, although he also called it his least personal. He says, it has the least to do with me, but I do think I have real confidence and craft and all that.

1:54:27Griffin Newman:I don't know if he continues to feel that way. Obviously, he made a lot of great films after 1986. Yeah, yeah.

1:54:33David Sims:There's this quote I love from Francis O 'Brien when they were trying to sell it before Paramount ultimately ends up buying it when he was showing it to American distributors. And he says, three companies liked it. One said, great, but would you go back and put a little more romance in it? Another asked if we would mind changing the ending. No problem, I told them. You give us three million, we'll make a film like that, but this one is already made. Oh my God. Oh God, it's just, isn't it just so, they're just so dumb.

1:55:03Griffin Newman:They're so dumb. I do think, and it's so trite, but this is something Weir says, that he's also like, people couldn't pronounce Gallipoli. Yeah. You know, like fundamentally, it's like, Should have changed the title in America. In Australia, everyone knows what Gallipoli is, but that's not true in America. What were you about to say, Jennifer? Yeah, what were you going to say, Jennifer? Oh, you know, we had investors in America who were saying, yeah, like, you know, we want to finance The Nightingale, which, by the way, would never get made in 2026. No. A masterpiece, but truly one of the bleakest films I've ever seen.

1:55:36David Sims:It's a tough film. And they said, but can she kill Hawkins?

1:55:39Griffin Newman:Right. Can it be a revenge movie? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I said, well, she can if you want her to die in the final scene. And they went, no, no, no, no. I said, well, no. I said, well, no. Because that's the whole point of the film is how empty revenge is ultimately.

1:55:56David Sims:These aren't like small changes. Like, would you mind just putting like a little more garlic in the dish? It's like, what if the base was lamb instead of chicken? And you're like, well, I've already cooked the lamb. That's right. I chose which thing I was making. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is, I mean, hats off to Peter for not even just saying no. I mean, you can't. Are the guys going to have a love relationship? Is that what's going to happen? Also, that's what they were saying in response to watching the final cut. It wasn't like them saying that at the script stage. They were like, we made the movie already.

1:56:32David Sims:If this isn't what you want, then you don't have to buy it. I actually feel it was a beautiful love story. I agree. It is. Love story.

1:56:39Griffin Newman:I mean, right. The one last thing I want to highlight is that the music that he uses for the Bizet piece, the Pearl Fishers, was something where he just went to the opera that was being performed. And there's this duet of two male voices. And he's like, that's Frank and Archie. And he's like, I need to put it into the movie. And they have to invent like someone having a record player so that he can kind of get it into the film. but he was like it spoke to him yeah i thought the music was really beautiful and even that um who's the composer it was brian may uh who did that sort of quite vangelis um yes yes that really stuck with me as a kid as well like as soon as i heard that music this time i was like oh of course that you know some people i was reading reviews some people didn't like that but i i loved it yeah and there was that and the um um The classical piece as well.

1:57:39Griffin Newman:It's Adagio in G minor. Yeah, that's right. And it starts with that, right? The opening credits. The opening credits say, get ready. So it kind of preps us with that opening title sequence. We're going to play the box office game, Jennifer, to wrap up, which is we look at the weekend the film came out in America. because the American box office is all I have here. And Griffin's going to try and guess the top five here. Of what? For late August 1982. Oh, my God. You're going to guess them without knowing what films? I'm going to give him some clues. I'll give him some clues. Gallipoli's not in the top five here, Griff.

1:58:25Griffin Newman:Where's it open? I don't know. This is the 80s. It's not in the top ten. But my guess is it opened very limited. It was a small, arty film in America. So is this the month that it opened? But we're looking out. Yes, this is the month it opened. So in Australia, it opened. It actually, it was all sort of around the same time. Australia opened 13th of August, 1981, and it came out in America on the 28th of August. Yeah, wow. Number one, Griff is a hit comedy, one of the big comedies of the year. It got sequels. It was, I think it won an Oscar. This is the first.

1:59:01David Sims:It gets sequels. It's a sequel, I guess. So is it Arthur? It's Arthur. It's Arthur. Oh, oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah, okay. It got sequels? Arthur 2? It got one. There's one sequel. Arthur on the Rocks? Yes, right. Yeah. I think he loses all his money again. Do you like Arthur, Jennifer? Do you have any take on Arthur? I saw it. That's what I... And I do love Dudley Moore. I thought he was wonderful in the earlier comedy stuff with Peter Cook. I would I mean I remember John Gielgud saying would you like me to wash your dick for you sir he won an Oscar for saying that they basically handed him the Oscar the second that line was delivered yes that's a brilliant line I loved it more I think that movie is perfectly pleasant enough I did have the experience watching it of what I thought I was going to feel watching Crocodile Dundee for the first time I love this guy no no watching Arthur I was like this is fine this set like the world on fire?

2:00:03Yeah, that's crazy.

2:00:04David Sims:They elected Arthur Presidents. I mean, it's a forgotten... Did that win Oscars, did you say? Well, John Gielgud won Best Supporting Actor for it.

2:00:11Griffin Newman:It was a little bit of a career award. No, that makes sense. Yeah, totally.

2:00:15David Sims:But it got a screenplay now?

2:00:16Griffin Newman:I think it did. It was a humongous hit. It was a big hit. Number two, also a huge hit. Biggest movie of 1981, Griffin. Biggest movie of 1981. Covered on this podcast.

2:00:26David Sims:Would be Raiders of the Lost Ark. Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oh, brilliant. I mean, well, hats off. That's good shit Yeah that deserves it Hats off That's the last thing Indiana Jones wants to do He's a hat on guy Number three The box office Is a comedy horror film Comedy horror It is a very good film Is it American Werewolf in London? Yes it is You know I saw that film As a kid Too young Yeah Scary And I had I had such bad nightmares But I loved it Yeah because it's got Scary nightmare stuff in it Yeah yeah I've got a poster of that Actually on my wall Yeah My office You know Jennifer for how I knew that's what movie it was.

2:01:03What? How?

2:01:05David Sims:Because David's voice was going up as he was anticipating how to talk about John Landis. That's right. But it's a great film. I love that film. That I could hear David going, uh, it's a cool horror film. Uh. And I went, oh, it's a John Landis movie. It's American Warhol from London. But it's a good movie. I really. That's a wonderful film. It's a very impactful film. Yeah. It is. Jenny Agatha is really good in that too. She's so good. She's incredible. So good. Yeah. Goddamn gorgeous. They all are.

2:01:28Griffin Newman:Yeah. All right. So the first three I knew. Number four is not a movie I know at all. It's a comedy drama. It's based on a play. Based on a play. Got some Golden Globe noms. It's not like The Dresser, is it? No, that was a hit. That got Best Picture. It's a Supreme Court comedy. Supreme Court comedy. Yeah. In 1981. It was, and this is the craziest part. So it's about a female justice being nominated to the Supreme Court. Okay. And it was supposed to come out a year later. And then Reagan nominated Sandra Day O 'Connor to the Supreme Court. And they brought up the release to sort of... To beat her swearing in?

2:02:10Griffin Newman:Essentially, right. To catch up to the news. They were like, let's just do it right now. Do you have any idea what this is, Jennifer? No. So it's based around the woman? The female character? It's a fictional film. Like, it's not based about Sandra Day O 'Connor? No, but I mean, is it a female lead? Yeah, so the leads are Walter Matthau and Jill Kleberg. Oh. I love her, but I don't know what that is. It's directed by Ronald Neem, great British director who did, you know, worked with David Lean and did a lot of really good movies, including Prime of Miss Jean Brody. I feel like I can picture the poster.

2:02:45Griffin Newman:I don't know what that film is. I don't know what it is. Is it called Yorana? No, it's called First Monday in October, which is a very bland title. I would actually say quite a bad title I don't even know that film I don't know it I've never heard of it It didn't get great reviews And then number five Another movie I don't know Let's see Is a American sex comedy Okay I feel like this one has come up before It stars Sylvia Christel Who is Emmanuel You know who's best known as playing Emmanuel Yeah And it's one of her few American films American films. Oh, gosh. And I feel like we've discussed this movie because that all rings a bell.

2:03:27Griffin Newman:But I don't feel like you know this movie. It's an American sex comedy starring her. I mean, I don't have any more clues for you. You don't have any more clues. I don't know. Have to race home and watch it when we find it. Ed Begley Jr. is in it. Okay, well, that's helpful.

2:03:42David Sims:What is it? Do you have to tell us? So this was the biggest grossing. Okay, can I guess? Yeah, sure. Is it called Wowzer? It's called Private Lessons. I do know that title. Private lessons Private lessons I've never heard of it How saucy Little double entendre possibly Right right

2:04:00Griffin Newman:There you go There are other movies In the top 10 You've got a movie Called Coming At Ya Which is like a Oh that's a 3D movie Crazy 3D western movie Oh wow Oh wow I own that on 3D Blu-ray You've got Heavy Metal Which I think It's a Ben favorite The crazy animated Oh for sure Anthology movie Yes Great weed smoking movie. You've got a movie I've never heard of called Take This Job and Shove It. That's a great title. Starring Robert Hayes. Wow. Sounds pretty fun. And then you have Body Heat. One of my favorites. Yeah. And you've got

2:04:34David Sims:the Bill Murray movie Stripes. Oh, yeah. Stripes. Do you? I have this opinion that no one remembers what happens in the second half of Stripes.

2:04:42Griffin Newman:You don't do this. It's late. It's late in America.

2:04:45David Sims:Jennifer. Jennifer. Would be remiss if I didn't ask because I've been so curious for so long. Yeah. you, we've been doing this show for 11 years now. What? That's crazy. I invoke your films a lot as a positive reference point to other things I like in other movies. Aw. But you have come up once before on this podcast because of a film you appeared in as an actress. Oh, which, yeah. I think you're going to tell me what it is, but I think I know what it is. Can you guess? Yeah. Babe 2. Correct. Babe Pig in the City. I had quite a large role in that. But as, I mean, before it ended up on the cutting room floor, I was thinking, and I said to people, this is not going to end up in the film because we were experimenting on animals and I was really evil in the film.

2:05:41Right, you're right. I mean, it's a dark film.

2:05:42David Sims:You're in like a mad scientist lab that's full of nightmares. Yeah, and then when I saw it, I was like, yeah, I was right. They cut almost my entire role.

2:05:50Griffin Newman:But was that fun to make? Did they film that in Australia? It was amazing. I mean, I adore George Miller. I love him. And, yeah, it was fun. And the animatronics were crazy. And the pig training was crazy. They were so beautiful. You know, I remember one was called Erica because they would get them young, you know, and they use clickers and go, back, Erica, back. And this little pig would kind of reverse, you know. and I'm a big animal lover I love animals and so yeah it was it was a big thing I I knew like as a kid I always wanted to write direct and act but I grew up in an era where little girls didn't direct films you know I didn't have any I didn't have any role models really I mean Jane Campion was sort of just coming through and yeah so it was focusing on acting seemed like the

2:06:48David Sims:the clearer path to get onto sets. Yeah, yeah. So here I am.

2:06:54Griffin Newman:Well, I'm very eager for whatever you make next. I'm really excited to hear that you're working on something. It was so wonderful to have you on the show and so good to have an Australian perspective on this show. Likewise, guys. And I really thank you for this wonderful couple of hours, but also thank you for making me watch Gallipoli again because I wouldn't have watched it and I wouldn't have been so moved. I'm sorry it was upsetting, but it does seem like rewarding. Yeah. Oh, totally. And it just makes me appreciate our lineage of filmmakers here and Peter Weir. He's a real master and he deserves, you know, I'm glad you're doing this because he deserves more attention and for younger people to get in and watch all of his films.

2:07:43David Sims:I will also say, I imagine almost all of our listeners are very familiar with Mr. Babadook and his work. Yeah, he's great. But if people haven't seen The Nightingale, just because we've invoked it a bunch here, I would say it is similar to Gallipoli in that it is a very devastating watch, but I think a very worthwhile watch. And if you've been following us along on these Peter Weir films, I think there's a lot of overlap in sort of subject matter and perspective and working through the kind of Australian diaspora. Yeah, it's a wonderful film. Well, put it this way. I think if Fred Skepsi hadn't made Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith and if Peter Weir hadn't made his early Australian films, I don't think I would have had the courage to make that film.

2:08:25So I'm very indebted to those pioneers, you know, who came out of zero films in the 70s to this incredible slate. So beautiful.

2:08:38David Sims:That is just, yeah, it is crazy to think about. Yeah, it is. Right. If like in the 1970s, America was like, what if we made movies again? We should try to make a few of those. Yeah, exactly. And we haven't made them for 40 years. What if we just, you know, flipped the switch and started making them again? I know we've all just been like sitting back watching Australian films for the last three decades. But what if we started making them again? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Thank you so much, Jennifer. Likewise. Thank you for inviting me on. Yep. Thank you. And thanks again to Rob Scheer for making this happen.

2:09:09David Sims:Yes, thank you to Rob. A longtime friend of the show. We love you, Rob. Love, love Rob. Yeah. The best. Yeah. Thanks, Griffin. Thanks, David. I hope to see you again. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Tune in next week for Year of Living Dangerously. Yes, that's right.

2:09:31Griffin Newman:We'll cut it out if it doesn't happen, but with Tracy Letts. Very exciting episode. The King of Physical Media.

2:09:35David Sims:Right. Pulitzer Prize winner himself, Tracy Letts. Oh, I love Tracy. Amazing. Genius. We're very excited about this. and as always Ben is an American Lyrican hey

2:09:54see you guys

2:09:55Griffin Newman:we'll bid you farewell have a good day we will go to sleep have a nice sleep

2:10:12David Sims:Marie Barty Salinas and our associate producer is AJ McKeon.

2:10:16Griffin Newman:This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in The Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack.

2:10:55Griffin Newman:This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.