Peter Jackson: A Film-maker’s Journey

by Sibley, Brian

  No one knew anything about what we’d been doing and I remember sitting in a hotel room in Cannes one afternoon with Richard and Tania and reading them the entire screenplay of Heavenly Creatures. I was quite proud of what we had written and was keen to have their opinions and get some feedback.

  ‘What was wonderful about Heavenly Creatures,’ says Richard, recalling that afternoon, ‘was the realisation that the world had now accepted Peter as a George Romero–Sam Raimi gore-meister and had assumed that that was to be his future; and yet here he was, planning to turn round and slap them in the face with a beautiful, poignant, incredibly intimate, revealing story of female teenage angst which– just from Pete’s reading of the script–was obviously going to be an incredible work of art.’

  That determination to play against people’s preconceptions signalled a talent who was determined to define himself, rather than be defined by others; this should have been remembered when, a few years later, people expressed surprise–even alarm–that Peter Jackson was about to attempt the conquest of Middle-earth.

  In 1992, Peter’s producer, Jim Booth, wrote of the Heavenly Creatures proposal: ‘Some may be surprised at Peter taking on this subject. I am not. Peter’s storytelling skills are based on a genuine ability to recognise the universal, the myths, and the fantasies which lie behind all stories. It is the childlike quality of the fairytale; it is the talent of the Spielbergs of this world…’

  At Cannes, Peter met with German film producer Hanno Huth of Senator Films, who had produced the Dennis Hopper thriller Eye of the Storm and the film about The Beatles’ early, pre-fame days in Hamburg, Backbeat. Huth bought Braindead for distribution in Germany and was interested in knowing whether Peter had another film he wanted to make. In fact, he offered him one: Invasion of Privacy–a social thriller written by Larry Cohen about a man who kidnaps a woman carrying his child and holds her to ransom in a remote house in order to prevent her from having an abortion. Peter turned down the project and, instead, showed Huth the script for Heavenly Creatures, which the German read, liked and agreed to help finance as co-producer.

  When the New Zealand Film Commission’s Chairman, David Gascoigne, heard the pitch for Heavenly Creatures (over that ice-cream sundae in a Cannes café) he was surprised not just by the proposed subject matter but also by the fact that, unlike earlier projects, Peter had developed a script before approaching the Commission for funding. As Peter later explained: ‘I didn’t think I would be taken seriously if I started blabbing about it before I had written a script. “The Sultan of Splatter” doing the Parker–Hulme story is a difficult concept for people to accept, and I felt I had to produce a script as proof of my integrity when dealing with this subject matter.’

  Having established that integrity, Peter wanted urgent funding for Fran and himself to continue their researches in Christchurch. He realised that to secure the Film Commission’s support he needed to address the issue of exactly what the ‘Sultan of Splatter’ thought he was up to. His application to the Film Commission tackled this question head on:

  ‘WHY ON EARTH AM I ATTRACTED TO THE PARKER–HULME STORY? I can hear the journalist’s question now, and will hear it a hundred times if this film gets made–at least it will give me a break from the usual “Did you have an unhappy childhood?” (Come to think of it, it probably won’t!)

  ‘First and foremost, it is a great story, with great characters. Beyond that, it has one compelling attraction that is guaranteed to intoxicate film-makers: it is a very well-known but totally misunderstood chapter in New Zealand criminal history.

  ‘Pauline and Juliet were two very imaginative but normal girls. They did nothing that most of us haven’t done–kept diaries, played fantasy games, sneaked out at night, had imaginary friends, planned impossible trips, experimented with sex…even fantasising about killing your parents. What has set them apart from the rest of us is that they went one step further…

  ‘I have taken no sides, no political stance; the story is not about sexual politics, it is not about “lesbian killers” or “lesbian martyrs”. Once you learn who Pauline and Juliet were and why they acted the way they did, it all becomes very clear. I have tried to tell a complex psychological story in a way that I think represents the truth in a very accurate manner…’

  At the end of his proposal, Peter concluded with a typical, ‘straight-up’ Jackson comment: ‘Re-reading the last couple of pages, I realise that this is coming across like some sort of personal crusade…and it’s not really. In the end, I’m a movie-maker and I know this story could make a great film, and I would love to have the chance to do it. The fact that it is a true story with real people has excited me in a way that has never happened before with scripts I’ve worked on.’

  Supporting the Heavenly Creatures proposal, Jim Booth wrote:

  Jim Booth at an industry function in 1992. Jim and I assumed we would be partners in film-making for many years to come.

  ‘Peter is a serious film-maker. This is not a departure for him, but a logical progression. His work with the actors in Braindead turned an essentially “comic-book” film into something much more, and the potential of Peter with this script is very exciting.

  ‘It will not be an earnest, “worthy” film. But it will be a worthwhile film because it is true to the people involved; to the humour and pathos, foolishness and mistakes that surround this tragedy.

  ‘Peter will always strive to make films which appeal to audiences. This does not trivialise or demean the subject. In fact the reverse; the core of his work is based on universal precepts which will entertain, surprise and involve the viewer.’

  In just a few years the 49-year-old Booth had gone from being perceived as the archenemy at the Film Commission who was preventing the completion of Bad Taste to being Peter’s producer and advocate. Peter had come to rely on Jim as a sounding board for his ideas, as a litmus test for his scripts and as someone who would help him achieve what he wanted to do by releasing him from many of the less appealing, time-consuming tasks that go along with making a movie. Above all, they had become not just colleagues, but friends.

  It was therefore all the more devastating when–a couple of weeks after the triumphant response to Braindead in Cannes and the anticipation that had been stirred up for Heavenly Creatures–Jim broke some unexpected bad news to Peter.

  He told me that he’d just been diagnosed as having bowel cancer and that he had suspected that something was wrong while we had been making Braindead, but hadn’t wanted to go to the doctor because he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardise the film. I was shocked at the news and appalled that he had put off seeing a doctor. I remember saying, ‘Oh, Jim, you should never have done that…Why did you do it? We would have coped, okay.’ I was totally, utterly stunned…

  A colostomy operation followed, which Jim faced with characteristic fortitude and matter-of-factness, inviting friends round for a pre-op get-together, which he jestingly referred to as a ‘Disembowelling Party’.

  While Jim was recovering from surgery the Film Commission approved the advancing of finance for Peter and Fran to continue their researches into the Parker–Hulme case in Christchurch. Visiting many of the real-life locations–the girls’ school, the Hulme family house and gardens, the tea-rooms in Victoria Park close to the murder site, even the consulting-rooms of the doctor who alarmed Pauline’s mother with his talk of ‘homosexuality’–brought history vividly alive and convinced Peter and Fran that, as far as possible, the film should be shot at the actual places where the events occurred.

  Whilst some Christchurch people still viewed the case as an embarrassment, others readily shared their memories: neighbours of the two families and retired teachers and fellow students at the school attended by Pauline and Juliet, as well as the two people who were the first to be confronted with the results of the girls’ crime:

  We met Ken Ritchie, the caretaker at Victoria Park in Christchurch, who found the body, and Ken’s wife, Agnes, who was in the tea
-room at the top of the Park and who served the mother her last cup of tea before the girls took her down a wooded track and killed her. It was Agnes who had confronted the hysterical girls when they came running up, covered in blood, after committing the murder. That scene, which we showed at the beginning of the film, was based entirely on Agnes Ritchie’s own personal account.

  We also found a very close friend of the Hulme family, Nancy Sutherland, who was then an elderly lady in her nineties and who gave us a huge amount of practical advice and very intelligent insights into what went on and why. She told us about Juliet’s mother having an extra-marital affair, which had caused the break-up of the family and provided the catalyst for the murder of Pauline’s mother.

  Nancy had never spoken to journalists but we won her trust and she decided to tell us everything, perhaps because she knew she was approaching the end of her life, but also, I think, because she felt that the truth had never really come out. From our contacts with all these people, we were able to base the movie not just on contemporary records, such as the court papers and Pauline’s diaries, but also on personal reminiscences.

  In June 1992, Peter was in Los Angeles where he met with a man who was to prove another major player in his future career. Peter’s American lawyer, Peter Nelson, had decided to use the completion of Braindead as an opportunity to ‘supplement the team with a Hollywood agent.’ In fact, Peter had already had a relationship with a Los Angeles agency. ‘They were,’ says Peter Nelson, ‘a good agency. They had signed him post-Meet the Feebles for all the right reasons but they fell asleep: at that time he wasn’t making them money, so they didn’t pay enough attention and that agency missed out on a rather significant opportunity! Peter brought Braindead to Hollywood and we invited agents and distributors to a screening, as a result of which we had offers from five agencies.’

  One of those who attended the screening was Ken Kamins of InterTalent, who had joined the agency just three months previously after working for eight years as Vice-President at RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video: ‘What I saw in Braindead was tremendous confidence: the special-effects work is obvious, but it was more than that; it was Peter’s willingness to almost look the audience dead in the eye and wink at them! Braindead is a big wink; Peter is giggling along with the audience all the way through, as if he’s sitting in the seat next to you and saying, ‘Can you believe this?’ I thought that showed enormous confidence, which would translate in whatever direction he decided to go with his movie-making.’

  Following the screening of Braindead, Peter met with the interested agencies and the last of those meetings was with Ken Kamins: ‘We had lunch on the last day before he got the plane to go back to New Zealand. He was very inquisitive, and rather than sitting back, looking to me to make a presentation, he was asking a great many questions. I think he saw genuine enthusiasm on my part and maybe a candour and honesty about where he was in the marketplace and what might have to be done to get him to different places, and I think the truth is, in 1992, he didn’t really know who he wanted to be in the business. Of course, Peter knew he wanted to make movies, wanted to do as much as he could himself and wanted to remain in New Zealand; he was, I think, initially somewhat uncomfortable about the idea of having to come to Los Angeles to get his work.

  ‘I talked about possibly setting up a round of meetings with important studio executives and producers: I told him that Braindead would appeal to the likes of Spielberg and Zemeckis and that I would like to set up meetings with their companies. I’ve never forgotten his response, “Yeah, that would be great, but you know who I’d really love to meet? Sam Raimi!” That’s absolutely the truth! He wanted to meet the director of The Evil Dead. For Peter, The Evil Dead was the Holy Grail!’

  In fact, Hollywood was already beginning to show interest in Peter and even made occasional approaches with possible projects. The Disney Company, where–unlikely though it may seem–Meet the Feebles had been given a viewing, offered Peter a script in the wake of Braindead. A teen-zombie romance with the working title ‘Johnny Zombie’, it made an uncomfortable stab at social satire by presenting the various attitudes displayed towards the back-from-the-grave, undead hero in terms of racial prejudice. Peter wisely turned down the project, which was eventually released by Touchstone Pictures under the anodyne title My Boyfriend’s Back.

  Peter returned to New Zealand and, a few days later, called Ken Kamins to say that he would like to work with him. Peter Nelson reflects: ‘Ken was a brilliant choice: he’s an intelligent guy, but he has a humility that goes well with Peter’s worldview. It would have been hard for any agency not to have done an acceptable job for Peter, but Ken has done an extraordinary job.’

  Choosing an agent was a very personal decision. I was lucky enough to have meetings with all the big agencies, and ended up choosing the person I liked best, who happened to work for the smallest agency, InterTalent. Within a few months, they were absorbed into ICM so I ended up there with Ken. I think Ken assumed I would jump into an American movie, but he quickly learned how serious I was to make films at home. I’m grateful that he has always supported that, and never tried to turn me into something I’m not.

  ‘Whatever Peter’s answer might be as to why he signed with me,’ says Ken, ‘I believe that, unlike most of the other agencies who looked at Braindead, the one thing I didn’t tell him was that what he needed to do was direct A Nightmare on Elm Street or a Friday the Thirteenth movie or some low-budget horror genre picture.’

  The Hollywood machine has pigeonholed a lot of very fine film-makers –which is frightening! It can take a Tobe Hooper, a John Carpenter or a Wes Craven and force them to stay in that genre because Hollywood is a very unimaginative town and pigeonholing is one of its specialities! It’s all too easy to be stifled by the genre you’re in and never really be offered anything else. Working in New Zealand made it easier to avoid being pigeonholed because we were generating and driving our own projects.

  It was one of those projects that Peter had spoken of to Ken Kamins: ‘He told me about a movie, a true story of matricide in New Zealand that he really wanted to make. And, if I’m not mistaken, I believe I was the only agent who told him he should make it!’

  By early September 1992, the script for that story had gone through several more drafts and a submission was made to the Film Commission for production investment. The Heavenly Creatures proposal was a sophisticated and compelling document–to then-chairman David Gascoigne, it was simply one of the most impressive submissions he had read. Illustrated with period photographs and containing detailed notes on character and story structure, it was a far cry from documents that Peter had been sending the Commission about Bad Taste less than ten years earlier.

  Peter once again addressed his reasons for wanting to film what he was now describing as ‘a murder story with no villains’: ‘A lot of people will attribute this choice of project as an attempt by me to break out of typecasting–“to gain respectability”–or the old favourite, “to be taken seriously as a film-maker.” Not so. They are making an assumption that my career choices are governed more by what I want to be seen to be, rather than what I actually want to do. I naturally find that rather annoying. I’ve had a long interest in the Parker–Hulme story…I’m a film-maker, so the notion of making a Parker–Hulme film is perfectly natural to me, if not to anybody else

  …’

  What I find curious is that if people like two or three splatter movies that you’ve made then they somehow can’t get their head around the fact that you can possibly make other types of films and, if you do, then it comes as a total shock to them. They say, ‘How did you make this? It’s just so different!’

  I can understand why people say it, but it really doesn’t have a great deal of bearing on reality, because if you are a film-maker nothing is really that different. The subject matter, sure, and the genre; but for the rest: you’ve still got to show up on set at seven o’clock in the morning and decide what lens to use and where y
ou’re going to put your camera, and you have a script that has to achieve something–whether it’s a zombie film or Heavenly Creatures or The Lord of the Rings–and your task is to read the pages you’re shooting that day, and figure out how best to cover them and bring them to life.

  Obviously, those scenes are dictated by what’s on the page, which in turn is dictated by what the movie is, but the job itself is exactly the same. If you can make a good splatter movie, then you can probably make a good cowboy film or musical. If you can’t it’s because other people have ghettoised you, and not given you the chance! Staying in New Zealand, and making low-budget, independently financed movies allowed me to control my career path and make my own decisions in a way that would have been impossible in Hollywood.

  Aware of how he was perceived as a film-maker in 1992, Peter was at pains to give as clear a picture as possible of the approach he intended to adopt in filming Heavenly Creatures: ‘I don’t intend to make a dark, brooding, little murder film. That would be the obvious, clichéd way to go. It holds little interest for me. More importantly, it belittles the characters involved in the story.

  ‘So much of Pauline and Juliet’s friendship was positive, and that is the tone I intend to take with the movie: a celebration of a remarkable relationship. It has a tragic ending, but to portray it as “doomed from the beginning” would be a mistake. For the most part it was a joyous, exhilarating relationship, filled with humour, intelligence and two wonderfully hyper imaginations

  …’ Those hyper imaginations had led the girls to create their imaginary kingdom of Borovnia and to develop a perception of themselves as belonging to a mystical dimension or altered state which they described as the Fourth World: a schizophrenic state of mind that prompted Pauline to write of Juliet and herself: