Days of Wine and Rage

by Frank Moorhouse

  Q. In The Vivisector there are some characters who are ‘stroked by God’, and this recalls the episode in Riders in the Chariot where Ruth Joyner’s brother has his head crushed like a melon under the hay-wagon, and ‘for the first time, life, that ordinarily slack and harmless coil, became a fist, which was aiming at her personally’. Is this element of inexplicable violence in the world an issue in the novels?

  A. Yes. It won’t leave you alone. Human violence can be explained (man is like Frankenstein’s monster who periodically gets out of control) but natural violence – acts of God – are difficult to understand, and the sufferings of innocent people. However, at the same time you can’t explain the genius of Bach and Mozart, or a rather squalid old man like Turner – none of the great artists – or saints. So one has to accept the depths along with the heights.

  Q. The epigraph from Blake in The Vivisector speaks of cruelty, and some characters project this on to God, e.g. Hero says ‘God is cruel! We are his bagful of cats.’

  A. There are times when most of us will drown a bagful of metaphoric cats. That Hero’s husband has drowned a bagful of actual cats is particularly shattering, because her husband is also her God in spite of her lust for Duffield. Hero is Greek Orthodox and I don’t think any Greek Orthodox ever rejects God whatever the more sophisticated ones may tell you.

  Q. Duffield himself doesn’t know what he believes in, ‘beyond his own powers, the unalterable landscape of childhood, and the revelations of light’. After Hero returns disillusioned from the chapel on Perialos, he can only point to the golden hen pecking at the crumbs round the café table, in consolation. Can his celebration of the world in painting be seen as a mode of worship?

  A. To begin with, that fussy, industrious little Greek hen, if you have seen one, is in herself a ‘revelation of light’. That is why I introduced what may seem irrelevant to some readers. I do it through Duffield, whose ‘celebration of the world in painting’ is of course a ‘mode of worship’. I think Duffield realised this from the beginning, though only unconsciously. Finally it emerges, as I try to show. Only at the end will he admit it. (I believe that most people, if they are honest with themselves, have in them the germ of a religious faith, but they are either too lazy, or too frightened, or too ashamed intellectually to accept the fact.)

  Q. The Vivisector seems to be concerned a good deal with the artist’s struggle to be honest with himself, as in Duffield’s work on his self-portrait?

  A. Yes, he eventually smears it with shit and throws it down the gully after Nance Lightfoot has, possibly, been driven to suicide.

  Q. There is a puzzling passage in which Olivia sees the ‘Pythoness at Tripod’ painting and accuses Duffield of bringing Rhoda and Muriel together to suit his own purposes. She asks, ‘Is it honest?’ This points to a literal realism one wouldn’t expect you to uphold. Why should it be dishonest unless one expects a photographic likeness? Duffield very properly replies, ‘Only the painting can answer that’, but he goes on to talk of the painter’s being only human, as if he feels guilty. Why should Olivia say this – why is it dishonest?

  A. Olivia is thinking about it in human terms, not as an artist, in spite of her passion for art, because Rhoda is a hunchback dwarf and Muriel a hysteric. In his painting Duffield is combining the weaknesses of both, which doesn’t seem to her fair. Duffield, though an artist, also experiences moments of guilt as a human being …

  MAKING MOVIES

  Film of the Decade

  ‘Mouth to Mouth’

  The consensus of friends and film people is that Mouth to Mouth by John Duigan was the most significant Australian film of the seventies. Australians made more than eighty feature films during this time, many very very good. I think Michael Thornhill’s FJ Holden probably came in number two. Mouth to Mouth was not a perfect film but it displayed great talent. It worked with youth unemployment and youth culture with dazzling insight.

  Of the four young actors in the film, Kim Krejus and Ian Gilmour had previous acting experience and Sergio Frazzetto and Sonia Peat had none. Ian went on to work in the industry, Kim went to the Drama Centre in London but, ironically, Sergio and Sonia at the end of the seventies had found no employment since the film.

  John Duigan was born in England in 1949 but moved to Geelong while a child. He did an honours degree in arts at Melbourne University while involving himself heavily in theatre around La Mama and the university theatre group. He acted, directed and wrote. He also did street theatre during the moratorium and on environmental issues.

  Typical of the directors of the seventies, he had no formal training as a film director but had already made two films before Mouth to Mouth, both of which went without much notice.

  After the very positive reviews of Mouth to Mouth, he crashed critically with Dimboola (1979), based on the highly successful play by Jack Hibberd.

  Jack and John failed to find a happy working arrangement on the film and both felt the script suffered from this lack of rapport.

  Interview with John Duigan

  Scott Murray

  (from Cinema Papers, April 1978)

  John Duigan’s Mouth to Mouth is the story of two girls who escape from a youth training centre and live in a disused warehouse with two boys. This striking film, made for $129 000 and on 16mm, is notable for its technical proficiency and, most importantly, the excellent performances from the mostly teenage cast.

  Mouth to Mouth is Duigan’s third feature, and follows The Firm Man and The Trespassers. In the following interview, conducted by Scott Murray while Duigan was preparing for his next project, Dimboola, Duigan begins by discussing the origins of his screenplay.

  Q. Is Mouth to Mouth an original screenplay?

  A. Yes. It began with the idea of four teenagers spending a night on the town, and just extended from that. I decided to try and make a film that would involve a fairly wide-ranging audience in the experiences of four sympathetic characters who are battling to get some kind of life going at the lower end of society. Characters whom the middle-class audience generally reads about as numbers in the unemployment figures, or kids in the juvenile courts. In all, I did fourteen drafts of the screenplay.

  Q. Why was that?

  A. Almost all the assessments I received were very positive, but the assessors at the Australian Film Commission felt that, while it was a good script, it had limited financial potential. I think the film was knocked back three times on those grounds.

  The Victorian Film Corporation, on the other hand, was very helpful; I had several long and useful discussions with people there.

  The material I write probably needs a lot of rewriting, and I believe The Trespassers could have done with another rewrite.

  Q. Do you feel a corporation is within its rights in pressuring a writer into reworking a script?

  A. Obviously there are many dangers. If a film body starts to suggest or impose some of its own concepts on the screenplay, a writer could be dislodged from his own personal vision and end up writing something else. If comments are directed towards clarifying the writer’s vision, then it can be useful.

  Q. One criticism that has been voiced against Mouth to Mouth is that it is too determinist …

  A. I don’t accept that as a criticism. One of the most important qualities of the four characters is their terrific vitality and imagination. Given their environment, there aren’t many options, and they certainly don’t ever perceive themselves as having many. Yet, they do come out with some ingenious ways of solving their problems – the way they steal, for example. As well, the places that they go to on the spur of the moment are quite exciting and unusual.

  But one of the feelings I was after was a real sense of inexorability in the way the action unfolds – the environment creates it. From the moment they escape from the youth training centre, it is inevitable that the girls will be arrested again. That is the pattern in reality.

  On the other hand, the two guys are on the dole. I worked on a radio program for six
months in which young unemployed people talked about their experiences. One of the overwhelming impressions was the feeling of pessimism and of a basic lack of options. And the longer they were unemployed, the more entrenched these feelings were. It seemed important to get that kind of feeling with Serge and Tim – a growing sense of frustration.

  Q. Yet, one senses in the characters’ actions a partial transcending of the limitations. The film is, therefore, very optimistic …A. I certainly hope people will perceive the optimism, which is crucial to the film. I wanted to generate a lot of warmth between the characters, and while at the finish one of the four characters becomes separated from the other three, even she is not really beaten. But the world is making her very hard.

  The other three we see still together in the last series of images, and it is clear that they have found a real solidarity among themselves. They care a lot about each other.

  Q. This theme reminds me of The Trespassers, where the strongest scenes are those about the relationship between the girls …

  A. I agree. One of the things I wanted to do in that film was suggest the dichotomy in people who have very respectable and sophisticated political views, but whose personal lives are a mess. Also, to explore the implications of rationality, or over-intellectualisation, on spontaneity and emotional honesty.

  Q. The characters in Mouth to Mouth have that honesty …

  A. Yes, the four of them are very direct, particularly the girls. It is a characteristic I like very much.

  Q. In Mouth to Mouth you highlight the characters’ progression by subtly detaching them from the violence and noise of the soundtrack …

  A. The soundtrack is very important, and I think Tony Paterson, the editor, has done a superb job in helping create that ugly sound environment.

  The four live in a warehouse near a shunting yard, and there is constantly the jarring sounds of trains and carriages jolting into one another, or rushing past. Then there is the pub situation with the grinding music in the background, and layers of loud pub ambience.

  The ways in which a soundtrack can enrich an image are becoming clearer to me. In general, Australian films have not widely explored the possibilities.

  Q. In Bresson’s book Notes on Cinematography there is the much-quoted line: ‘If you can ever replace an image with a sound, do so’…

  A. That is a good quote. An example of this is when Carrie, the girl who becomes isolated from the other three, walks into the park. She sits on a bench, near the Carlton football ground, and there is the sound of people cheering wafting over the park. It mirrors the position of the individual in Carrie’s isolation against a huge kind of social animal. The force of the image comes from the incredible noise.

  Also, there is the cut to Carrie coming into the warehouse before the above scene, which is done on a scream from Jeannie. When one of the boys hits a policeman, she cries out and this sound blurs into a train whistle. Again, this has resonances linked with the use of trains and machines throughout the film, a world inhabited by generally anonymous people and machines.

  Q. In one scene, Carrie is picked up off the railway tracks by an old hobo. How do you see his role in the film?

  A. Fred is a very important character. Earlier in the film, after the girls have escaped from the youth training centre, they are in a car with a group of guys. They drive past a derelict old man and the guys scream out abuse; this anticipates later events.

  Carrie, by far, is the most desperate of the four, and senses in Fred the way she is heading. So she shuns him. One night he finds her in the railway yards, curled up and drunk. He helps her home, and subsequently she is much warmer towards him. Later he is beaten up by Tony, with whom Carrie has had a very self-destructive relationship.

  The violence of this act finally makes her see the sort of person Tony is and she breaks away from this obsessive relationship. Incidentally, Tony likewise is a kind of social derelict, and knows it. When the old man calls him a dero it’s the worst possible insult.

  Q. In dealing with feminist issues, and difficult ones like prostitution, did you ever find yourself in the situation of being false to yourself in order to avoid exposing a flank to criticism?

  A. Not as far as I am aware. A friend of mine worked in a massage parlour for six months: I talked to her a lot about her experiences, and I suppose the events in the film have been coloured by this.

  In no way was I attempting to make value judgement points on prostitution – I wouldn’t want to. The events that occur in the film, and the characters’ reactions in them, are generated by the momentum of the characters as I saw them.

  Q. One of the striking features about Mouth to Mouth is the performance of the four lead actors. How did you go about casting them?

  A. I have come to think that casting is as important as the screenplay. I was looking for actors for these roles for about a year and did some fairly exhaustive testing. I spotted Sonia Peat (Jeannie) in a Sydney pub. She knew most of the people there and was buzzing around with this endless, speedy energy – she seemed just right for the part. On closing time I found out she was living in a nurses’ home. Without using the line ‘Do you want to be in a film?’, I contacted her the next time I was in Sydney and we did a bit of testing.

  Q. What did this entail?

  A. Mainly reading scripts. I would listen to her and then make some suggestions.

  For me, the most important thing in testing an actor is finding whether he or she can establish a rapport with others, and if he or she can get anything out of the suggestions that I make about delivery and character.

  Sergio Frazzetto, who plays Serge, was working at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology as a van driver; he had never done any acting, but has great vitality, like the others, which was one of the prime things I was looking for. I thought I would try and get that onto film.

  The other two people came from agencies and they had some acting experience. Ian Gilmour (Tim) had done a television series nine months before and has done bits and pieces since. Kim Krejus, who plays Carrie, did a year at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts and is now doing some television work. They have impressive futures.

  So, it was a combination of two totally inexperienced actors and two with some experience. They were great to work with and worked very hard. We had a two-week rehearsal period, and during the first week we went down the coast, to get to know one another. We worked intensively in the quiet, and it was very useful. I believe all four performances are really terrific.

  Q. You worked with more experienced actors on The Trespassers. Did you have to change your directing style on Mouth to Mouth, such as doing more takes?

  A. To an extent one works differently with each actor. I value rehearsals very highly. I would prefer to over-rehearse people and find ways of recapturing the freshness, than try to get what I want for the first time in front of the camera. So we didn’t need to shoot many takes on either film – we couldn’t afford to anyway.

  As to shooting styles, the camera movements in The Trespassers were often long, fluid, tracking shots complementing the long passages of dialogue. Mouth to Mouth was very economical with a lot more jarring movement and close-up work.

  Q. Also, a faster cutting pattern …

  A. Yes, it is a lot more manic – as is implied by the speedier lifestyle of the characters.

  Q. You had planned to make the film on 35mm and not 16mm. Did the changeover affect the size of the crew or use of equipment?

  A. I don’t think we would have used a bigger crew, apart from one more on camera. We would have used a 35BL, so the size of the camera would have been very much the same, and we would have shot at a similar speed.

  I am very keen on working with crews of the size we had on Mouth to Mouth, which was a little smaller than that on The Trespassers.

  Q. How many were on location?

  A. Eleven, as opposed to thirteen on The Trespassers.

  Q. Did the Victorian Film Corporation have any feelings a
bout the size of the crew?

  A. No, other than suggesting that it would be more appropriate to employ sixteen.

  At this stage I haven’t seen the blow-up to 35mm, so I don’t know whether spending an extra $25 000 to do it on 35mm would have been justified. It doesn’t seem very much money, but it is a lot when you are speaking of a budget of $129 000.

  Q. That is the final budget …

  A. Yes, but $44 000 of that is deferments. In terms of straight cash, the film took $85 000 to make – and that includes the blow-up.

  It would have been nice to have had $150 000, and the film I want to do after Dimboola will probably have a budget of around $185 000. The only reason it will cost an extra $35 000 is because it needs a French or German actress.

  For a hell of a lot of film subjects $150 000 seems an appropriate budget; there is no need to have much more than that.

  Q. Was it for economic reasons that you shot on 16mm?

  A. Yes, I couldn’t find any more money at that time, though I could probably find it now with the contacts I have. But I had all the people lined up for the film and, because of their availability, it was essential to shoot when we did.