The Alexander Pearce Story

Somebody Was Going To Do It

One of the most compelling passages in Robert Hughes' 'The Fatal Shore' is the account of Alexander Pearce and his cannibal escapade. I liked it so much I started to write a screenplay around it, but I hit a patch. I found the repeated cannibalism totally monotnous and there was simply nothing new to add after the third guy got eaten. Yet the quantity - 7 men killed and eaten according to a pact - has a certain gravitas to it that you have to tell it. I couldn't. The monotony killed my desire to continue.

And here we find somebody perservered.

"What we wanted to do was give this kind of animalistic feel to the murder," Fulton says. "That the line had been crossed and they were no longer human. We had to give a sense that something enormous had happened."

For the most part, however, the cannibalism is underplayed.

"What I wanted was that it would become monotonous," Fulton explains. "You didn't see it but you were aware it was happening; people were chewing on meat. It became absolutely normalised and that's where the real horror comes in.



"Pearce becomes this elemental human being. He's stripped of all humanity and he does what he has to do to survive."

Ultimately the film neither condemns nor absolves Pearce, who remained unrepentant. It simply humanises a man generally considered beyond the pale. Pearce is a reluctant party to the killings and only takes a life when he has no other choice. In many respects his 49-day escape is a remarkable story of survival.

As Fulton says: "In another context, towns and roads might have been named after him."

Complicating matters, however, is Pearce's second escape, which occurred weeks after he was sent back to Sarah Island. Just days after fleeing with a fellow convict, Pearce was found next to his partially eaten corpse even though he still had plenty of provisions.

"From a storytelling point of view, it was a nightmare," Fulton says of the second escape, which is dealt with in the film with almost slapstick abruptness. "It contradicts everything you've told the first time except if you look at it purely as a man who's gone beyond humanity."

I got a heads up from somebody who was enthusiastic about the story and was very disappointed that I didn't continue. Yet sometimes you know half way into writing something that it's not part of you.

I partiuclarly want to note that the producer Nial Fulton actually comes from Ireland. In some ways it is an Irish story much more than an Australian story, and therefore story that I was never going to be privy to.  I struggled with it for 6 months but I don't really regret giving up my own attempt. I'm really looking forward to seeing this picture.