Some Honest Words

Cinematically Speaking, We're Pacific Islanders

Today brings yet another critique of the sad world of the Australian Film Industry. A lot could be said about this article but frankly I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted with talking about the damn thing when nothing seems to change. Anyway, here's what George MiIller has to say:

Except for Luhrmann, George Miller and a handful of others, Australian filmmakers are not even playing the same game as Hollywood. It's no wonder they're not competing.

They're like painters and musicians politely showing their work rather than scrapping for ticket sales.

“It's a tough business out there,” says Miller, who is – with the Mad Max movies and Happy Feet – the country's most consistently successful filmmaker. “The big-event movies seem to soak up all the attention and all the box office. Unfortunately, that's what the cinema business is devolving to.

“The smaller, more intimate, more modest stories are probably finding their way better onto cable, onto television, onto DVD and onto the web ultimately.”

Miller believes the comparison he made a few years ago – that the film industry is like the Fijian and Samoan rugby teams, with brilliant one-off talents but not enough support to match the world's best – still applies.

A cinema-chain executive, who asks not to be identified, says recent Australian films have just not been entertaining enough for mainstream audiences.

"The box office [see "Dollar for dollar", right] indicates what the general public's reaction is to these films and, despite certain people saying that the industry isn't supporting these pictures, that's a fallacy," he says. "Except for Samson and Delilah, that bunch of films have failed to strike a chord with audiences on a large scale."

The film industry – fragmented, democratic and often justifiably unhappy about the way success is tied to box office rather than overseas sales or audience response – has many talented creative figures but not enough producers who say ugly truths such as "No one cares about this story the way you've approached it" or "Even if you execute this perfectly, it'll still open in a handful of cinemas and last four weeks".

There aren't enough hardheads who'll say, "If this doesn't make money, it'll be five years before you make another film" or "How can we broaden it?"

Yup. Plus Phil Noyce's input:

And we need to listen to director Phillip Noyce, who recently finished filming the Hollywood thriller Salt with Angelina Jolie. "All Australian filmmakers have to be aware (as Baz Luhrmann so obviously is) that making the film is just half the job," he says. "A much higher percentage of budgets need to be quarantined for publicity and marketing. We need less workshops devoted to refining our craft and a huge redirection of energy by funding and teaching bodies towards basic entrepreneurship.

“The classic economic rules of supply and demand do not apply to movies; demand to see a film has to be created."

It's a number's game. The most ardent cinema-goer who pays to see films will see 50-100 films. That's based on a weekend movie with friends plus a shot at Tight-Arse-Tuseday. Plus they might watch a DVD of a film they missed, but you're not talking thousands of films.

So if you're choosing to see a film, you're going to choose from the top 50-100 most visible and interesting films on offer. This would mean the most marketed films will find a way into view of the ardent cineaste much more readily than those without the marketing budgets. And really, Australian films simply do not have the kind of marketing budgets to crack the top 200 most marketed films in any given year. So why are we surprised by this outcome?

Why are we even bothering funding more films when we know we're sending those films to box office oblivion? Isn't there something more useful to spend this money on? Like better education and health? I keep saying this but Australians pretend to want an Australian film industry much more than they really do. It's no surprise the industry is to all intents and purposes, dead on the vine.

Today, I feel too embittered to continue with this shit. I really am. I've had enough.