While it feels counter-intuitive, given its subject, to list Elvis (2022) as an Australian film, the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Awards (AACTA) expressed no qualms, awarding this US-Australian co-production Best Film, Director, and Actor, along with 9 other awards, a veritable sweep. AACTA also gave director Baz Luhrmann’s previous co-production, The Great Gatsby, the same top gongs and a slew of others nine years earlier. Ironically, Australia, Luhrmann’s most Antipodean-flavoured work since his breakthrough Strictly Ballroom, was nominated largely in craft categories by AACTA’s predecessor, the Australian Film Insititute Awards.
Having said that, perhaps the best way to look at Luhrmann—indisputably our most successful working director and a truly internationally-minded one—is to treat him as our Sergio Leone. Much as Leone’s work is a product of both American Westerns and Italian cinema, so too is Luhrmann a filmmaker dabbling in American genres and stories with American and/or or international stars—as seen in Elvis, The Great Gatsby, even Moulin Rouge!, previously subject of a John Houston film featuring José Ferrer and Zsa Zsa Gabor—whilst maintaining homegrown ingredients in his casting, crews, a healthy smidgeon of irreverence, and the director’s own authorial signature.
Whilst beholden to the narratives of F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel and Elvis Aaron Presley’s life, the flamboyant tone of Luhrmann’s films is dissimilar to—to draw upon two convenient reference points—Jack Clayton’s Coppola-scripted, Redford-starring 1974 film of The Great Gatsby and recent musical biopics like Bohemian Rhapsody. Moreover, the narratives of both Gatsby and Elvis are moulded to the familiar story rhythms seen in Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge! and Australia, with a bombastic, escalating, and somewhat comedic first act giving way to a swoony, romantic second act and ultimately the high drama of tragedy or triumph in act three. If both films are ultimately slightly dissatisfying in their denouement—compared to original screen stories Moulin Rouge! and Australia—it is because their conclusions are foregone based upon their source material, and no matter how wildly and spectacularly Luhrmann colours between the lines, he’s still colouring between the lines.
After reading her very fine book about the life of Buster Keaton recently, I’ve become a fast fan of Dana Stevens. While I disagree with much of her review of Elvis, I wholeheartedly concur with her that the film's ace in the hole is Austin Butler. It’s a terrific performance that captures Elvis’ public persona and energy—evident in scenes such as the sterling Vegas-based rendition of 'Suspicious Minds'—and delivers what feels a credible portrait of offscreen, offstage Elvis, no small feat given Austin is playing one of the most recognisable (and still revered) performers of the twentieth century.
An actor out of place can sink a film: for some, Tom Hanks did that in Elvis, but I mostly rolled with Hanks’ villainous turn as Presley's Machiavellian manager. I connected less with Matthew Goode’s work in Burning Man (2011). Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky—no, not Lipnicki, the kid from Jerry Maguire, but the Australian director of Better than Sex, Gettin’ Square, Railway Man, and Churchill—the frantic opening minutes of Burning Man see chef Tom (Goode) getting into a horrendous car accident. From there, the film rewinds and jumps back and forth in time, sketching impressionistically the incidents culminating in the accident, including the loss of Tom’s wife (Bojana Novakovic) to cancer and his struggles raising his young son (Jack Heanly) alone.
Haunted father-child healing journeys are not uncommon in Australian cinema—see also The Shiralee, The Boys are Back, Last Ride—though with its Sydney and Bondi setting Burning Man is much more urban than those other titles. However, the film foregrounds the organic in this urban milieu: food, water and, fittingly for the title, fire imagery are recurring motifs, with food in particular symbolizing the vulnerability of the human body (dead and dying meat). Tiplitzky and editor Martin Connor employ Nicolas Roeg-esque cutting to create visual echoes and peel back the story across alternating timelines. It’s impressive work, and a lineup of strong actresses—Novakovic, but also Rachel Griffiths, Essie Davis, and Kerry Fox—provide recognisable story anchors.
Burning Man is an Australian/UK co-production, and I don’t know whether the character of Tom was conceived as a British migrant or reconceived that way to snare an international lead for financing. I can certainly imagine Australian actors (e.g. Guy Pearce) and other imported ones in the role, and as my recent (relatively) reviews of Death Defying Acts, In a Savage Land and The Delinquents among others attest I’ve nothing in principle against imported players in Australian films (see also Clive Owen in the abovementioned The Boys are Back). Whatever the case, Goode’s casting as the widower evading grieving to his own self-destruction is the weak link. I like Goode generally, especially his work in Match Point, Brideshead Revisited and Stoker, but his range isn’t wide; he has a soothing energy that can be bent effectively to earnest supporting roles (as in Match Point or Brideshead Revisited) or calm inscrutable villain roles (like Stoker or Watchmen). From the earliest character freakout scene in Burning Man, it’s apparent Goode’s bag of actorly tricks is insufficient to the material, though the father-son scenes shared with Heanly are fairly strong.
I’ve zero qualms about the casting of Telegram Man (2011), a short film by—and, according to IMDb, the sole credit of—James Francis Khehtie. The film centres on Bill (Jack Thompson), a postman in a rural town tasked with delivering news of fallen soldiers during World War II.
I’ve written repeatedly about my appreciation of Jack Thompson on DUF, most notably here and here. To quote my earlier review:
- To say Jack Thompson is iconic is an understatement. He was one of the brightest new stars of the Australian New Wave, appearing in both lead and supporting roles in stone cold classics like Wake in Fright, Sunday Too Far Away, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, and Breaker Morant as well as interesting flicks like Petersen, Caddie, Mad Dog Morgan, The Club, and The Journalist. He was the first male centerfold in Australia’s Cleo magazine, was awarded the first Best Supporting Actor gong at the Cannes Film Festival for Breaker Morant, was the only logical choice to embody Clancy of the Overflow in The Man from Snowy River, hosted a travel program called Jack Thompson Down Under, and in recent years has alternated between roles in Australian films and supporting turns as men of influence (lawyers, politicians, military men, businessmen) in American films.
Setting
aside the abovementioned 'American men of influence' roles, Telegram Man consciously draws upon
the collective authority and everyman amiability of Thompson’s local screen history, then weighs
it down with Bill's unimaginable, unenviable burden of bearing tragic news to the
families in his community. It’s a quiet, dignified performance in a quiet,
dignified, and economically made short work that establishes its premise,
executes it, and provides no closure: there will be more deaths to come, more
tragic news to deliver as war rages on, lest we forget.
Ben