Bruce Beresford’s proto-Mean Girls drama shines thanks to its teenage lead Susannah Fowle and Barry Humphries’ appearance in a deadly serious role
Rightly regarded as one of the finest films ever made about Australian adolescents, the director Bruce Beresford’s 1978 drama The Getting of Wisdom exists in a space unaffected by time. It’s hard to imagine the film’s themes – from puberty-related growing pains to repressive institutions and comparisons between small-town and big-city life – ever going out of fashion. And the story is so well told, with such attention to detail and an implicit understanding of the rhythms required for interesting drama, it has aged not a jot over three and a half decades.
Adapted from the author Henry Handel Richardson’s novel, the film is a tale about growing up, the title another spin on “coming of age”. And its central location, an exclusive Melbourne ladies college,...
Rightly regarded as one of the finest films ever made about Australian adolescents, the director Bruce Beresford’s 1978 drama The Getting of Wisdom exists in a space unaffected by time. It’s hard to imagine the film’s themes – from puberty-related growing pains to repressive institutions and comparisons between small-town and big-city life – ever going out of fashion. And the story is so well told, with such attention to detail and an implicit understanding of the rhythms required for interesting drama, it has aged not a jot over three and a half decades.
Adapted from the author Henry Handel Richardson’s novel, the film is a tale about growing up, the title another spin on “coming of age”. And its central location, an exclusive Melbourne ladies college,...
- 8/16/2015
- by Luke Buckmaster
- The Guardian - Film News
Phillip Adams today called on filmmakers, writers, painters and other creative types to rally to support the Australian film industry.
Delivering the Hector Crawford Memorial lecture, the ABC radio broadcaster and columnist for The Australian declared the industry.s advocates must not be .fooled into collaborating with the bureaucracies by arguing in their terms..
A former producer and chairman of the Australian Film Commission and the AFI, Adams told the Screen Forever conference, .It is time to form another Team Australia. Based not on dog whistle calls to bigotry but on expressing the sort of cultural and political idealism that was so exhilarating in the glory days of Whitlam.
.It is time to call upon the pantheon of Australia.s creative producers, filmmakers, writers, painters, pundits, public intellectuals and sympathetic pollies . anyone and everyone who can be recruited to the cause..
Adams recalled that the campaigns to properly finance and...
Delivering the Hector Crawford Memorial lecture, the ABC radio broadcaster and columnist for The Australian declared the industry.s advocates must not be .fooled into collaborating with the bureaucracies by arguing in their terms..
A former producer and chairman of the Australian Film Commission and the AFI, Adams told the Screen Forever conference, .It is time to form another Team Australia. Based not on dog whistle calls to bigotry but on expressing the sort of cultural and political idealism that was so exhilarating in the glory days of Whitlam.
.It is time to call upon the pantheon of Australia.s creative producers, filmmakers, writers, painters, pundits, public intellectuals and sympathetic pollies . anyone and everyone who can be recruited to the cause..
Adams recalled that the campaigns to properly finance and...
- 11/16/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Phillip Adams will deliver. the Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture at the Screen Forever conference at Melbourne.s Crown Conference Centre on Monday November 17..
For half a century Adams has been an imposing figure as a broadcaster, filmmaker, social commentator, satirist and author of more than 20 books.
Gough Whitlam once described him as Australia.s .most perceptive social critic... Some regard him as a godfather of the Australian film industry for his contributions to the renaissance of the industry in the 1970s and 80s.
His producing credits include The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Don.s Party,. The Getting of Wisdom and Abra Cadabra, and he was Ep on Lonely Hearts and We of the Never Never.
Recognising Adams. 21 years as presenter of Radio National.s Late Night Live, Professor Robert Manne described him as .perhaps the most remarkable broadcaster in the history of this country..
Screen Producers Australia exec director Matt...
For half a century Adams has been an imposing figure as a broadcaster, filmmaker, social commentator, satirist and author of more than 20 books.
Gough Whitlam once described him as Australia.s .most perceptive social critic... Some regard him as a godfather of the Australian film industry for his contributions to the renaissance of the industry in the 1970s and 80s.
His producing credits include The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Don.s Party,. The Getting of Wisdom and Abra Cadabra, and he was Ep on Lonely Hearts and We of the Never Never.
Recognising Adams. 21 years as presenter of Radio National.s Late Night Live, Professor Robert Manne described him as .perhaps the most remarkable broadcaster in the history of this country..
Screen Producers Australia exec director Matt...
- 10/29/2014
- by Staff writer
- IF.com.au
Any list of must-watch films is likely to be so arbitrary and subjective that it buys plenty of arguments, and so it proves with the Taste of Cinema website.s compilation on Australian cinema.
Its selection of 20 Essential Australian Films You Need To Watch overlooks many classics and more than a few stand-outs of the past 30 years.
Writer Liam Clark, a film/literature/music student in Sydney, acknowledges the first-ever feature length film was The Story Of The Kelly Gang in 1906. He then observes, .Since then, antipodean auteurs of the screen have been weaving their imagerial visions into challenging portraits of Outback Australia, racism, crime and hauntingly beautiful stories..
The list omits everything produced before 1971 and there are some questionable choices.
His Essential 20: Strictly Ballroom (1992), Sweetie (1989), Mad Max (1979), Gallipoli (1981), Muriel.s Wedding (1994), Lantana (2001), Snowtown (2011), The Dish (2000), Candy (2006), Dogs in Space (1986), Somersault (2004), Shine (1986), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the...
Its selection of 20 Essential Australian Films You Need To Watch overlooks many classics and more than a few stand-outs of the past 30 years.
Writer Liam Clark, a film/literature/music student in Sydney, acknowledges the first-ever feature length film was The Story Of The Kelly Gang in 1906. He then observes, .Since then, antipodean auteurs of the screen have been weaving their imagerial visions into challenging portraits of Outback Australia, racism, crime and hauntingly beautiful stories..
The list omits everything produced before 1971 and there are some questionable choices.
His Essential 20: Strictly Ballroom (1992), Sweetie (1989), Mad Max (1979), Gallipoli (1981), Muriel.s Wedding (1994), Lantana (2001), Snowtown (2011), The Dish (2000), Candy (2006), Dogs in Space (1986), Somersault (2004), Shine (1986), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the...
- 4/10/2014
- by Don Groves
- IF.com.au
Guy Pearce is an honest cop fighting to save a teenager from his violent family in this striking Australian crime story
Film-making started early on in Australia, and some claim that Soldier of the Cross, made in Melbourne in 1900, was the world's first full-length feature. But what we now think of as Australian cinema began in the early 70s with "the last new wave", the title of an important 1980 book by the Australian critic and broadcaster David Stratton. The movies that initially made an international impact dealt with the shaping of national identity, cultural exchanges with the aboriginal population and the mystical relationship with the country and its vast, empty interior. One thinks especially of movies with period settings such as Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, Fred Schepisi's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Bruce Beresford's The Getting of Wisdom and Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career,...
Film-making started early on in Australia, and some claim that Soldier of the Cross, made in Melbourne in 1900, was the world's first full-length feature. But what we now think of as Australian cinema began in the early 70s with "the last new wave", the title of an important 1980 book by the Australian critic and broadcaster David Stratton. The movies that initially made an international impact dealt with the shaping of national identity, cultural exchanges with the aboriginal population and the mystical relationship with the country and its vast, empty interior. One thinks especially of movies with period settings such as Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock, Fred Schepisi's The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Bruce Beresford's The Getting of Wisdom and Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career,...
- 2/27/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
There are two essential books that celebrate region-specific horror films both well-known and obscure. One is Stephen Thrower’s Nightmare USA (with a companion volume planned). The other is They Came From Within, Caelum Vatnsdal’s history of Canadian horror movies. What these two books suggest is that the best of the cinema’s independent horror films are really regional works. Three of the most famous horror films of all time, Night of the Living Dead, Carnival of Souls, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre are really regional films, independently financed and shot far from Hollywood with local actors and crew members. Thus they have a flavor not found in mainstream genre movies, spices of quirkiness, unpredictability, and rigorous bleakness that mainstream movies can’t or won’t allow themselves.
As far as I know there isn’t a book about Australian genre cinema yet, but now there is a film:...
As far as I know there isn’t a book about Australian genre cinema yet, but now there is a film:...
- 10/7/2009
- by dkholm
Peter Weir's comprehensive profile at Senses of Cinema begins with:
Peter Weir helped to define the rebirth of Australian cinema, while addressing some of the most pressing concerns of the nation in the 1970s and 1980s. His intriguing images of Australia, evocative and transcendent, made an impact in the international art house scene, eager for compelling visions of geo-political areas and cultures overlooked by mainstream cinema. After achieving international recognition as an emblematic Australian filmmaker, Weir made his transition to Hollywood while maintaining a sense of experimentation and artistic exploration . . .[ read more ]
I have to say, Peter Weir's films are so diverse, it's hard to pinpoint exactly his focus as a filmmaker. That is, if he has any intention to focus on certain themes. He has done such an impressive list of movies in many genres - dramatic mystery-thrillers (Picnic at Hanging Rock), comedy-romance (Green Card), action-adventure (Master and Commander...
Peter Weir helped to define the rebirth of Australian cinema, while addressing some of the most pressing concerns of the nation in the 1970s and 1980s. His intriguing images of Australia, evocative and transcendent, made an impact in the international art house scene, eager for compelling visions of geo-political areas and cultures overlooked by mainstream cinema. After achieving international recognition as an emblematic Australian filmmaker, Weir made his transition to Hollywood while maintaining a sense of experimentation and artistic exploration . . .[ read more ]
I have to say, Peter Weir's films are so diverse, it's hard to pinpoint exactly his focus as a filmmaker. That is, if he has any intention to focus on certain themes. He has done such an impressive list of movies in many genres - dramatic mystery-thrillers (Picnic at Hanging Rock), comedy-romance (Green Card), action-adventure (Master and Commander...
- 8/26/2009
- The Movie Fanatic
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