Baz Luhrmann - Exclusive Interview
The director of Australia reveals the continent-sized ambitions that inspired his epic crowd pleaser
By Angus Fontaine
Baz, the Australia world premiere is tonight. Having been
in the eye of this $200 million hurricane, are you able to gauge
whether the film is a success or not?
I am the least qualified
to know! It's all about the connection between the film and the
audience now. Oprah and her audience were the first to see bits of the
film a fortnight back and they went bonkers for it in a way I totally
did not expect. But while that's wonderful to hear, making a film with
300 other people is like giving birth to a child and then sending it to
school. You're unsure whether anyone is going to like them or bully
them or put them down. You just hope and believe they'll connect with
the world.
After the "red curtain trilogy" of Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, is Australia the encapsulation of your personal credo 'a life lived in fear is a life half lived'?
Some
people think I'm wedded to risk. I ask myself every day what my
addiction to it is. It's not as though I'm impervious to fear - right
now I have a whole lot of shaking going on inside! But ultimately I'm
the captain of the ship and my job is not only to eat that fear up and
direct it the other way but also to absorb other people's concerns too
- the negative comments, the people trying to undermine the picture or
put it down. For the 300 people who gave and gave and gave to this film
on set and in the studio, my responsibility to them is to be brave,
weigh the risk and take my chances.
So is Australia the risk that's worth a thousand dreams?
Here's
the truth: people don't go to the circus to see safety. Storytelling in
all its forms - cinema, theatre, culture in general - has to have a
degree of risk. The greater the risk, the greater the potential to be
moved and engaged and heartbroken, just as the less safety net there
is, the greater the emotional pay-off and the more breathtaking the
spectacle. We weigh great art like we watch trapeze. When they get to
the other side without crashing, it's thrilling. But that moment isn't
about the performers or the film, it's about you and humanity as a
whole - proof we can face risk and overcome adversity.
You've spoken about the "crushing ambition" behind Australia - how did it begin?
Stories
like this begin as a lofty notion. For me it was to rediscover the
sweeping epic in a land full of great landscapes and historical tales.
Then came the research and the story. Most of all, I asked myself: what
sort of story do I want to live with for four years? It struck me that
so much of cinema today is about segregation - 17-year-old boys get
comic book action films; 35-year-old women are sold Sex and the City and so on. It's terrific boutique cinema, but it's niche art for a niche audience. With Australia I wanted to make an all-inclusive film with romance, broad comedy, big
action and heavy drama all rolled in one - a banquet where everyone is
invited to the table and each person has a different experience
together. The kids might like the dessert, granny likes the gravy, the
adults reel for the entrée and there's also a couple of guests who are
simply there for the wine!
And a lot of people are there for Hugh Jackman's abs!
Hahahaha!
I'll tell you something: the moment Hugh pulled on those moleskin pants
and slapped on that Akubra hat, boom! The planets aligned, the studios
signed off and the film took off and never looked back. Early on, Hugh
was going to be the villain, a sort of 'anti-Drover'. But my god, what
was I thinking? He was born to be The Drover!
Wasn't Russell
Crowe first choice before he backed out over a pay dispute with the
famous words 'I do charity work, but not for major studios'?
The
truth is the idea of Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman as the leads of
the film went way back before the project was even off the blocks. All
three of us have known each other a long time since we were kids at
NIDA [National Institute of Dramatic Art]. But in truth, while Russell
is one of the greatest actors ever to walk the face of the earth, his
schedule is incredibly complicated and my process and his are very
different. The work I do doesn't have a precedent. You don't reinvent
the musical in six weeks! I chase my dreams in my own time frame. So
while Russell and I were never finding time to hook up, Hugh Jackman
was going on this leaps-and-bounds journey as an actor and a star and
astounding me in everything he did. One moment he'd be an action hero
in X-Men and the next he's in Darren Aronofsky's film The Fountain being psychologically intense. There seemed nothing he couldn't do.
That's when I realised I was doing my old trick of railing against the
most natural and instinctive choice to test its worth.
Heath Ledger was rumoured to be another contender as The Drover...
Heath was a remarkable young actor and a friend and there was a moment on Australia when I was open to him as an option but my financier had a view too and
ultimately it never got further than a dialogue and a conversation.
Y'know, Heath was very close to being in Moulin Rouge too
because at one stage I thought the character of Christian (ultimately
played by Ewan McGregor) would be young. He was a young man then and we
got some beautiful, beautiful footage of him screen testing for us.
That's where Heath and Jake Gyllenhaal first met, while auditioning for
Moulin Rouge, and they became close to the point where Jake is
godfather to Heath's little girl. But Heath was so young... and because
of the great tragedy of his loss I'll stop there. Some stories are not
to tell.
Beyond Hugh and Nicole, the real star (and heart) of Australia is the 11-year-old Brandon Walters isn't it?
Someone
up there smiled on us when we found Brandon. We needed a mixed race
Aboriginal child actor and there are not many of those, I can tell you!
We saw 1,000 boys, whittled it to 200 and 10 came to Sydney for a
workshop. That's when we found out that two could do it but only one
was right: that was Brandon Walters. Why? Because Brandon has a magical
gift for looking through the camera, that's why. When he says at the
beginning of the film, "I not blackfella, I not whitefella - I mixed
blood. Creamy. I belong no one" - Diane Sawyer's reaction to that on Good Morning America said it all. The power of that little boy's performance is amazing
because he's not acting in the slightest, he's being photographed
through truth. What made Marlon Brando great was he could say 'Pass me
the packet of chips' and make it seem profound. Brandon has the same
gift. It was a serendipitous gift that he came into our world... and
yet all he wants to do now is get back to the bush and go 'hitting
barney' - knocking out goannas on his dirt bike!
Australia
has a peculiar fairy-tale feel. There are shards of westerns, Disney
cartoons, vaudeville comedy and old school musicals all over it.
The films we've been inspired by are largely from the 40s and 50s - Giant, Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca - films that were shot on location and in the studio and then filtered
through the technology of the time. On Australia we had this philosophy
called "Lean & Lucas". On one hand I'd go out and do what people
don't do anymore and shoot with 200 people in the desert - that was the
David Lean part. Then there was the George Lucas part - the studio
special effects. Those came about largely because if you shoot in the
desert at night it just shows up as black whereas in real life, if
you're there, it's like Disneyworld and you're Peter Pan with a silvery
and surreal light that's magic. So instead of photographing the truth
and not conveying the emotion of being there, we've given people not
what it is, but what it feels like to be there. The whole world of Australia is a heightened reality. On one hand, the house we shot in is a real
house built from scratch after shipping every nail, plank and piece of
furniture from Sydney. On the other, the abyss and stone formation
where the stampede happens is a sacred Aboriginal space and because of
ecological issues, we had to make a heightened world we felt amplified
the bigger idea of the movie.
They say the local film industry is riding on the fate of this film. That the nation's tourist trade hangs on its success. Australia really is much more than a movie isn't it?
Australia is not about Australia, just as Casablanca was not about Casablanca. My financiers, the backers and producers and
all the people who have invested financially and emotionally in this
film, have often taken a lot of convincing. There's been a lot of
hand-holding and testing of wills these past years - I had to write 19
drafts of Australia before I found a language and a style that
was right! My own personal journey is different - my whole life and art
and family is wrapped up in this picture. That journey started four
years ago when I realised that while I loved living in New York, loved
dreaming in Paris, loved dancing in Brazil, adored Shanghai for
mischief and London for fun, it was Australia that was home. I honestly
don't think I could've said that before because, like many young
creative people born on the edge of the world, I was on an unending
journey. But now wherever I roam, Australia is my centre. And for my
children it's their roots. So in that sense Australia for me is
about my newborn family and I reconnecting with our home country and
our indigenous history and asking: What is this place we've come from
on the edge of the world? How is it home? And if it is home, what does
that mean?
So Australia is, in the truest sense, a family film?
I know the marketers are going to freak out but I'll say it and mean it: Australia is a family film! And what's wrong with that? Why is that uncool to go
out with the whole family and see a film together? How has that
multi-generational cinema experience fallen by the wayside? With this
film I've made a meal at a table where everyone can sit and have a pure
entertainment experience. The wider metaphor underlying all this is
that the world is in freefall and nothing seems certain, here's proof
that tomorrow is a new day.
So Oprah was right: now more than ever the world needs a film like Australia?
I was really taken aback by that... in fact, if I'm really honest I wasn't shocked at all. I knew when I set out to make Australia that the world was on this sort of turn, same as in 2001 when I was on the road with Moulin Rouge and 9/11 happened and the tectonic plates of time and history shifted
and we all got crunched between them. The US election was really about
America confronting risk wasn't it? And while you and I are sitting
here, there's an economic tsunami swamping the world and the truth is
no one really has any idea what it's all about but the way I see it, we
have to be strong and keep taking risks. In the 90s, when the world was
secure and people were numb, filmmakers stuck pins in audiences with
post-apocalyptic visions. But now people aren't numb, they're raw, and
when they're raw then the function of storytelling is to do some
healing.
What about your own healing? What's Baz's next move?
Right
now I need big serve of Easy! Look, a lot of opportunities come my way
for easier, more commercial, higher-paid and potentially more fun
films. I've often thought I'd love to do a James Bond film, a Harry
Potter too - they're films that are fun and I love their magic and I'd
love to rein it my way. But my films tend to become epic life
experiences and I have a very large drawer full of things I want to
make and I'll never get through before I leave this mortal coil, so I'm
choosy!
After four epics in 16 years are you physically capable of making a movie a year?
Maybe.
Anything can happen. I mean, I'd like to. We've done other creative
things in short bursts before - magazines and election campaigns and
operas and advertisements - but everything I do is determined by what
will enrich and fulfil my and my family's life.
And yet right from the start your films have been community service.
Let
me tell you something: in all the interviews I've ever done no one has
ever said that and I think it is one of the most accurate descriptions
of what I try and do. I am from a community theatre. When I was a boy
we lived in the middle of nowhere on a gas station and my father was
obsessed that we be educated. We learned commando training, how to grow
corn, how to play music, how to take photos. One of those lessons was
ballroom dancing and he drove us two hours there and back to have
lessons. See, my father was an intense enthusiast, an 'it can happen'
guy. He had this idea that Herons Creek should provide working class
theatre for all the local kids. The local Rotarians were, 'No way kids
are gonna go for that,' but my Dad rallied everyone together and
marshalled a bunch of buses and so many kids turned up for free dance
lessons we had to deliver them in shifts. It was an amazing success.
The reason I tell you this story is because in that moment I learned
that despite cynicism, despite fear, despite name-calling and despite
crushing pressure that, no matter how bad the world appears, theatre
and storytelling, art, dance, and music can bring people together.
There's something of that in all my films I think, and with Australia, it's been to the detriment of my health... but I'm wedded to that.