Tinkering

by John Clarke

  A slight fault in the wiring of the Economics display screen has been discovered and it is with regret that we announce the overall position is somewhat less attractive than we may have indicated. Notice the position of the mustering station nearest to your seat.

  Due to an increasing number of calls to our offices, it has been decided to produce a guide to the Use and Care of ‘Australia’™. May we suggest you keep the guide near the unit at all times.

  Should a problem emerge, refer to the guide and apply the remedy outlined in the handy-to-use table. If pain persists, see a doctor.

  Warranty and Conditions Attaching to Citizenship

  The CITIZEN hereby warrants that any or all complaints referred to herein are genuine and bona fide and have been witnessed by authorised persons or their agents.

  All information provided hereintofore is fair and reasonable and all goods were checked by suitably trained artisans upon despatch and/or transmission.

  No CITIZEN will at any time speak in a manner likely to bring discredit or opprobrium on this his/her native/adopted/wide/brown/other [specify] land in any wise and in any capacity unless said person is an imbecile or a member of Her Majesty’s Opposition.

  The penalties for abuses or breaches of this or any other Regulation in whole or in part shall be those laid down in The Crimes Act [Sundry Complaints Division] 1927 (and subsequent amendments) taking into consideration those writs in accordance with Normal Redress in Matters of Umbrage, Dudgeon and Righteousness, the Treatment of Pelts by Minors, Claims against the State by Individuals Not Yet Born (R v. Jung), the Statutory Maintenance of Sealanes and other concerns bearing in the material detail on the case WITH THE SINGLE EXCEPTION of Writs in Fee Complicit. These shall be deemed to include: Claims by a Shire against itself, Claims by Drivers against Roadways and Sidings (SRA v. Moss), Claims by Buildings against Architects or their agents, and Claims involving two foreign nations (W. Indies v. Pakistan), where the State Boundaries are those determined by Ordnance Survey No. 73982 and π = 22/7.

  Those CITIZENS sniggering at the back will stay behind afterwards and see Mr Richardson.

  The CITIZEN agrees that this country (hereinafter referred to as The Entire Joint) is in GOOD and CAPABLE hands and is superbly managed in every way and that any problems and/or breakdowns due to equipment failure or negligence of any type whatsoever are THE SOLE AND COMPLETE RESPONSIBILITY of the CITIZEN and are nothing to do with the government and are specifically nothing to do with Robert Jesus Lee Hawke, THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE [all stand] who has at all times struggled to carry the difficult load of office and has done so most NOBLY under very bloody difficult circumstances.

  The CITIZEN furthermore warrants and UNDERTAKES TO KEEP WARRANTING that whatever the apparent failings of Paul Keating WHICH ARE ONLY VERY SLIGHT IF THEY EXIST AT ALL, there is and can be no doubt whatsoever in the mind of a reasonable person that he IS VERY GOOD AT WHAT HE DOES. The names of the people he has done it to can be inspected during normal business hours at the office of any Parisian tailor.

  Someone will get back to you. Please enjoy the music.

  Itty Bitty Litty Critties

  Hamlet by William Shakespeare

  Boy returns from university to find father dead, mother married to uncle. Takes it out on girlfriend. Can’t decide what do to. (‘To be or not to be’, etc.) Kills girlfriend’s father by accident. Girlfriend suicides. Girlfriend’s brother wants revenge on account of family disappearing. Hamlet by now existentialist, allows himself to be tricked into showdown in which everyone not already accounted for dies. (Big finish.)

  Othello by William Shakespeare

  Iago (archetypal shit with nothing better to do) convinces king that queen is having affair on circumstantial evidence involving handkerchief. King kills queen. King realises he has been complete tool. Complicated by race issue. (See Machiavelli.)

  King Lear by William Shakespeare

  Ageing father devises pompous test for daughters. (Declare love for me or suffer consequences.) Cinderella speaks truth, ugly sisters profess unconditional devotion, etc. Stupid king rejects Cinders, takes up with Edmund, husband of ugly sister (it’s a man’s world), goes mad and finds himself in blizzard with blind Edgar. (Some kind of mixup here.) King realizes, too late, love of Cinders worth having because real.

  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

  Elizabeth Bennet (mother obsessed with marrying daughters off, father amusing but not very helpful) dislikes Mr Darcy because he is too PROUD. She becomes PREJUDICED against him and even likes one man (Wickham) because he speaks ill of Darcy. Her life is occupied with sisters Jane, who is calm and loves Bingham, and Lydia, who loves soldiers (Wickham) and who brings family into disrepute (Wickham). Elizabeth inadvertently discovers that Darcy is UNBELIEVABLY RICH. They marry immediately. Mother knew best.

  Emma by Jane Austen

  Beautiful daughter of silly old fool has nothing better to do than manipulate and matchmake in snobbish rural society. Behaves very stupidly and messes up life of Harriet Smith, a harmless woman who should obviously marry local farmer. Eventually marries best friend Mr Knightley, the resonance of whose name she had previously failed to notice. (See Clueless.)

  Persuasion by Jane Austen

  Featuring Anne Elliot (plain, educated, sensitive, wise, family down on luck). Father and spoilt sister go to Bath for society, Anne to another sister, selfish, stupid, married to cheerful farmer. Children get sick, Anne tower of strength. Visited by Cpt. Wentworth. (Naval man at time of Trafalgar = national hero.) Wentworth and Anne have met before, have loved, and Anne has rejected Wentworth’s proposal of marriage but heart not still. Farmer’s sister falls off seawall and Wentworth realises he’s an idiot about Anne. Hooray!

  The Count of Monte Cristo by Victor Hugo

  Edmond Dantès (France, corruption, treachery) is wrongly imprisoned for life. Old prisoner tells him of a great fortune in a cave on an island and when old dies, Dantes sews himself inside dead man’s body bag, is removed from prison and escapes. Makes way to island, gets treasure and returns to France representing himself as the Count of Monte Cristo. Gets stuck right into enemies who put him in jail. Ruins some. Kills others. No beg your pardons whatsoever. On for young and old. He had a long time to think about it and he gets right on with it. Revenge in spades, on all fronts, and no mistake.

  David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

  Fatherless boy rises above bullying by stepfather, enjoys seaside with Aunt Betsy and lovely Mr Dick. Marries silly girl with annoying dog. She dies. (But wait, there’s more!)

  Moby Dick by Herman Melville

  Man meets whale. Man loses whale. Man tries to kill whale. Man loses leg. Whale finds man. Man loses marbles. Whale kills man. (Metaphors all over the place. Man v. Nature, Life v. Death, Dark v. Light, Christian v. Pagan, Arsenal v. Manchester United.)

  Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

  Boy (Pip) helps escaped convict (Magwitch) on marshes. Spends childhood happily with blacksmith Joe and land-girl Biddy although is sometimes invited to big house (Miss Havisham: old, loopy, cobwebs everywhere, clocks in house all stopped, etc.) to play with rich girl, Estella. Pip informed he is to become a gentleman at expense of mysterious benefactor. Pip becomes gentleman and snob, believing Miss Havisham to be benefactor and expecting to marry Estella. Benefactor turns out to be Magwitch (Australian connection here) who also turns out to be Estella’s father. Bad spell of Miss Havisham on Estella broken by Pip’s love. About time too! (All stand.)

  Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

  Married woman (Russian, upper class) is in love with man not her husband. Completely absorbed in her love for him to exclusion of all else. Cannot concentrate on other things at all. Tries really hard but simply can’t. Ends in tears. (See Magritte.)

  Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

  Poor, rural, Tess Durbeyfield is raped by rich distant cousin D’Urberville, has baby, which dies. Tess cuts off hair and works as milkmaid. Edu
cated rich man (Angel Clare) falls in love with her and they marry. He confesses a day of sexual debauchery with another woman. She forgives him and tells him about her baby. He does NOT forgive her and leaves for South America. Years later he returns and they meet at the house where Tess is living with D’Urberville. Tess goes into the house briefly, murders D’Urberville and then leaves with Angel. They wander through the countryside, doomed, happy. (See Bonnie and Clyde.)

  Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

  Man is sent to Africa to take over from Mr Kurtz, who is branch manager. Trip rather dull. Mr Kurtz dead on arrival. (Conrad was Polish.)

  Ulysses by James Joyce

  Formative modern work. Entire novel set on one day. Classic outsider Leopold Bloom (Jew, advertising, sensitive, Irish, cuckold) attends funeral, pub, brothel, with young man. Wife has last word (husband not as good as boyfriend, psychology of marriage blighted by death of infant child). Wife’s monologue caused book to be banned. (See Catholic.) Thought by male academics and critics to be great expression of woman’s thoughts. (See Sluts.)

  The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson

  Man (dreamer, hoper/hopeless, author’s father) emigrates to Australia, goes to goldfields, fails, goes into business, fails, returns to Britain, fails, re-emigrates to Australia, practises as doctor, fails, concentrates on marriage and family, fails, attempts to keep mind in order, fails. (Wife a tower of strength.)

  Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (Eric Blair)

  Novel written in 1930s (cf. Stalin) suggesting powerful and unscrupulous interests will work to obtain control of democratic process, orchestrate media, institutionalise ‘freedoms’ and crush opposition in name of nation and people. Couldn’t happen here.

  Lord of the Flies by William Golding

  English public schoolboys cast adrift on island behave badly or well or neither. Those who behave badly kill those who behave well, leaving future to be determined by those who behave badly and those who can’t decide. (cf. England.)

  Voss by Patrick White

  Doomed explorer whose name isn’t really Voss embarks on doomed attempt to cross Australia. Expedition marred by fact that both explorer and enterprise are doomed. Perhaps whole country is doomed. (Discuss.) Surprise ending in that explorer doesn’t die earlier than he does.

  Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame

  The Withers family live in New Zealand. Mum Withers, Dad Withers, everybody Withers, the children Wither, the dog Withers. Get it?

  Stiff, Director’s Diary 2004

  Sometime in 2002, it was decided to make a pair of movies based on Shane Maloney’s first two novels, Stiff and The Brush Off. The arrangement was that Sam Neill would direct one of these films, and I would direct the other. Sam selected The Brush Off, which is set in the art world. Stiff, the one I’m directing, will be made first. Next slide please.

  The central character in the novels, Murray Whelan, is a natural for film and television. He is a slightly shambolic middle-range political advisor with a healthy scepticism, a gift for pressing on regardless and an interest in attractive women with nice personalities. His boss, the demanding Angelo Agnelli MP, is a government minister whose smooth administration is unhorsed, in each story, by the sudden appearance of a dead body. Detective genre without the detective.

  David Wenham likes the novels and will play Murray. In terms of confidence-building, this is up there with the invention of the wheel. I haven’t met David before but have observed his career with admiration and we are certainly paid more attention in restaurants than has hitherto been my personal experience. In script discussions David is astute, generous and relaxed. His suggestions are excellent. He thinks, for example, that instead of a briefcase, Murray should carry his stuff around in a plastic bag because he’s that kind of guy and David says he will make this look completely natural. When asked why he is so confident about this, David says because he carries all his own stuff around in a plastic bag. David’s instinct in such matters will turn out to be a matter of some significance. Later, during filming, when dangerous things happen to Murray, David will seldom use a stand-in. Once he has got Murray right, David will back himself in.

  A full cast read-through gives the performers and the crew their only chance to see the whole story. After this, the filming process is fragmentary. The story is scheduled and shot in a completely different order. I enjoy our read-through and David hides the comedy so well he looks as if he’s being funny by accident.

  Because of the relatively low budget the movie must be shot in twenty days (a normal shoot here would be about two months and in the US movies are known to take hundreds of years to shoot), so we will need to box exceeding clever. At one stage of the movie, Murray Whelan’s car must be driven off the road at high speed at night in heavy rain and dropped in a lake. The art director, Chris Kennedy, who can process his own weight in information every four seconds, gets a piece of paper and draws the sequence: driving rain, oncoming vehicle, lights, pumping brakes, car skids off road, turns upside down, car crashes into water. ‘Excellent,’ I say. ‘Is all that possible?’ ‘Yes. Should be,’ says Chris. ‘Where will we be able to shoot all that?’ I ask. ‘No idea,’ he grins, giving me a copy of his drawings. Laszlo Baranyai, who will shoot Stiff, is another who can think fast and deep at the same time. He and I go through the script and discuss the feeling we need from each scene and where the rhythm is in the story. There’s not much Laszlo and Chris don’t know about where we’re going and I make a mental note to maintain eye contact with both of them at all times.

  Day 1

  Seven a.m., we’re filming at the old Four and Twenty Pie factory next to the railway line in Kensington and Laszlo is beaming from a crane because it is raining. Much of the film takes place in heavy rain and this is a handy start. By mid-morning we are upstairs in an industrial office with David and actors Susie Dee and Denis Moore. I’m crouched in a low scrum in a room about the size of a stamp, watching ‘the split’, which is a little video screen showing what the camera is seeing. At one stage David as Murray picks the phone up, does something he doesn’t like, stops, puts the phone down, picks it up again with his hand and head in exactly the same position, does something he does like and continues with the scene. This not only saves us the trouble of starting again but indicates that David can concentrate on his performance in the context of an editing process which won’t occur for a month. The scrum freezes. We look at each other. Did we just hear him do that? The continuity was perfect. What is this? There is a very good feeling in the room.

  After two days at the factory, Laszlo and the crew have lit and shot forty-nine setups and we’ve completed nearly twelve minutes of finished screen time which, as Damon Runyon would say, is by no means hay. My brilliant first assistant, Annie Maver, has a cascading, peeling laugh which lifts and builds and then reaches a cruising height and ultimately decks the halls with boughs of holly. People who have never previously encountered this machine of delight normally need a couple of days to acclimatise. This, too, is going well.

  Day 3

  We’re in a restaurant in Federation Square, shooting scenes with Murray and Agnelli, including their crucial early meeting and the final scene in the picture. While we’re here, in order to help suggest Agnelli’s rise through the ALP, Barry Jones, John Button and Joan Kirner have generously agreed to appear in some scenes with the excellent Mick Molloy, whose Agnelli slips straight into gear.

  Day 5

  This morning David has to be chased up a laneway by a car and hurl himself into a large pile of rubbish before belting back to another location and peeling off several pages of fairly subtle dialogue with Sam and Mick in a room whose temperature would ripen tomatoes at sixty paces. David does the running himself, of course, avoids the speeding car and hurls himself into a vast pile of rubbish to applause on all sides. Back in the office location the difference between the light levels outside and those in the room require black film material to be put on the wind
ows. We then put a dozen people in the small room and begin to rehearse. It is by now very hot and lesser talents would melt. David, Sam and Mick, however, are superb and these scenes will be among the strongest in the film.

  Day 6

  Today is Deb Kennedy’s first day and it’s good to see her. We were married in Death in Brunswick and although she’s one of the best actors in the country she’s probably best known for squirting the words ‘not happy, Jan’ through a small hole at the bottom of a window. Her voice is rich and her eyes can fill with enormous patience and deep disdain at the same time. We also spend some time in the Turkish Welfare Centre, which Chris Kennedy and his team have constructed inside a voluminous hall and where we are greatly helped by the actor Ramez Tabit, who lights up on camera and becomes the soul of the place.

  Day 7

  On Day 7 we shoot a scene in which a man called Memo confesses to a murder. George Prataris, who plays Memo, does it beautifully. As we leave, Annie and I are invited into the camera truck, whose name is Pearl. Laszlo and Miranda solemnly draw out two cardboard boxes bearing the names of film stock manufacturers; one is marked Kodak, one Eastman. The Kodak box contains red wine, the Eastman white. As we sitting there drinking Kodak after a good first week, I ask Laszlo about the big accident sequence. He tells me not to worry about it. Chris’s drawings are right. It won’t be easy and people will say it is impossible, he says, but it will all come together. We have some more Kodak.