by Rolf De Heer
From the Writer/Director
Rolf de Heer
‘Where did that come from?’ This is a question I am often asked, either about parts of Bad Boy Bubby or about the whole of it - I usually answer with an ‘I don’t know’. The answer for the whole film is too long and complicated, and as for the individual parts, I often genuinely don’t know.
Ideas... a drifting collation of ideas. Ideas that came from people, observations, incidents; ideas that wafted through my mind and were hauled down onto the paper. The ideas were, in a sense, the easy bits. Organising them into a coherent whole was the hard work.
It started with a will to make a film, any film - a very, very cheap film. It was launched by discussions with an actor who was going to play the lead m this film, and who contributed much in those early sessions. Bubby was formed over many years of collecting ideas for a film that soon became ‘the film I was never going to make’, ideas for what became a script I was never going to write.
In between career moves and films for other people I’d keep coming back to it, not because it had some higher end purpose, but because I was interested in exploring these ideas, exploring the nature of cinema and what I love about it. So, in that sense it was a work of passion from an early stage, because it was being worked on for its own sake, not for any other reward.
I work with cards, writing only on cards until the entire screenplay is up on a wall, ready to be written down on paper in one intense session usually lasting between one and three weeks. I collected cards for Bubby, a jotting here, an idea there, a joke, an observation. All the cards were questioned... Is this cinema} ... What
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is special about this? ... Is this in any way television? If the answer to the last question was 'yes then the card would be scrapped. If the material on the card was special enough, it would go up on the wall.
Meanwhile, a film would come up, my life and habitat would change and the cards would be packed away.
A year later, maybe two years later, up would go the cards on a different wall. Fd look at them, dissatisfied with numbers of them, rd become used to the ideas on the cards, or at least with their expression, during the time Fd been away from them. They no longer seemed special to me, they seemed very ordinary in many cases. So Fd change them, push them, extend the boundaries with them until they sparkled again.
Then another film, another break, another wall, and again all the sparkle would seem to have gone, replaced by a prosaic mundanity that demanded further change. But it wasn’t so hard... I was never actually going to write the script anyway, let alone make the film.
Things change. Career paths take turns into unexpected territory. I suddenly needed to write a script, for a number of reasons. It almost didn’t matter what the script was. I looked at the different piles of cards that I had for different projects and Bubby seemed the one that was closest to realisation, the one that was likely to satisfy me the most.
A few weeks later, after one of the most enjoyable writing experiences I’ve had, there was a first draft. It was a draft that spoke very strongly to the reader (provoking vitriol mixed equally with praise, and a lot of very strange looks at me as a person), and suddenly it was a project, a real project with strong prospects of being financed.
It all happened so quickly that this was the draft we shot. Only one small section of the script was subject to any rewrites, and those were for logistical and casting reasons. For the rest of it, the film was the closest realisation of a script that Fd had the pleasure of
January 1996
A De Profundis Film Peter Malone
Monday morning, 9.00 a.m., is not the best time to be surprised and overwhelmed by a film. But, at the Venice Film Festival in August 1993, this was the slot for the critics’ screening of an unknown Australian film in competition, Rolf de Heer’s Bad Boy Bubby. End of credits applause in the huge, barn-like Palagalileo, was resounding. The buzz of the audience was exciting.
In fact, the excitement continued throughout the week. Pitted against Golden Lion winners Three Colours: Blue and Short Cuts, Bad Boy Bubby more than made its mark. It won the Festival’s Jury Prize, the Jury Prize from the Italian Cinemagoers’ Association (CIAK), shared the FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) award with Altman’s Short Cuts, won a Bronze Plaque from OCIC (International Catholic Organisation for Cinema and Audio-Visuals) and the prize from a group of Italian high school students who were guests at the screenings and workshops of the Festival.
Where did Bad Boy Bubby come from? ‘Out of left field’, remarked one of the Festival jurors. But those who follow the careers of Australian directors would have known the children’s film. Tail of a Tiger, the atmospheric science-fiction. Incident at Raven's Gate, and the lyrical story of a young man, his dreams of playing a trumpet and his idolising of Miles Davis in Dingo. All the work of Rolf de Heer.
The creative idea of using an idiot savant to mirror and explore the values of society is not new. Shakespeare relied on ‘fools’ for humour and wisdom in both comedy and tragedy. Dostoyevsky set high literary standards with The Idiot. Cinema audiences were reminded of Chance the Gardener, brought vividly to life by Peter
BAD BOY BUBBY
Sellers in Jerzy Kozinski’s Being There. (De Heer had not seen the film before making Bad Boy Buhhy.) A year after the release of Buhby world box-office records were broken as millions flocked to see Tom Hanks as the wise idiot in Forrest Gump.
In Bad Boy Buhhy our hero emerges out of a literal subterranean hell-hole - where he has spent his life in isolation with his slatternly mother - into a contemporary Australian city. The city is filled with characters who are generous and loving, who are mean-minded and mean-spirited, desperate and tormented. Many persecute the fool. Many empower him to a new life.
Not everybody accepted or enjoyed Bad Boy Buhhy. In fact, a number of critics and audiences found the film too ugly or too confronting. It has been described as ‘sick’ and as ‘indescribably vile’. However, the controversy (and the provocative trailers) did no harm at the box-office for a film with a cast virtually unknown outside Australian theatre circles, an often grimy look, some explicit sexuality, offensive language and repellent violence.
The published screenplay gives us the characters’ words and dialogue, the foundation of the film. It offers a great deal of evocative scene-setting and descriptions. But, of course, it is no substitute for the film itself and cannot communicate the texture of the film, the production and set design, the lighting (and the contributions of 31 directors of photography). The screenplay does not give us anything of Nicholas Hope’s central and powerful performance as Bubby. We do not hear the Salvation Army music, the first choral music that Bubby has ever heard; we cannot relish the impact of Bubby’s autobiographical rap songs in front of a young, enthusiastic audience; we cannot be attentive to the organplaying scientist’s diatribe against God as the camera imperceptibly tracks from close-up to vast long shot in the science hall; we cannot appreciate the joy Bubby brings to the face of Rachael with her cerebral palsy. This is the difference between the text and the texture of a film.
I spent many hours in the OCIC jury room at the Venice Film
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I I
Festival in debate as to whether to award the main prize to Three Colours: Blue or to Bad Boy Buhby. The jury was divided. One member declared that the film was bestial and unethical and had complained to the Festival management. Another defended the film, asserting that it had priority amongst the nominees for the award. Some were fascinated by the film and its off-beat, arresting themes, but found it too ugly. Others thought that it broke new ground in theme and cinematic style, and that, since we live in a world of evil, a world that is too often vile, we ne
ed films which mirror this world to us, even if the mirrors are distorted.
The OCIC prize went to Three Colours: Blue^ but the bronze award went to Bubhy and it is now on the record as having won a Catholic award. The film might contain much vile behaviour, but it is not presented vilely.
This is a distinction we need to make. In the 1970s, Fellini, for example, gave us the bleakly sumptuous Satyricon^ a world of decadence and collapse where the only seemingly decent characters, a Roman family, kill themselves. In the 1990s, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and other screenplays by Quentin Tarantino picture vile things. As do the films of Abel Ferrara. As does Seven.
If the material is not presented vilely, how are we to interpret the vile behaviour in Bad Boy Buhhy}
I was impressed by some discussions with northern European theologians about films which portray evil, especially Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant, where Harvey Keitel portrays a completely corrupt New York cop, destroying himself with graft, infidelity, alcohol, drugs and despair. When a raped nun will not name her assailants, opting to forgive them, he cannot cope. Ferrara has shown us explicit scenes of the crucifixion during the rape; and Christ comes down from the cross to reach out to Keitel who has collapsed hallucinating in the Church aisle.
The theologians referred to Psalm 130, the De Profundis psalm, ‘Out of the depths, I cry to you...’ They described Bad Lieutenant
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as a ^De Profundis film’, a film that takes its audience, quite unrelentingly, into the depths of brutal and ugly human experience and then tries to reach out for some meaning, for some hope.
This seems the exact genre and label for Bad Boy Bubby. Bubby has lived in the physical and unwittingly amoral depths for thirty-five years. When he emerges into the world he finds the same depths reflected around him. On the other hand, the characters he meets - the Salvation Army girl, the members of the band, the scientist, Rachael, and Angel - assist Bubby out of his depths in their own limited and searching way.
Perhaps the ending is too ‘nice’. Critics tend to like the final credits to close on gloom and tragedy, so images of light are seen as sentimental. Perhaps the final family images are too light here. But de Heer has taken us on an emotional journey from darkness to light, hell to heaven, despair to hope, emptiness to fullness of life - agony and passion to resurrection.
The Australian film industry honoured Rolf de Heer and Bad Boy Bubby in 1994. The film won awards for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay.
Peter Malone is the Pacific Region president of OCIC (Organisation Catholique Internationale du Cinema et Audiovisuels).
January 1996
MAIN CAST [in order of appearance]
BUBBY
MOM
POP
CHERIE THE SALVO
ANGEL
PAUL (singer)
LITTLE GREG (keyboards) BIG GREG (drummer) MIDDLE GREG (bass) STEVE (guitarist)
MARK (roadie)
DAN
THE SCIENTIST
RACHAEL
MARYLA
ANGEL’S MOTHER ANGEL’S FATHER
Nicholas Hope Claire Benito Ralph Cotterill Natahe Carr Carmel Johnson Paul Philpot Todd Telford Paul Simpson Stephen Smooker Peter Monaghan Mark Brouggy Bruce Gilbert Norman Kaye Rachael Huddy Maryla Galus Bridget Walters Graham Duckett
Produced by Domenico Procacci, Giorgio Draskovic and Rolf de Heer
Written and directed by Rolf de Heer Complete film credits appear at the end of the hook.
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
BUBBY, 35 years old, an innocent.
Mom, Bubby’s slatternly mother.
Pop, Bubby’s dissolute father, a cleric of dubious standing.
Angel, a health worker with the physically disabled; Bubby’ redemption.
SCENE I INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - DAY
The camera explores the kitchen/living area of the smally two-roomed apartment. It is abysmally poverty-stricken and harey almost derelicty dirty and with a minimum of possessions.
There is a cracked porcelain sink with a single brass cold water tapy a bench of sorts with a few battered aluminium pots and some basic food supplies underneath. A cockroach scuttles over the top of the bench. The old gas stove is covered with the grease of thirty years* cooking.
There*s an old wooden table with a couple of rickety wooden chairSy an oversized sofa with the stuffing falling out. A single naked light globe hangs darkened in the centre of the room.
There are heavy padlocks on the inside of the doory while the glass on the single window is frostedy with thick jail-like bars on the inside. Below the window is a fruitcase made into a rudimentary cage with chicken wire. Inside the cage is a feral caty brooding.
There are no booksy no pictureSy no radioy no television. On one wall there is a large plaster crucifix with the head missing.
Buhby is sitting on one of the wooden chairSy next to the sink. He is of indeterminate agey probably between thirty and forty years oldy and his expression often resembles that of an autistic childy seemingly not relating to his environment. At other times he can become quite animated in a childlike way.
Mom is standing next to Buhhyy shaving his face expertly with a double-sided safety razor. Mom is a very large womany substantially overweight and between fifty and sixty years old. She is wearing an excessively tight cotton print dress... rolls of fat attempt to bulge their way out. She is generally quite sombre.
Buhhy flinches from a nick. Mom clouts him on the heady hard.
MOM: Be still!
Buhby sits still.
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SCENE 2 INT. BUBBY’S PL^CE - DAY
Buhhy is standing next to the sinky naked. Mom is washing him from head to toe. Buhhy stands patientlyy accepting the routine.
SCENE 3 INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - DAY
From underneath the henchy Buhhy is getting himself a howl and a spoon. Mom is standing next to the sinky her dress rolled down to her waist. There is a key on a piece of string around her neck. She is washing her breasts and under her armpits.
Buhhy takes the howl and spoon to the tahky sits and waits.
SCENE 4 INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - DAY
Buhhy is sitting at the tahley eagerly watching Mom as she is tearing some slices of white bread apart and putting the pieces into Buhhy *s howl. She picks up Buhhy *s spoon and uses it to sprinkle a couple of spoons of sugar onto the pile of bread.
She takes a saucepan from the stove and pours some warm milk into the howl. Buhhy picks up his spoon and starts eating with clumsy finesse. He mumbles with enjoyment to himself.
SCENE 5 INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - DAY
Mom is sitting at the tahley a small mirror and tatty make-up kit in front of her. Buhhy is applying mascara to her eyelashes in a practised way.
He finishes with the mascaray screws the brush hack into the bottle and picks up a stick of lipsticky holding it up to his mother to see. She shakes her head.
MOM: Princess Pink.
Buhhy puts it down and picks up another stick of lipstick.
BUBBY: [identical inflection'] Princess Pink.
He uncaps the lipstick and deftly applies it to Mom^s lips. He purses his lipSy indicating for her to do the same. She does so and seems satisfied.
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17
SCENE 6 INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - DAY
Mom is drinking a cup of tea at the table. Buhhy is squatting down in front of the cat cage. He is poking the handle of a wooden spoon through the wire, stirring up the cat.
The cat hisses wildly at Buhhy, Buhhy hisses hack, a perfect copy. Buhhy is the cat.
SCENE 7 INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - DAY
While Mom is pouring liquid toffee from the saucepan into rows of paper patty
He wiggles a loose skirting hoard once or twice, until a cockroach darts out. He pounces on it with his hand shaped like a caTs paw. He lifts his paw a little to l
et the roach escape, hut before it's gone any distance he pounces on it again.
SCENE 8 INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - DAY
Buhhy is sitting at the table. He has a cockroach in front of him, with only its front two legs left. The other legs are neatly laid out to one side with the wings. At the other side of the table Mom is sprinkling hundreds and thousands onto the toffees.
Buhhy is prodding at the cockroach, trying to make it walk over the end of the table. When it reaches the edge, Buhhy flicks it hack with his finger. Buhhy tires of his game and feeds the cockroach to the cat in its cage.
SCENE 9 INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - NIGHT
The room is in darkness. Through the coloured strip curtain. Mom can he heard cooing to Buhhy.
MOM: [ 05 ] Such a good little boy... that’s right...
In the bedroom, Buhhy is lying naked on his hack on the double bed. Mom, also naked, is sitting astride him, screwing him, her eyes closed. Buhhy plays with her breasts.
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That’s a good boy Bubby... good boy... good little boy...
SCENE 10 INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - DAY
Bubby is sitting at tbe table. Mom puts a couple of toffees in front of bim.
MOM: Toilet?
Bubby nods.
MOM: Don’t move!
She indicates the headless crucifix.
MOM: Jesus can see everything and he tells me you moved, by Christ I’ll beat you brainless.
Mom unbolts the door^ picks up the gas mask and puts it on.
Be still!
She gives Bubby a last warning look and opens the door and leaves. Bubby sits still.
SCENE I I INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - DAY
Bubby is sitting quietly at the table^ eating the first of his toffees.
SCENE 12 INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - DAY
Both toffees are finished noWy but Bubby is still sitting rigidly in his place.
SCENE 13 INT. BUBBY’S PLACE - LATE AFTERNOON
Bubby remains quietly and rigidly seatedj looking up at the headless crucifix. He averts his eyeSy and without otherwise moving^ begins to piss in his pants. The urine forms a puddle beneath his chair.