Raffaele Caputo & Geoff Burton,
Third Take: Australian Film-makers Talk.
Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2002.
ISBN: 1 86508 507 3.
224pp
Au$27.95 (pb)
(Review copy supplied by Allen & Unwin)

Third Take is a valuable historical resource and an insight into contemporary filmmaking both in Australia and overseas. This is the second instalment in Raffaele Caputo and Geoff Burton’s series of Australian film-makers “talking”, based on the model of John Boorman’s Projections series. In their first volume, Second Take, Caputo and Burton presented a series of essays, interviews and previously-published articles that profiled, or gave voice to, a dozen Australian directors, including Gillian Armstrong and Jane Campion. One of the improvements of Third Take is its diversification of the label “film-makers” to include contributions from three cinematographers (John Seale, Don McAlpine, Vince Monton), one actor (Bill Hunter), one producer (David Elfick), and one scriptwriter (Bob Ellis), as well as six directors (Phillip Noyce, Peter Weir, Rolf de Heer, Andrew Dominik, Curtis Levy and Dennis O’Rourke, who is interviewed by Martha Ansara) plus a reprint from Ken G. Hall’s Australian Film: The Inside Story. The need for dialogue and insight into the film-making craft, identified by the editors in their introduction to Second Take (6), is answered in Third Take by this inclusion of craftsmen [they are all men] other than the director, an important corrective to the auteurist preoccupations of academic criticism.

For its collection of essays on Newsfront (Australia 1978) alone, the text is a significant contribution to Australian film history. The issues raised by Newsfront’s portrayal of the demise of Australian newsreel film-making through the influx of American television are echoed in current debates about the Australian film industry’s relationship with Hollywood. These issues are also discussed in interviews with John Seale and Don McAlpine, in keeping with the editors’ wish to position Third Take as a key intervention in debates about globalisation and culture (6-8). The economic and cultural impact of Hollywood in the age of globalisation is of vital importance to the industry and to film studies, and through giving film-makers a forum for discussing this issue, Third Take makes a unique contribution to the field.

I characterise Third Take as a valuable historical resource, not only for the Newsfront essays (which are extended versions of contributions to the DVD re-issue of the film), but for its publication of interviews given at forums such as Popcorn Taxi and papers presented at conferences such as ASDA (the Australian Screen Directors Association). One may query the lack of commissioned material for this collection, with only the Dominik and Levy essays not requiring acknowledgements (the Hall essay and Ansara’s interview of O’Rourke are reprints). However, there is real value in having these interviews and conference papers in print, as their publication extends the sharing of a film-maker’s knowledge beyond those few who were fortunate enough to attend the original event or to own a DVD player. Of all the contributions, the McAlpine and Seale interviews engage most directly with the issue of Australian talent in the age of “Planet Hollywood” (6) and provide reasoned defences of their choice to work overseas. But it is the documentary-makers Levy and O’Rourke who provide some of the most challenging and provoking insights into the philosophy of film-making, through their capacity for critical self-analysis, which goes beyond the mere behind-the-scenes anecdote.

Given the value of this series to both makers and critics of film, I was disappointed there were no women film-makers profiled in Third Take. My initial reaction was to suggest a corrective to the sub-title, which might read Third Take: male Australian Film-makers Talk. Given Third Take‘s broadening of its contributors beyond directors, it is all the more disheartening to note not only the absence of women film-makers but also indigenous practitioners (and for that matter, “new Australian” film-makers from migrant backgrounds such as Ana Kokkinos, Jan Sardi and Clara Law). Not only does Third Take present a distorted picture of the range of film-makers currently working in the industry, but it sends a message (albeit unwittingly) to would-be directors, cinematographers, producers and scriptwriters that film-making is strictly “white men’s business”.

My concern about the narrow view of the Australian film industry presented by Third Take is more forcefully expressed in an open letter from Melanie Coombs, with nearly one hundred signatories, circulated in July 2002, shortly after Third Take‘s release. The letter received replies from the editors, from Frans Vandenburg and from the AFC’s Sabina Wynn (see the references below). As Caputo and Burton explain in their letter to the editor of IF magazine, five women filmmakers were approached to contribute to Third Take but their contributions were not ready by the publishing deadline, due to work commitments. This points to an ongoing challenge for the editors: extracting material from busy, in-demand film-makers, many of whom are not writers themselves. However, it is unfortunate that the editors did not acknowledge the absence of women film-makers in their introduction, as this may have avoided the criticisms that followed.

Third Take is best viewed as part of an ongoing project of giving film-makers a voice, rather than as an all-inclusive, fully representative document of who makes films in Australia. The series is designed to facilitate dialogue between film-makers and their audiences, and as the recent debate about women film-makers suggests, dialogue between the editors and their readers. I look forward to the next instalment, Fourth Take, which will no doubt continue to fill the void between the fields of journalism and academia, by providing a forum for “the very thing that sustains their existence, the fertile ground that lies in-between – the voice of the film-maker” (Second Take, 5).

Fincina Hopgood,
The University of Melbourne, Australia.

References

Geoff Burton and Raffaele Caputo, Letter to the Editor, IF: insidefilm magazine, number 47, September 2002, 81.
Melanie Coombs, “Double take at Third Take: where are the women?,” Filmnet Messageboard, 10 July 2002,
http://pub157.ezboard.com/ffilmnetfrm2.showMessage?topicID=187.topic (10 January 2003). Also published in IF: insidefilm magazine, number 46, August 2002, 8.
Frans Vandenburg, Letter to the Editor, IF: insidefilm magazine, number 47, September 2002, 81.
Sabina Wynn, “AFC reply re no females in filmmaking book,” Filmnet Messageboard, 16 August 2002
http://pub157.ezboard.com/ffilmnetfrm2.showMessage?topicID=266.topic (10 January 2003).

Created on: Wednesday, 25 June 2003 | Last Updated: Wednesday, 25 June 2003