Lindsay Shelton,
The Selling of New Zealand Movies.
Wellington: Awa Press, 2005.
ISBN: 0 9582 5384 6
239pp
NZ$39.99 (pb)
(Review copy supplied by Awa Press)

The cover of Lindsay Shelton’s The Selling of New Zealand Movies describes it as “the inside story of the deal-making, shrewd moves and sheer luck that took New Zealand films from obscurity to the top of the world.” Given that Lindsay Shelton marketed films produced by the New Zealand Film Commission since its inception in 1978 until his last professional trip to Cannes in 2000, he can indeed offer an inside story. For that reason alone, his book is of interest to anyone wanting to understand how a small national cinema can, with government support, grow from near-amateur status to something like an industry.
For those of us interested in New Zealand cinema in particular, Shelton’s book is a window into history that happened yesterday but still affects local filmmakers’ aspirations and budgets today and tomorrow. Like Hester Joyce’s so-far unpublished doctoral dissertation on the Film Commission’s impact on scriptwriting in this country, also written from an insider’s point of view, Shelton’s book provides a history of the Film Commission’s efforts to define itself and to refine its efforts to support and develop New Zealand filmmakers. In the process, Shelton touches on some of the practical choices it has had to make in settling policies that act as its guidelines.

For example, from an early date a debate began as to whether New Zealand films should be marketed on the basis of their genre or in terms of an encompassing “New Zealand brand.” That debate is ongoing, with John Barnett of South Pacific Pictures (producer, among other films, of Whale Rider [New Zealand/Germany, 2002]) arguing in favor of genre, and Lindsay still saying that the branding exercise, which has been a success, remains the better choice.

Lindsay’s efforts to develop a recognizable brand involved, among other things, persuading artist Gordon Walters to design a logo for the Film Commission, which still appears on almost all material involving the Commission. While Shelton doesn’t go into detail, Walters’ paintings involving the koru design (the curl metonymically related to the fern that is part of many national symbols) were once part of a heated debate about internationalism vs nationalism in art, on the one hand, and appropriation of indigenous people’s intellectual property, on the other. That discourse is obviously there for discussion with regard to the films that can be considered part of the cinema of Aotearoa New Zealand, but this is not Lindsay’s subject.

Nor does he examine the recent phenomenon of government involvement through, among other bureaucratic entities, Industry New Zealand and more recently New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, which has led, among other things, to NZTE interest in filmmaking as a cultural industry, especially in conjunction with its related support industries and offshoots. NZTE now regularly helps filmmakers marketing their material overseas as well as the regional film offices set up to facilitate offshore filmmakers wanting to work within the country. Studies and reports abound, with much discussion of the financial structure and legal issues – e.g., copyright, immigration, and work permits – bouncing around the guilds, among the producers, and between the filmmaking community and the government.

A few years ago, John O’Shea, the grand old man of New Zealand cinema who produced and directed the three locally made feature films between 1940 and 1972 – “with the exception of a [National] Film Unit documentary on the Commonwealth Games,” as Lindsay reminds us (18), and whose Pacific Films gave many New Zealand cinematographers and directors their start, produced a sort of professional memoir entitled Don’t Let it Get You (Victoria University Press, 1999), after the title of a musical he directed in 1966, a sort of Kiwi Hard Day’s Night (UK, 1964). What John published was largely a collection of pieces he had written over the years, many of them for public talks or commissioned for international studies. O’Shea was trained as an historian, and the intellectual issues interested him, in a practical way that he expressed in accessible terms. While he didn’t provide an autobiography, he nonetheless left behind a memoir that tells us much about the man.

Similarly, Lindsay doesn’t exactly provide much autobiographical detail, but we do get a sense of who he is and how he got there, including his important role via the Wellington Film Society of establishing the first international film festival in the country (which is now an overwhelmingly successful annual event in both Auckland and Wellington as well as, on a reduced scale, in the provincial cities). For Nick Grant, editor of Onfilm (New Zealand’s trade paper for the screen industries), reviewing The Selling of New Zealand Movies in the September 2005 issue), Lindsay hasn’t told enough. Grant complains that “there is precious little gossip,” but also precious little detail about the nuts and bolts of Lindsay’s work over the years, concluding sorrowfully: “Finally then, The Selling of New Zealand Movies is a memoir.” From his own insider position at Onfilm, Grant wonders about “lapses of memory” on Shelton’s part (21).

Lindsay himself worried regularly before and after the book’s publication that it would be too slight. Indeed, it would be nice to have more detail, but Lindsay has covered a history of films and filmmaking in Aotearoa New Zealand, his own development, and the New Zealand Film Commission as an institution. Given the dearth of books available to put in front of students interested in the cinema of Aotearoa New Zealand, The Selling of New Zealand Movies is a welcome addition in the book shops. For the general public, it is simply a good read. Awa Press, a very small operation that has gone from strength to strength in the publication of books on Kiwi culture in the last year or so, is to be commended for taking on the project and doing such a good job of it.

Harriet Margolis
Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Created on: Tuesday, 7 March 2006 | Last Updated: 7-Mar-06