The recent death of prolific Australian filmmaker Tim Burstall aged 76 marks a significant moment in Australian film culture. Perhaps more than any other Australian filmmaker over the last half-century his career features an eclectic output of writing, short films, feature films, and television productions straddling the fault lines running through many of the debates in Australian film culture.
Initially self -taught in the craft of cinema, well before the existence of film schools in Australia, he stated that he “enacted the history of film from the silent period” in his self-education and made numerous independent short films based on his own writing. One such, a children’s story, The Prize, won a bronze medal at the Venice Film Festival in 1960.
By 1966-67 he was awarded a Harkness Fellowship to formally pursue his passion for cinema in America where he studied at the Actor’s Studio in New York, worked on the feature film Hombre with Martin Ritt, and also continued to make his own short films.
On returning to Australia, Tim Burstall directed his first feature film, 2000 weeks (1969) which was in many ways a defining point in his career. Financed on a small budget and aimed at the art house audience, the film, unfairly trumpeted as the great hope of the Australian film industry, was savaged by critics and controversially withdrawn from exhibition by distributors within a few weeks of its release.
Immediately, Burstall and his film were at the centre of a complex public debate about where responsibility for a national cinema industry should reside; and the place of critics, foreign distributors, governments and local filmmakers and writers in that process.
Not to be defeated by this experience, Burstall’s creative and innovative response to this crisis was ultimately to cement his name permanently in the film history of Australia.
Forsaking the art house market, the need for foreign distributors, and even more importantly the imprimatur of critics, Burstall then directed the populist comedy Stork (1971) based on a successful play by Australian writer David Williamson. Using his own money he “four walled” the film’s distribution by hiring a cinema, and using both word of mouth and targeted preview screenings. The film was an overwhelming success with its larrikin irreverence and cast of eccentric characters, and appealed to a young audience starved of local accents on film and wanting to see Australian locations on the cinema screen.
Innovation in film production management followed when Burstall formed Hexagon Productions with Roadshow leading to the making of Australia’s first “R” certificate feature film Alvin Purple in 1973, another runaway success at the box office. Other directorial successes followed soon after: Petersen (1974) End Play (1975) and Eliza Fraser (1976) while he acted as producer on a range of other films with Hexagon including Alvin Rides Again (1974).
Other features directed by Burstall are The Last of the Knucklemen (1979), Attack Force Z (1981), Duet for Four (1982) The Naked Country (1985) Kangaroo (1986) and Nightmare at Bitter Creek (1988)
Tim Burstall also contributed much to the Australian television industry where his directorial versatility covered numerous genres including early episodes of the ABC soap Bellbird, Water Rats, The Man from Snowy River series, Great Expectations and the rendering of Thea Astley’s book A Descant for Gossips to the small screen.
Tim Burstall’s film output has been treated enigmatically by critics, audiences and the film literati throughout his career. Oscillating from populist comedies such as “Alvin” and Stork to complex treatments of Australian history in Eliza Fraser, for example, to the screen adaptation of the D.H.Lawrence novel Kangaroo, he moved expectations and created controversy.
Even when he seemed to satisfy both the audience and the critics with his lyrical episode of the film Libido (1973), entitled “The child”, he still managed to ignite the public wrath of the film’s writer, Australian novelist Hal Porter.
A few months ago, I attended a lecture given by Tim Burstall where he screened sequences from a number of his films and discussed his ideas and intentions about the extracts screened. He spoke with a quiet pride and gentle humility about his own work and displayed a deep love for the form of film itself – a love which nurtured and sustained him throughout his professional career despite the obstacles and setbacks.
As time moves us further away from this moment the films and lifework of Tim Burstall as storyteller, filmmaker and passionate supporter of an Australian film industry, will provide invaluable records and unique insights into the Australian experience of the late twentieth century.
Vale Tim Burstall 1929-2004
John Benson,
La Trobe University, Australia.
References
John J. Benson and Australian Film Institute. Research & Information Centre., An Annotated and Critical Bibliography on Australian Filmmaker Tim Burstall, An A.F.I. Research and Information Bibliography. (Melbourne: Australian Film Institute Research & Information, 1983).
Created on: Thursday, 6 May 2004 | Last Updated: 6-May-04