[this post still under construction
Updated: Weds 17th. Jan.]
This is a post that have been meaning to write for some time, but never got around to - and yeah, a bittuva fantasy.
Have been fascinated by Wee Johnny's bleatings about "Australian Values". He could, actually, have done something sensible about it. $500 million on some secondhand American battletanks? What the F...? Whattaloada useless crap.
Am, personally, sick to death of the crap spewing from the TV and motion picture screens indoctrinating us into "American values" and way of life (can't think of enough negative adjectives at the moment, but might re-edit and add some) - I know more about cowboys and bloody indians, the tawdy useless lives of rich American teenagers, and how to solve problems by shooting the shit out of it with a hail of bullets, or blowing it up with speccy special effects - than the lives and achievements of us Mob.
There are a plethora of subjects for Aussie films that could have been made. How about 50 films at $10 million each? Ya never know, SOME of them would be successful box office (it's not that we don't know how, we were making feature films before Hollywood chopped down the orange groves).
Here's an incomplete list of some subject ideas (not in any particular order or significance), and not necessarily biographies, more "based on the life of .."
Any more suggestions?
1. Biography of Dame Leonie Kramer.
2. The Adventures of Matthew Flinders. (I, II and III)
3. Edward (Weary) Dunlop.
4. Fred Hollows.
5. Neville Bonner
6. Medical (based on the life of Victor Chang)
7. Col. William Light creates Adelaide.
8. Dame Roma Mitchell.
9. Charles Sturt meets some interesting people along the Murray River.
10. Mary McKillop builds a house.
11. Andrew Paterson goes bush.
12. Caroline Chisolm helps a stranger.
13. Henry Lawson goes deaf..
14. Jules Archibald publishes a magazine.
15. Edmund Barton creates a Nation.
16. Bennelong tries to adjust.
17. Daisy Bates lives in a tent.
18. William Lane. Working man's Paradise.
19. Mary Gilmore goes to Paraguay.
20. William Chidley. No Room for Dreamers.
21. Sirens, parts I, II, III ad infinitum..
22.
..
..
49.
50.
This is all spur of the moment, off the top of head - will add more as they percolate through the sludge that I call a brain (yeah well, whaddya expect on Sunday morn).
16 comments:
I watch little TV, and have seen few movies compared to most people. And American 'values' are pure bullshit. Americans don't have values, they have wants, needs, and greeds.
There are exceptions of course, just not enough of them. America is one experiment that needs to fail. This is just a land of fucked up people and crooks.
Oh, so you think that we don't understand that on this side of the equator? BillyB.
.. and if that's the best ya can come up with relative to this post BillyB, fuck off and fix yer own nation, not mine.
My suggestion: William Lane leading an ultimately doomed attempt to found Australian utopian communities in Paraguay in 1893. It wouldn't make a great film unless you added a fictional happy ending, but he looks a bit like Hugh Jackman in the wiki article, so it has some sort of potential - for a poster, at least.
:)
D, would you believe that i was the narrator in a play about William Lane, titled "No Room for Dreamers".
Thankyou D, has been added to the list.
can't, at this point, remember who wrote it. Might even have the script here somewhere. Deirdre, the cardboard boxes are full of scripts, not mine, but some have never seen the light of stage or screen. Dunno what t do with them.
No way!! What a coincidence! I only mentioned him because I came across reference to the Paraguay communities years ago and wondered why it wasn't a bigger story.
Well, what was the play like? And what to do with all the scripts? Good question. It'd be a pity to waste them.
There is also, somewhere in the bottom of a teachest, an intriguing script titled "Run, runaway" by Bob Kimber. Must dig it out. The last time I met Bob was in Darwin some .. err ... time ago.
As far as I know, has never been produced. We did a reading of it at the Sh.......] and was very impressed with it. Difficult for the stage, but would probably work on screen.
There's a beautiful little book, Bohemians at the Bulletin, written and illustrated by Norman Lindsay, which would provide much of the material needed for your item 14. His pen-drawings are so charming, and the characters he writes about so vivid, that I could imagine it all being turned into an animation in the Norman Lindsay rather than the Disney style, with Banjo Paterson, Miles Franklin, Henry Lawson, Joseph Furphy all portrayed in suitable antics.
Aren't there grants available for this kind of patriotic Australiana? I'll send you my bank details so my share could be credited directly, or at least my name could be mentioned on the credits: "From an original idea by Davo ---- & Yves Rochereau"
Fix your nation? I know little about your nation, what makes you think I was trying to fix it?
Jeez, you're getting as cranky as me.
Arrgh! not only cranky, but quietly insane. (bangs forehead firmly on desk) "No room for Dreamers" written by George Hutchinson,was about William Chidley, not William Lane.
Hahaha! You big dope! Let's hope you stuck to the script, otherwise people in the audience might have been getting mighty confused... "William who? Huh? Have I missed a scene? What the hell is happening??"
You must add Dame Mary Gilmore to the list. She met her husband in Paraguay at the community. I would have liked to see her in action against Howard.
Added to the list, JT. ta.
Have added "Sirens" just for you BillyB.. though the life and times of Norman Lindsay deserves much more than a passing C flik - even though it had Elle McPerson's tits.
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