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CHAUVEL AWARD |
 If
qualifying for the appellation 'classic', a much misused term
in contemporary advertising hype, means not just surviving the
passage of time but also setting a standard for the future,
then it's fair to describe at least three of Charles Chauvel's
films as Australian classics. Indeed, any defensible canon of
Australian feature films must include 40,000 Horsemen (1940),
Sons of Matthew (1949), and Jedda (1955).
These three films are notable as the definitive expressions
of three of Charles Chauvel's most characteristic themes.
40,000 Horsemen enshrines a tribute to the Australian fighting
spirit expressed in its military guise. Chauvel was the nephew
of General Sir Harry Chauvel, one of the most distinguished
Australian soldiers of the so-called Great War, who led the
Australian Light Horse, which spearheaded the Allied progress
across the desert battlefields of the Middle East to Damascus,
arriving there before Lawrence and his Arab Legion, despite
David Lean's celebrated film version of Lawrence's exploits.
40,000 Horsemen is an archetypal action film, establishing
the male-ensemble narrative structure that Peter Weir would
later adopt in Gallipoli. The film climaxes with one of the
most graphic and gripping charge sequences ever captured on
film, and it alone would justify Chauvel's place among great
Australian filmmakers.
Sons of Matthew captures the same fighting spirit. But this
time the struggle is between a pioneering family and a rugged
and unforgiving environment. Again predominantly a male-ensemble
film, the story nevertheless acknowledges the strength and
perseverance of female pioneers, embodied in Jane O'Riordan
and Cathy McAllister, respectively the mother of the eponymous
sons and the love interest of the dominant son, Shane. As
always, Chauvel sought to capture the splendour of the Australian
landscape, this time of the Lamington Plateau in the Gold
Coast hinterland, and the travails of the cast and crew shooting
in this difficult terrain in the wettest summer for fifty
years make interesting reading in Matthew Dunne's book, How
They Made Sons of Matthew.
Jedda is a tale of a doomed love between an Aboriginal girl
raised from infancy by white station-owners in the Northern
Territory and an Aboriginal tribesman on the run for spearing
a policemen. The first Australian-produced colour feature,
Jedda highlighted the beauties of the Top End for Australian
audiences unfamiliar at that time with the rich colours of
the tropical north. The film is a visual masterpiece, and
was the first Australian film invited to screen at the Cannes
International Film Festival. It also is significant as the
first feature to provide real depth to Aboriginal characters,
and it is a measure of Chauvel's courage that he chose to
cast two inexperienced young Aborigines in the major roles
of Jedda and Marbuk. The tragic dénouement is not inappropriate,
given the shadowed history of Aboriginal-white relations both
before and since 1955.
During a feature filmmaking career that spanned more than
thirty years, Charles Chauvel, who worked in close partnership
with his wife Elsa, produced a total of eight feature films.
All are notable in some way, but the three outlined above
are the most distinguished. He also produced wartime training
and propaganda films, and shortly before he died in 1959 completed
a thirteen-part travel series, Walkabout, for BBC TV.
The thread that unites Chauvel's body of work is his love
of Australian characters, stories, and landscapes, a love
to which the body of his film work is an enduring testament.
The Recipient: Anthony Buckley, A.M.
In its own way, the body of work of this year's Chauvel Award
winner, Tony Buckley, A.M., is no less enduring a testament
to Australian society and environment, both cityscape and
countryside. Tony's career started almost half a century ago
in the Cinesound Newsreel film laboratory. He soon moved to
the Cinesound editing desk, and then to editing such notable
pre-'new wave' location films as Michael Powell's Age of Consent
(1968) and Ted Kotcheff's Wake in Fright (1970).
Like the Chauvels, Tony worked in both documentary and fictional
modes, and in both film and television formats. His film documentary
Forgotten Cinema (1966) was timely and influential in helping
set the climate for a resurgent Australian feature-film industry,
foregrounding neglected works of silent filmmakers such as
Raymond Longford and Beaumont Smith, and of sound pioneers
such as the Chauvels and Ken G. Hall. This interest in documentary
continued into the 1990s, when he produced such television
documentaries as Celluloid Heroes and Les Darcy: The Maitland
Wonder. His television mini-series include high-rating productions
of The Harp in the South (1986) and Poor Man's Orange (1987).
Tony's production credits on nine features also attest to
his interest in celebrating all aspects of Australian life.
Four of these films were directed by Brisbane-born Donald
Crombie: Caddie (winner of the Jury Prize and Best Actress
Award, San Sebastián, 1976; Australian Film Institute
Best Actress Award, 1976), The Irishman (Best Director Award,
Karlovy Vary, 1978), The Killing of Angel Street (Jury Prize,
Berlin, 1982), and Kitty and the Bagman (1982). Other award-winning
films include The Night the Prowler (Jury Prize, Avoiraz,
1978), Bliss (AFI Best Film, Best Director, and Best Adapted
Screenplay Awards, 1985), and The Sugar Factory (Best Film,
Hollywood International Film Awards, 1998). Bliss had the
added distinction of being accepted into competition in Cannes,
as was another of the films he produced, Tracey Moffat's BeDevil
(1993). BeDevil is of particular interest in this context
since it is an homage to Chauvel's Jedda.
His recent productions include the mini-series The Potato
Factory (1999), the telemovie Heroes' Mountain for Columbia
TriStar (2001), and the documentary Yum Cha Cha (2002). His
latest project, a feature about artist Donald Friend, is currently
in development.
As well as his production work, Tony has been a champion
of Australian films and filmmakers, serving as president of
the Screen Producers Association of Australia and as an Australian
film commissioner, as well as deputy chairman of the Australian
Film, Television and Radio School. He is immediate past president
of the Society of Australian Cinema Pioneers, and is patron
of the Motion Picture Industry Benevolent Society. This distinguished
career has already earned Tony a membership in the General
Division of the Order of Australia. The addition of the BIFF
Chauvel Award to the AFI's Raymond Longford Award and ScreenSound
Australia's Ken G. Hall Award completes a unique trifecta
of filmic honours.
Bruce Molloy
Special event: Tony Buckley with David Stratton
During the festival, David Stratton will host an on-stage
question-and-answer session with Tony Buckley, in which he
will discuss his career and show clips from some of his films.
The audience will also have the opportunity to participate
when the floor is opened to questions. Don't miss this unique
opportunity to meet Tony Buckley. See the festival schedule
for further details.
Film prints supplied by ScreenSound Australia
Previous Chauvel Award recipients
1993 Paul Cox
1994 Fred Schepisi
1995 Gillian Armstrong
1996 Dr George Miller
1997 John Seale
1998 Rolf de Heer
1999 Bob Ellis
2000 Bryan Brown
2001 Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson
2002 Jan Chapman
Chauvel Award selection panel
Professor Bruce Molloy (Chair)
Jan Chapman
Anne Démy-Geroe
David Stratton
Thanks
The Pacific Film and Television Commission's Festivals and
Events office would like to thank the Brisbane City Council
for their support of the Chauvel.
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