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Tom White

Extract story IF Magazine July 04

Tom White, from the Silent Partner team of director/producer Alkinos Tsilimidos and screenwriter Daniel Keene, charts the downward spiral of the eponymous family man (played by Colin Friels) from architect to homeless person.

It may come as a surprise to many to learn that while the homeless find themselves on the streets for all manner of reasons, a substantial number come from conservative, middle class, tertiary-educated backgrounds. How and why this happens was a key idea Tsilimidos and Keene hoped to investigate with Tsilimidos discovering, he says, 'that essentially they're all running away from something.'

The film stars Colin Friels, Rachael Blake, Bill Hunter, Dan Spielman, Leone Carmen, David Field, Angela Punch McGregor and newcomer Jarryd Jinks. It was scored by Paul Kelly and shot by Toby Oliver, both whom collaborated with Tsilimidos on his two previous films, Everynight...Everynight and Silent Partner.

The film was produced by Daniel Scharf and was the first project to be greenlit by Fandango Australia (with executive producers Sue Murray and Domenico Procacci) with finance also coming from the FFC, Film Victoria, Showtime Australia and distributors Palace Films.

Colin Friels (Actor)

(by Susan Prior)

Born of Scottish stock, at 11 years old his tradesman father brought the family over from the north of Glasgow like many other immigrant families in search of a better life.

Leaving school early to become a brickie's labourer his family showed no real surprise to find out that, at 21, their son had got a scholarship to the prestigious acting school NIDA, with his father commenting, 'You've been an actor all your bloody life, you might as well get paid for it'.  

His experience at NIDA with mentors such as the renowned Aubrey Mellor was just the beginning of his love affair with acting which has continued unabated for 30 years through the highs and lows of a cancer scare and dry work spells.

'I can't write, I can't direct. All I've ever wanted to do was act, and I can't do that properly ... yet. I always feel like I'm starting'.

As a family man and humanitarian, Friels empathised with the premise of the film, but is was only when he actually talked to homeless people that he realised that the scenario is perhaps more common than most would know; the trigger something as simple as a lost job, a drinking problem, a divorce.

'I spoke to a bloke who was a doctor and one day he just blew up and left the wife and kids. I asked, "Why couldn't you go back?" He said, "I lived a very middle class existence and the thought of going back even 36 hours later, realising what I had done, I just couldn't face the social humiliation", and I understand that.'

Besides absorbing the script, Friels slept under a bridge, grew his nails and hair (there was no makeup used) and had a friendly boxing session with his son Jack, breaking a couple of ribs in the process. He then suffered a simulated bashing in the film, with Alkinos taking him to a Melbourne hospital at 3am having filmed all night.

His deft performance of Tom White's flight into madness - and his eventual liberation - draws empathy and compassion, and sometimes fits of laughter.

Alkinos Tsilimidos (Director)

By David Michod

Tom White is Alkinos Tsilimidos's third feature after Everynight...Everynight (1994) and Silent Partner (2001).

At around $2m, Tom White provided Tsimilidos with his most substantial budget yet and still the material is difficult at best, charting the decline of Tom White from architect to homeless person.

'We had to shoot the film backwards. We didn't have time or money to shoot then take a break. I wanted to have (Tom's decline) be a gradual process, so Colin came to us first as he is at the end of the film (bearded, long haired) and we had to shoot the scene with him under the West Gate Bridge where he's waking up from the journey he's just been on - how do you approach that?'

There is nothing unusual about a director having to shoot in non-chronological order. Managing this while keeping a close eye on the overview of the story's and character's arc is one of the key jobs of the director on set.

'You have to be in the moment every time. It's a collaboration between the cast and myself, basing ourselves solidly in the text. But that's the craft.'

Daniel Keene (Screenwriter)

By Rachael Turk

Given the dark nature of this exploration, it might come as a surprise that the screenwriter is a man who lives happily in Melbourne with his wife, three children, three cats and an old chihauhua. The concept of ' home' is central to Keene's work and Tom White is the story of a man who essentially runs away from home.

'I often begin writing something by imagining what's my worst fear, or what I would hate to lose and then imagine losing it.'

'I often choose to write about dispossessed or disempowered people because they have to create their life everyday. That's the stuff of drama.'