Director, producer and November 2016 Hyphenate Jocelyn Moorhouse
One of the highlights of 2015 was that moment when The Dressmaker came out and everybody remembered how great Jocelyn Moorhouse is. It had been eighteen years since her last feature film (1997's King Lear adaptation A Thousand Acres with Michelle Pfeiffer, Jessica Lange and Jennifer Jason Leigh), and those of us who never fail to include her superb debut film (1991's Proof with Hugo Weaving, Geneviève Picot and Russell Crowe) in our endlessly-reworked Best Australian Films Of All Time lists had been waiting with bated breath for her next movie.
There was only one thing that audiences have been clamouring for even more than a new Jocelyn Moorhouse film, and that was a Jocelyn Moorhouse guest appearance on Hell Is For Hyphenates.
This month, your prayers will finally be answered as Jocelyn joins us for our November 2016 episode. But which filmmaker has she chosen to discuss with us?
None other than English director Nicolas Roeg!
After serving as director of photography on films as diverse as Rogert Corman's The Masque of the Red Death (1964), François Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 (1966) and Richard Lester's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), Nicolas Roeg turned his hand to directing.
His first five films have been burned into pop culture: the Mick Jagger drama Performance (1970), the Australian-set Walkabout (1971), the notorious thriller Don't Look Now (1973), the David Bowie sci-fi The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976), and Art Garfunkel mystery Bad Timing (1980).
From that point on, his filmography becomes less familiar. With a few exceptions - the Roald Dahl adaptation The Witches (1990), or the non-Vietnam War Joseph Conrad adaptation Heart of Darkness (1993) - the subsequent films failed to pierce public consciousness as keenly as his earlier works.
So why the sudden shift? Did Roeg's style change, or was it the audience’s perception? And what is it about his films that won over and influenced Jocelyn?
Discover the answers when we talk the films of Nicolas Roeg on November 30!
“They work with Stanley and go through hells that nothing in their careers could have prepared them for, they think they must have been mad to get involved, they think that they'd die before they would ever work with him again, that fixated maniac; and when it's all behind them and the profound fatigue of so much intensity has worn off, they'd do anything in the world to work for him again. For the rest of their professional lives they long to work with someone who cared the way Stanley did, someone they could learn from. They look for someone to respect the way they’d come to respect him, but they can never find anybody … I've heard this story so many times.†- Michael Herr, screenwriter of Full Metal Jacket
There's something extra fascinating about having an actor as a guest on the show, as it's very easy to infer that their choice of filmmaker is someone they would love to have worked with. Despite the stories of endless takes and production schedules that stretch into years, would Rhys Muldoon have still wanted to work with cinema's acknowledged master? You'll have to listen to find out.
Stanley Kubrick is the Hell Is For Hyphenates white whale (we have about seventy white whales, btw) and it was exciting to finally cover his groundbreaking, influential works. And only a month after we talked Hitchcock, it's making 2016 a concentration of cinema's great architects.
This must-read piece from the BFI and Sight and Sound looks at Stanley Kubrick as cinephile, and includes the only known list Kubrick ever made of his ten favourite films. The list was written back in 1963, and there's some informed guesswork as to how it may have changed in the following decades. Feel free to speculate, as we have been, which filmmaker Stanley might have chosen to talk about had we ever enticed him to appear on Hyphenates.
Sophie made the journey to the actual Overlook Hotel from The Shining, and says it’s one fo the coolest places she’s ever been to. Check out this article from Fact Mag about the upcoming horror-themed Overlook Film Festival.
Finally, if you've never seen Lee's TV show The Bazura Project, then congratulations on missing his questionable impressions of James Mason in Lolita, Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange, Jack Nicholson in The Shining, and Vincent D'Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket.
Outro music: “We’ll Meet Againâ€, written by Ross Parker and Hugh Charles, and performed by Vera Lynn, from Dr Strangelove, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
The latest episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Rhys Muldoon talking Stanley Kubrick, can be subscribed to on iTunes, listened to on Stitcher Smart Radio, or downloaded/streamed directly from our website.
Want to become an instant expert in our filmmaker of the month without committing yourself to an entire filmography? Then you need the Hell Is For Hyphenates Cheat Sheet: we program you a double that will not only make for a great evening's viewing, but bring you suitably up-to-speed before our next episode lands…
DR STRANGELOVE (1964) and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)
Which two films sum up Stanley Kubrick's career? Can two films possibly do such a thing? They cannot, which speaks to the eclectic genius that Kubrick embodied. But with these two choices, we're confident you'll get a good idea of the different shades of Stanley: his humour and his control, his insight and his imagination. Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is the ultimate cold war satire, an achingly funny film about the USA and Russia on the brink of nuclear war. Peter Sellers stars as US President Merkin Muffley, Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, and the titular Dr Strangelove, in this profoundly quotable and keenly rewatchable comedy. Once you've watched that, you'll need to go and find a rep cinema. An actual rep cinema that's playing 2001: A Space Odyssey in 70mm, or maybe 35mm, or in a stretch 4K digital. If there was ever a film that should only ever under any circumstance be seen big, it's this one. (Okay, maybe Lawrence of Arabia.) But - grudgingly - perhaps in the era of high-definition television and Blu-ray players and surround sound, we can just about countenance the idea of you watching arguably the most profound cinematic experiences of all time in the comfort of your own home. But only if you turn the lights off and put your phone in the other room, because you're in church.
Substitutions: If you can't get or have already seen Dr Strangelove, seek out 1962's Lolita. It's not exactly a clean substitute, but it's an equally great insight into human psychology (albeit from an entirely different angle), and hey, Peter Sellers. If you can't get or have already seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, seek out 1980's The Shining. Look, there's obviously no corroboration here. What, are we going to point you to Kubrick's other science fiction film that forever redefined cinema? But, like every possible combination of Kubrick films, you can't really fault this double.
The Hidden Gem: Kubrick's earlier films aren't as widely discussed as his later work, which means his debut feature Fear and Desire (1953) rarely gets a look-in. And that's a shame, because his film about four soldiers trapped behind enemy lines is an intense and complex work. It's rawer than his more controlled movies, but you can see the seeds of his style being sown in this tight 62 minute introduction.
The next episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Rhys Muldoon talking Stanley Kubrick, will be released on 31 October 2016.
Actor, author and October 2016 Hyphenate Rhys Muldoon
Rhys Muldoon is the very definition of a multi-hyphenate.
As an actor, he's appeared in films such as Danny Deckchair (2003), The Crop (2004), The Extra (2005), Valentine's Day (2007) and Bitter & Twisted (2008), in television shows such as Bastard Boys, House Husbands, Blackjack, Grass Roots and Play School, and on stage in Don's Party, Amadeus, Romeo + Juliet, Stuff Happens, and Steven Soderbergh's production of Tot Mom.
He has released two albums of children's music, both of which were nominated for ARIA Awards: I'm Not Singing (2012) and Perfect is the Enemy of Good (2015). He also co-wrote the children's book Jasper & Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle with then-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Now, one line on the CV is about to eclipse all the others: Hell Is For Hyphenates guest host!
We are delighted Rhys will be joining us in this month's episode, and very excited at his choice of filmmaker…
Stanley Kubrick!
Kubrick, the filmmaker still spoken of in hushed, reverent tones by cinephiles and filmmakers alike, hardly needs an introduction. Which is usually the thing you say before you introduce them anyway.
The obsessive and detailed Kubrick only made 13 films, but few would argue against the idea that his works changed cinema forever: Fear and Desire (1953), Killer's Kiss (1955), The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957), Spartacus (1960), Lolita (1962), Dr Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Barry Lyndon (1975), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
We're just gonna leave that list there. Not much else needs to be said. Although we will be saying a lot more, so make sure you come back on the morning of October 31 as we chat Stanley Kubrick with Rhys Muldoon!
It's hard to believe that it took six-and-a-half years for us to finally reach Alfred Hitchcock, but such is the unpredictability of the Hell Is For Hyphenates formula. And once we reached him, we had to go big with not just one special guest, but two!
We'd begun talking with Alicia earlier in the year about joining us on the show, and she'd flagged that she would very much like to talk about the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Just like two strangers meeting on a train, or an advertising executive calling out to a page boy looking for a spy named George Kaplan, or a missing woman's rare tea label catching on the window outside your cabin, this turned out to be a very fortunate coincidence.
See, we managed to score an interview with legendary filmmaker Terence Davies, who had said that he'd be interested in talking with us about not all of Hitchcock's films, but three in particular. The timing could not have been better.
The chat with Davies was conducted when he was in Australia as a guest of the Melbourne International Film Festival. He was there for the premiere of his film Sunset Song, and MIFF generously allowed us some time to talk about something other than the film Davies was here to promote. Sunset Song has just this month been released into Australia cinemas, so if you're in the country, do make an effort to go and see it.
As fans of the 2010 Davies memoir-documentary Of Time and City, we were secretly hoping that he would as delightfully acerbic and ruthless as his narration of that film. We were only slightly disappointed that he turned out to be the nicest, most delightful man, and one we would have happily chatted to for several hours or days had his schedule permitted it. But we were honoured to be given the time that we did get, and we would like to thank him, MIFF, as well as publicists Asha Holmes and Frances Mariani.
Here I was recorded, and there I was uploaded. It was only a moment for you; you took no notice.
But the Davies segment itself comes at the end of the show. The bulk of this month's episode actually marks our first ever tri-continental recording, with Sophie in London, Lee in Melbourne, and guest Alicia in Los Angeles. It made the scheduling a little challenging, but it was worth it. A technical issue caused us to delay the recording by 24 hours, at which point Alicia was forced to call in on her phone as she drove to record a video for the film website Fandango. Given how many Hitchcock films feature a protagonist on the run, this felt entirely appropriate. Had Hitchcock made films in the era of mobile phones and Skype, there's little doubt he would have employed this setup for some exciting thriller.
Before we get to Hitchcock, we compare notes on some of this month's releases, including Oliver Stone's Snowden, Antoine Fuqua's The Magnificent Seven, and Rachel Lang's Baden Baden.
The “further reading†section of these show notes could have been endless, given the infinite number of Hitchcock-related links available on the web, but here are some of our favourites:
Every single Hitchcock cameo ever is collected in this fan edit video, featuring everything from his first appearance in The Lodger to his ingenious inclusion in Lifeboat.
This jaw-dropping 3 minute time-lapse reconstruction of Rear Window reconstructs the entire building and courtyard, showing the events of the movie as they would have been seen in wide shot.
In 2014, our host Paul Anthony Nelson decided the Hi4H workload wasn't nearly crippling enough, and undertook his own side project. From Pleasure To Plot was his year-long trek through Hitchcock's career: 52 films in 52 weeks. If you're wondering what Paul would have made of Hitchcock, you can go back to the blog and check out his individual entries and final summary.
Outro music: score from North By Northwest (1959), composed by Bernard Hermann, and the score from Psycho (1960), also composed by Bernard Hermann
The Alfred Hitchcock episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring special guests Alicia Malone and Terence Davies, can be heard by subscribing to our show on iTunes, listening in via Stitcher Smart Radio, or you can download it or stream it directly from our website here.
Lee with guest Terence Davies, taken on 29 July 2016 (photo credit: Frances Mariani)
Want to become an instant expert in our filmmaker of the month without committing yourself to an entire filmography? Then you need the Hell Is For Hyphenates Cheat Sheet: we program you a double that will not only make for a great evening's viewing, but bring you suitably up-to-speed before our next episode lands…
NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) and PSYCHO (1960)
How do you find two films that sum up a filmography like that of Alfred Hitchcock's? Do we pick a British film and an American film? One from his silent era and one from his Selznick era? There are endless permutations of Hitchcock to choose from, but if you're venturing into his works for the first time, these are the two films that should give you a fair sketch of the director everyone is familiar with. Our evening begins with North By Northwest, the mistaken identity everyman espionage comedy thriller starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. With a perfect script by Ernest Lehman, stunning cinematography by Robert Burks, and a serious contender for the best Bernard Hermann score of all time, this is the perfect instance of Hitchcock having as much fun as he ever had. So many of his films feature ordinary people displaying bafflement as they're drawn into international intrigue, and North By Northwest sits proudly at the top of this sub-genre. Once North is over, scare yourself senseless with Psycho, the film that changed cinema forever in more ways than one. 56 years on it's still terrifying as hell, with its impact undiminished by decades of twists and turns being pop cultured to bloody death. If you're yet to see this masterpiece of horror, now is the time to check in to the Bates Motel.
Substitutions: If you can't get or have already seen North By Northwest, seek out 1954's Rear Window. It's an absolute nail-biter, so not quite the romp that North is, but as high-concept Technicolor Hitchcocks go, it's pretty unbeatable. If you can't get or have already seen Psycho, be sure to check out 1963's The Birds. Its bright, attractive palette is at glorious odds with the palpable dread of its When Nature Attacks thrills. How many other filmmakers could scare the hell out of you and also make you want to move immediately to Bodega Bay?
The Hidden Gem: One of Hitchcock's earliest films was also one of his best. 1927's The Lodger is a silent thriller that best presages the distinct style he would one day settle in to. It's entirely gripping, features technical flourishes that would look revolutionary if it was used today.
The next episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Alicia Malone talking Alfred Hitchcock, will be released on 30 September 2016.
Film reporter, TV presenter and September 2016 Hyphenate Alicia Malone
We are very excited to announce our next guest will be Alicia Malone, Australian film reporter, TV host, and lifelong lover of cinema. Our favourite part of her bio (nicked from her website) is this: “While at school she created a Film Club, electing herself President. Eventually the School Principal asked her not to get up in assembly to talk about movies anymore.â€Hi4H is nothing if not designed for people with this exact origin story.
After numerous hosting duties in Australia, including covering the AFI Awards and Tropfest, Alicia packed her things and headed to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune, both of which she has found. She has covered Cannes, Sundance, Toronto and the Oscars, and interviewed just about every movie star you'd care to mention. You can generally find her film coverage at Fandango, Screen Junkies, HitFix, and dozens of other outlets. In 2015, she delivered a TED talk about the lack of girls in film, and why that needs to change.
And now - most importantly of all - she is joining Hell Is For Hyphenates. But which filmmaker will she be discussing?
None other than the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock!
That's right. After six-and-a-half years of the show, we're now finally getting to one of the biggest names in filmmaking, and certainly one of the most influential. He hardly needs an introduction: Psycho, The Birds, North By Northwest, Rebecca, Rear Window and Vertigo are all part of our DNA. How many directors are instantly recognisable from a single-line silhouette drawing alone?
There is also something else in this episode. Something we're not going to tell you about just yet. After all, an episode about Hitchcock deserves special treatment, and this edition of Hi4H will contain a fairly sizeable surprise. It seems only fitting that we should leave you in suspense until the last possible moment.
What will this surprise be? And what effect did the films of Alfred Hitchcock have on a young Alicia? Just what are the 39 steps?
This month's episode was a little tricky to record. With Kriv in Brisbane for pre-production on his movie Australia Day and Sophie on holiday in North America, scheduling proved difficult, and we were unable to find a time they were both available. So Lee - who had nothing of note going on in August - recorded separately with both of them, and the result was edited into the seamless episode you can now hear.
But we embraced the tumult, and threw our traditional reviews segment out the window. Ignoring the month's releases, Lee talks about all the best films he saw at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and Sophie talks about an incredible film she saw in a plane over the Atlantic.
After the review, we dive into the works of Peter Weir, and dig deep into what connects films like Picnic At Hanging Rock and Gallipoli to Dead Poets Society and The Truman Show. Is it possible he's exploring a single theme throughout these wildly different films? You'll have to listen to find out!
Outro music: “The Far Side of the World” from Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), composed by Iva Davies, Christopher Gordon and Richard Tognetti
The latest episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Kriv Stenders talking the films of Peter Weir, can be subscribed to via iTunes, heard at Stitcher Smart Radio, or downloaded/streamed directly from our website.
Want to become an instant expert in our filmmaker of the month without committing yourself to an entire filmography? Then you need the Hell Is For HyphenatesCheat Sheet: we program you a double that will not only make for a great evening's viewing, but bring you suitably up-to-speed before our next episode lands…
PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975) and DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989)
It's back-to-school this week so let's prep with two sad, strange and magical school stories from Peter Weir, a director who loves sad, strange communities and the weirdness that occurs therein. These are films that mark people's memories: if you saw either when you were a teenager, they will have lingered in how you think about the passions and persecutions of your schooldays. If you haven't, no worries, they'll haunt you now. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Weir's third full-length feature, is every bit as mysterious and daring as it was forty years ago: its central enigma (not based on a true story, despite rumours) remains unsolved (and unspoilered here). Filmmakers like Carol Morley (The Falling) and Lucile Hadzihalilovic (Innocence) have recently revisited its dreamy strangeness of Edgar Allen Poe-quoting girl crushes and fairy-tale references. Dead Poets Society reflects, likewise, that adolescence is no picnic - but for a brief moment, it can be painfully glorious, with Robin Williams channeling Walt Whitman at the front of the classroom. It jump-started the careers of Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard and Josh Charles as the hormonal hornets' nests given a jolt of inspiration by Williams' English teacher John Keating (named after Australia's then-Treasurer?), who tells them poetry was invented to woo women. These films will definitely seduce you.
Substitutions: If you can't get or have already seen Picnic at Hanging Rock, go for Gallipoli, which can't be held responsible for Mel Gibson. If you didn't watch it as part of the 100th anniversary of the battle of Gallipoli last year, watch it now. Brutal, moving, truthful, the film put this ANZAC story on the international map. If you can't get or have already seen Dead Poets Society, you must watch The Truman Show, which was pipped by Dead Poets to the Cheat Sheet post by the still-palpable loss of Robin Williams. Like an extended version and inversion of God calling to ask for girls at Helton, The Truman Show is a quintessentially Weir-ian film that starts out quiet and normal and ends up epically uncanny: a tale of an ordinary life that encounters the impossible. And that's just the idea that Laura Linney would really be married to Jim Carrey (as if)…
The Hidden Gem: Want something a little off the beaten path? Then you'll need to check out the 1979 telemovie The Plumber. One of the earliest examples of Weir finding the thrilling in the simple, the film follows the a woman as she is subjected to a series of mind games by a man claiming to be a plumber. If you think you know how the film will play out based on that premise, then you really need to seek out this film, which subverts its Hitchcockian premise at every turn.
The next episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Kriv Stenders talking Peter Weir, will be released on the morning of August 31 (AEST).
Australian filmmaker and August 2016 Hyphenate Kriv Stenders
We are delighted to announce that this month our guest will be Australian director Kriv Stenders!
Whether you know him from 2011's smash hit Red Dog, or last year's critically lauded mini-series The Principal, or his 2005 debut The Illustrated Family Doctor, or 2014's Simon Pegg-as-hitman action-comedy Kill Me Three Times, or 2007's criminally underrated Boxing Day, you've certainly seen at least one thing he's made.
Given Kriv can comfortably switch between serious drama, family adventure and action comedy, which filmmaker is it that inspires him?
This month, Kriv will be joining us to talk about one of Australia's most beloved filmmakers: Peter Weir!
Peter Weir rose to prominence during the Australian New Wave movement with 1974's The Cars That Ate Paris and 1975's Picnic At Hanging Rock. He continued making films in Australia including 1977's The Last Wave, 1981's Gallipoli and 1982's The Year of Living Dangerously.
When he went to the USA, he continued his streak with 1985's Witness, 1989's Dead Poets Society, 1998's The Truman Show, and many others. Nearly every film he has made has slipped effortlessly into pop culture consciousness. But what is it about his films that Kriv enjoys so much?
Peter Weir rose to prominence during the Australian New Wave movement with 1974's The Cars That Ate Paris and 1975's Picnic At Hanging Rock. He continued making films in Australia including 1977's The Last Wave, 1981's Gallipoli and 1982's The Year of Living Dangerously.