GALLIPOLI (1981). Written by David Williamson from a story by Peter Weir, who also directed the film, Gallipoli is set in a significant historical moment for Australians. The Gallipoli campaign was the first time Australia had fought on the battlefield as a commonwealth, a federation of states. It is also significant in that the campaign was a precursor of what was to follow in France in subsequent years; namely, the futile loss of life by soldiers of all nations at the hands of some commanders who often felt that the death of their own troops alone signified an appropriate battlefield strategy. Gallipoli is now regarded as the crucible in which the Australian nation was tragically and heroically born.
The film sits in a significant historical moment in the history of the Australian industry as well. It represented a development of the industry a decade after the beginnings of the revival, and was a strong performer at the box office in Australia, as well as in the United States, where it took over US$5.5 million as the first film in a decade to achieve mainstream distribution. It was widely acclaimed in Australia, being nominated for four Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards, and winning eight awards including best film, best director, best leading actor (Mel Gibson), best supporting actor (Bill Hunter), and best screenplay. Cinematographer Russell Boyd won the 1982 Cinematographer of the Year from the Australian Cinematographers Society. In the United States, the film was nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign film.
The film tells the story of two men. The young Frank Dunne (Gibson) and Archy Hamilton (Mark Lee) are two young athletes who come from diametrically opposed backgrounds. Archy is a farmer who lies about his age (as did many Australian soldiers in this conflict) in order to enlist in a war that was threatening the mother country, England. Frank is an urban youth, streetwise, and a survivor. They meet in a country athletic meet, and their friendship continues and develops in the rest of the film, in Australia, Egypt, and finally Gallipoli. In one sense, it is a film about mateship. On the other, it is a film about the tragedy of war, and the stupidity of some British commanders. Although criticized in some circles, the film is historically accurate in this depiction.
GARCIA, ADAM GABRIEL (1973– ). Adam Garcia was born in Wahroonga, New South Wales. He arrived on the international film scene via his tap-dancing expertise. He played in two musicals on the London stage, before appearing in the tap-dancing sequence in the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Subsequently, he cofounded the dance troupe “Tap Dogs,” which quickly won international attention. His film career began with a small part in Wilde (1997), a European and Japanese production of the biography of Oscar Wilde. He played Kevin O’Donnell, the boyfriend of the lead character, in the Bruckheimer production of Coyote Ugly (2000), and the lead role in the Australian made Bootmen (2000), set in the sixth-largest Australian city of Newcastle, a city once famous for industrial capacity, and the home of the Australian steel industry. The film turns on its head the notion that tap-dancing is for sissies. As Drew Barrymore’s son in the Hollywood production Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), he played the son that no one would want to have, and followed with the lead role of Andy Caspar in Mick Jackson’s comedy The First $20 Million Is Always the Hardest (2002). He has joined that select group of Australian actors who perform in the international film milieu as either Australians, or in roles that are not defined by national boundaries.
GENRES OF AUSTRALIAN FILM. “Australian film” may itself be viewed as a genre, as Australian films may exhibit one of more of these characteristics: an emphasized “Australian-ness”; and/or references to known Australians, Australian works, Australian events, Australian geography, and Australian idiom. However, given the blurring of distinctions between “Australian” and “other” films, that generic classification is difficult to support. Genres of Australian films are similar to those of films in the classical Hollywood tradition; it is the specifics of theme and content of Australian films that may differ from others in a genre. The genres are action and adventure; comedy, romance, and musical; crime and thriller; art and period films; social realism or “urban surreal”; science fiction; documentary; short and experimental; and pornography. These last two are significant in any discussion of the Australian film industry, but examples of the genre may be difficult for people to access, so no further mention will be made of them outside this entry, apart from stating that the work of Arthur and Corinne Cantrill is of international significance and has been screened to acclamation throughout the world.
While genres have specific markers and narratives, individual films may slide easily into different genres depending on the interests of the audience, the research of the marketing department, and the reaction of critics. Thus, Crocodile Dundee (1986) can be construed as comedy, romance, and action/adventure. Whether an individual film is of one genre or another is not significant; rather, the organizing principle of genre theory makes it possible to generalize and classify film, and thereby analyze and interpret cultural interests and preoccupations. At the same time, filmmakers like to market films as multigeneric, as including the conventions of as many genres as possible, in an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible.
The action and adventure genre represents a large proportion of films, although the nature of such films has changed. Early examples of this genre reflected the narratives of Australia: stories of convicts and bushrangers; of new settlers in a strange environment and the contrast between “real Australians” and these “new chums”; of the importance of egalitarianism, mateship, and the rise of the larrikin; and of the situation of Aborigines. These early films are imbued with Australian characters, settings, and narrative. The films were produced relatively inexpensively, as the market was small, limited to Australian cinemas, and occasionally the films were exported to the United States or the United Kingdom. After the revival, the action and adventure genre was the domain of explosive and expensive special effects, funded because the international market was of greater size than the local market. Thus the narratives became more global (read “suitable for the United States”), and Australian characters and settings were used only within an international context. Films of war—most filmed after the revival—recycled stories of masculine adventure and Australian courage for a different audience of arguably more sophisticated, urban filmgoers. In the last decade or so of the 20th century, the costs of film production in Australia, the availability of technology and the expertise to use it, and the ease of travel has ensured that the new globalized, international action/adventure genre is well-represented in Australian filmmaking.
The bushman as a country bumpkin is a significant element of the national character that underpinned Australian comedy. Films like On Our Selection (1920) through to Dad Rudd, M.P. (1940) capitalized on this trait. Traces of this construction of national character are apparent in later films like Crocodile Dundee (1985), albeit reflecting the globalized nature of the film audience in the comparison of the Australian bush with metropolitan New York. Recent comedies have clear links to these earlier bucolic films, where the “little man” stands up to powerful institutions, and with the help of the community, overcomes. Examples are Spotswood (1992), The Castle (1997), The Man who Sued God (2001), and Crackerjack (2002). Another narrative style is the comic characters in Australian life, where the comedy is simply an exaggeration of the traits that exist in reality. Crackers (1998) and Doing Time for Patsy Cline (1997) have this narrative focus, as does Cosi (1996) to a lesser extent. The musical is included here in the same genre as comedy, being tied to it as a kind of light entertainment. There are few examples of musicals in Australian film, although music has always been a significant nondiegetic element in Australian film.
The hard-boiled crime fiction is, in the historical spectrum, a more recent genre. Goodbye Paradise (1983) re-creates Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles of the 1940s in Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland in the 1970s and 1980s, with a culture that paralleled the corruption and crime that was a feature of Los Angeles. More recent films follow the generic reconfiguration exemplified in, for example, Pulp Fiction (1994), such as Two Hands (1999) and Dirty Deeds (2002), both of which juxtapose serious criminal acts with comic or endearing family scenes. Other films in the genre include The Surfer (1988), Grievous Bodily Harm (1988), and The Custodian (1994).
Art and period films figure strongly in the corpus of films made in the period immediately after the change in tax laws that caused the revival. These films had art-cinema models and were made with those conventions, in response to a government need for films that were worthy of notice by a critical, sometimes overseas, audience.
Social realism is a genre that needs little explanation in an international sense, although the added “urban surreal” may require some. But social realism means something different here: it is a kind of “faithfulness to reality” that is different from Hollywood genres.
Science fiction is represented by The Chain Reaction (1980), The Salute of the Jugger (1989)—known as The Blood of the Heroes in the United States, and starring Rutger Hauer—The Time Garden (1987), Dark City (1998), and the Mad Max trilogy, which is often categorized as action, but the films are, in their narrative subject, science fiction. Recent examples include the Matrix trilogy. Science fiction is a genre that is, in recent manifestations, difficult to locate in a particular nation; it is a genre that fits easily into a globalized world. The dystopic films since the 1980s feature cities and people without nations, and thus the films can be made anywhere the appropriate technology and expertise (for filmmaking and special effects) is available at competitive prices, and Australia is an example of such a location.
Documentary is almost another form of cinema, divorced in many ways from feature fiction films. However, there are many crossovers in themes, styles, and crew. Documentary was also a tool of a state that wanted to establish national unity and support for its own policies through filming actualité. Thus the making of documentary was supported in a way that feature film was not.
Relaxed censorship laws, and changing community values, opened the way for softcore pornographic films in the 1970s. The Set (1970) is attributed as the first Australian sexploitation film, but this may be because it was the first such film that was openly screened, in keeping with the “liberated” seventies. It is difficult to believe that no pornographic films were made before this, as Australia took to filmmaking as easily as other nations, and Australia was no more puritanical than the United States. Even in the 1970s, the nudity in The Set caused a furor. Fantasm (1976) was banned in Queensland, resulting in greater interest and the film became one of the most profitable of the decade. In Felicity (1979), John Lamond tells of the sexual rites of passage of a young girl. The film’s portrayal of a schoolgirl enjoying the sexual gaze of the gardener is both incorrect as adjudged by current ideologies about such matters, and an example of the value of film as cultural artifact. Since then, pornographic films have not been recognized in any discussion of Australian film. Only recently has serious work been done on the industry.
GIBNEY, REBECCA. See entry in New Zealand section.
GIBSON, MEL (1956– ). Like Nicole Kidman, Mel Gibson left Australia after being recognized as an international star and now returns only occasionally to Australia. While many people believe Gibson to be the true all-Australian boy, this is not the complete story. He was born in Peekskill, New York, and when he was 12 his father brought the family to Australia. He trained as a stage performer at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, graduated in 1977, and went straight into the South Australian State Theatre Company. While still a student, he made his television debut in the series The Sullivans (1976). Later that year he made his big screen debut, in a teenage surfing film—Summer City (1977)—in which he played Scollop, who lives for the surf.
However, the film that won him national and international recognition was Dr. George Miller’s Mad Max (1979) (see MAD MAX TRILOGY). Picked to play Max Rockatansky, he validated the choice by making the character of Mad Max known around the western world. In this film, Max fights a gang of outlaw motorcyclists in the postapocalyptic world of the outback roads and territory of Australia, where no law exists except that of might. His motivation is explained by the death of his wife and child at the hands of these outlaws. He gives up the law, in order to effectively deal with those outside the law. In the American edition of this film, Max’s voice had been dubbed by another actor with an American accent, which sounds, to Australian ears, appalling. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) continued the tradition, but this time the location was less obviously Australia. In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Max had become a little more introspective and more of the everyman searching for a simpler and more balanced way of life.
Other films allowed for Gibson’s acting abilities to be further refined and broadened. He played the mentally impaired son of parents who are concerned about his future in the realist film Tim (1979), a story about the love or lust that an older woman has for Gibson’s character after seeing his shirtless torso in the garden. The Australian Film Institute (AFI) awarded him best actor in a lead role for this performance, and again for his performance in Peter Weir’s Gallipoli (1981). In the latter film, Gibson played the part of the street-hardened Frank, the best friend of Archie, and the narrative revolved around the mateship of these two both as athletes and then as soldiers. It is fitting that, in this period that reclaimed and celebrated an Australian culture, a film would be made about two significant cultural moments: mateship and the killing fields of Gallipoli. Weir contracted him for his next film, The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), playing opposite Sigourney Weaver in a story about the near revolution in Indonesia that was suppressed viciously by a government that was assisted by both the Australian and the US governments. The plot surrounding Gibson’s Indonesian liaison has been repeated in films like Good Morning Vietnam (1987).
After this successful career in Australia, in films that were seen outside Australia as well, Gibson moved to Hollywood and has not made another film in Australia, nor does he return often. In transition to the United States, he played Fletcher Christian’s Mate in *Roger Donaldson’s The Bounty (1984), filmed in New Zealand and French Polynesia. His transmogrification into a Hollywood and international star was seamless, and he has received critical and popular acclaim. As a slightly deranged, yet good-natured policeman he teamed up with Danny Glover to destroy powerful, drug-dealing criminals and other lowlifes in the Lethal Weapon (1987, 1989, 1992, 1998) series of comedy/crime/action films. At the other end of the spectrum, he played Hamlet in Franco Zeffirelli’s Hamlet (1990), which was both a recognition of his early training and an affirmation of his extensive capabilities. Gibson turned his understanding of film to directing and producing for the films Man without a Face (1993) and Braveheart (1995). In the latter, he also starred as the Scottish hero William Wallace, and his expertise at the other end of the camera was critically acclaimed for he won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for best director for this film, and the film won an Academy Award for best film. His interest in the story of Jesus, if not his strong fundamental Catholic faith, is evinced in his production and direction of The Passion of the Christ (2004). In his oeuvre, Gibson has played in a diverse range of roles that have enamored him with audiences as an actor of vast capacity, as well as a director of great skill and courage in tackling difficult projects.
The AFI recognized Gibson’s contribution to the international film industry as an actor and director in awarding him a Global Achievement Award in 2002.
Lead roles in other films include Attack Force Z (1982), The River (1984), Gillian Armstrong’s Mrs. Soffel (1984), Tequila Sunrise (1988), Bird on a Wire (1990), Air America (1990), Forever Young (1992), Man without a Face (1993), Maverick (1994), Pocahontas (1995), Ransom (1996), Conspiracy Theory (1997), Payback (1999), The Million Dollar Hotel (2000), Chicken Run (2000), The Patriot (2000), What Women Want (2000), We Were Soldiers (2002), Signs (2002), and The Singing Detective (2003). Other films include Chain Reaction (1980), Earth and the American Dream (1992), Fathers’ Day (1997), Fairy Tale: A True Story (1997).
GILLIES, MAX (1941– ). Max Gillies first appearance was at the beginning of the revival in the film industry. He appeared as Uncle Jack in Stork (1971), Gerry in Libido (1973), Rojack in the experimental Dalmas (1973), and Metcalfe in The Cars That Ate Paris (1974). He starred as Deadeye Dick in the bawdy but unsuccessful The True Story of Eskimo Nell (1975), and appeared in The Great McCarthy (1975) and Pure S (1975), before coproducing and playing a major role in the ambitious Dimboola (1979). He is most successfully a satirical writer and actor, and his television shows and anarchic characters are legends in Australian television history.
Other films include The Firm Man (1979), The Trespassers (1976), The Coca-Cola Kid (1985), As Time Goes By (1988), A Woman’s Tale (1991), and Lust and Revenge (1996).
GILLING, REBECCA (1953– ). Gilling first appeared as the biker’s moll Vanessa in Stone (1974) and the beautiful, evil cabin attendant in Number 96 (1974). She followed these with the role of Angelica in The Man from Hong Kong (1975), an imitation of a Bruce Lee action film. While her subsequent successful career has been in television, she did star as the insecure wife of a cattle station (ranch) owner in The Naked Country (1985), based on a novel by Australian author Morris West. She played Annie in Heaven Tonight (1990) and the city-bred Fran in Feathers (1987), a film comparing city and country polarities.
Other films include Stone Forever (1999).
GINNANE, ANTONY (1949– ). Anthony Ginnane was born in Melbourne, Australia, and has worked in the film industry since the 1970s. In 30 years, he has produced some 54 films in various countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Canada, and New Zealand. He has worked as producer, writer, crew member, and director. Although his productions have not often achieved critical acclaim, there is no doubt that the impact on the industry in Australia and overseas has been very significant. He wrote, produced and directed the little-known Australian drama Sympathy in Summer (1971), and then provided the idea for and produced the R-rated comic sex romp Fantasm (1976), and the sequel Fantasm Comes Again (1977). His next production, Patrick (1978), was more up-market, and the Richard Franklin-directed horror/thriller was well received and nominated for best film by the Australian Film Institute. The multigeneric, Simon Wincer film Harlequin (1980) received a good response from critics, and The Survivor (1981) told the story of a lone survivor of a 747 crash.
Ginnane’s next film marked his transition to an international context. Strange Behavior (1981) was set in the United States and produced by American, United Kingdom, and New Zealand companies, while Race for the Yankee Zephyr (1981) was set in New Zealand and made by New Zealand and Australian companies. His next production exemplifies the global nature of filmmaking, even in 1984. Second Time Lucky (1984) was filmed by a British director in New Zealand—but these settings were presented as international locations—financed by New Zealand investors, cast in Los Angeles, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom, with a story that had nothing to do with New Zealand. The Simon Wincer-directed The Lighthorsemen (1987), a war story about the part played by the Australian Light Horse in the British advance in Palestine in 1917, received good reviews and has remained something of a classic, as has Gillian Armstrong’s High Tide (1987). The horror film Dark Age (1987) tells a different crocodile story in an Australian outback location, while Roger Scholes’ The Tale of the Ruby Rose (1988) continues the slightly weird and supernatural threads in the narrative. The Everlasting Secret Family (1988) continues the offbeat tradition of Ginnane’s films, with a narrative that reveals how a secret homosexual society has infiltrated the upper echelons of Australian politics and spheres of influence. The Siege of Firebase Gloria (1989), on the other hand, is an Australian-made film about the war in Vietnam, without any distractions from the old-style battle tale about a sergeant who whips his new command into shape.
Ginnane produced the action film Minnamurra (1989), a film shot in Australia about a feud between a greedy station owner (rancher) who lusts after a woman and her station. He was the executive producer for the Australian film Mull (1989), and then was the supervising producer for the science fiction Screamers (1995), scripted by Dan O’Bannon from a story by Philip K. Dick. He was the executive producer for Bonjour Timothy (1995), a light comedy based on a coming-of-age theme and set in New Zealand. He produced *Ian Mune’s award-winning The Whole of the Moon (1997), a Canada/New Zealand production about the effect of cancer on the lives and relationships of boys and their understanding of life.
Ginnane has produced a number of films in Canada, and has produced Australian–Canadian coproductions. The Canadian made Men with Guns (1997) was violent and did not impress at the box office, Black Light (1998) was a reasonable thriller, Captive (1998) and the comedy Reluctant Angel (1998) were not well received. The coproduction Sally Marshall Is Not an Alien (1999) is a good adaptation of a children’s novel by Amanda McKay and is set in Adelaide’s western suburbs. Recently he has been producer and executive producer for some American-made films that have had uneven reviews. While Reaper (2000) was considered to be a reasonable murder mystery, later films have been panned, including the rarely seen Torrent (2001), Sweet Revenge (2001), The Hit (2001), and Blind Heat (2002).
Other films he produced or was the executive producer for include Blue Fire Lady (1977), Snapshot (1979), Thirst (1979), Prisoners (1981), Escape 2000 (1981), Mesmerized (1986), The Time Guardian (1987), Slate, Wyn and Me (1987), Killer Instinct (Behind Enemy Lines in the United States) (1987), Initiation (1987), Grievous Bodily Harm (1988), Savage Justice (1988), the second Rolf de Heer-directed Encounter at Raven’s Gate (1988), The Dreaming (1988), Boundaries of the Heart (1988), the Philippines-made A Case of Honor (1988) and Demonstone (1989), Driving Force (1989), the science fiction film Fatal Sky (1990), the Canadian-made action film No Contest (1994), and The Truth about Juliet (1998).
GLOBALIZATION. Globalization challenges ideas of a national cinema. While a national cinema is part of a wider project of developing and describing—and perhaps in some cases defining—a national culture, recent moves in the industry suggest a widening and changing structure, one that is not purely Australian, but rather the product of an international collaboration. To some extent, funding imperatives both drive and reflect this change, as Australian funding agencies view co-productions favorably. That is, a film project that has the backing of companies outside Australia, as well as an Australian company, have a different set of criteria to meet to gain funding.
Yet, if the film industry is a child of the 20th century, it follows that such a child would have the characteristics of the century, a century marked by an urge to globalization, to a global village. Actors, production crew, funding, studios, and locations have become fluid, and this has been the characteristic of the industry since its inception. For example, Louise Lovely was one of a number of expatriate Australian actors in early Hollywood; she was followed by stars like Errol Flynn, and more recently, Mel Gibson, Nicole Kidman, and Russell Crowe.
The ability to cross national boundaries was not only a characteristic of individuals, but corporations as well. Overseas film corporations established facilities in Australia, such as the British studio Ealing. The studio established a production facility in Australia in the 1940s, producing films like The Shiralee (1957), which explored, rather than exploited, Australian culture for an audience outside Australia. The film starred Australian Peter Finch, who is an example of an international actor beginning his career in Australia, working successfully in England and Hollywood, before returning to Australia to play an Australian character. Ealing also established a production network in post-World War II Australia and recent history has seen the establishment of Hollywood studio facilities in Australia. For example, these films were shot at Fox Studios in Sydney: The Matrix (1999), Babe: Pig in the City (1998), Farscape (1999), Mission Impossible 2 (2000), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Star Wars: Episode II (2002), Kangaroo Jack (2003), and The Quiet American (2002). The Warner Brothers Movie World studios on the Gold Coast of Queensland have hosted productions by Twentieth Century Fox, Disney Television, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Warner Brothers, and many other Hollywood-based, United Kingdom, and Australian companies.
This breakdown of national barriers in the film industry has created some confusion in the classification of films as belonging to, or emanating from, a discrete country. For example, the US-produced The Matrix was written and directed by Chicago-born Andy and Larry Wachowski; an Australian company was one producer; Australian companies worked on the special effects; Australian Hugo Weaving played a lead role; New Zealander Julian Arahanga played another role; the filmmakers utilized other Australian actors; and the film was made partly in Australian studios.
To some extent, globalization means that the industry has recognized the permeability of national barriers, reflected in the internationalization of audiences, the international appeal of certain stories, the internationalization of corporations, the international attraction of stars, the international mobility of crews, the inimitability of locations, and the availability of facilities. While the attraction of particular stars such as Nicole Kidman is not new, the number of Australians at all levels of the industry and their movement from international films to national films is notable. For example, director Phillip Noyce directed the Australian Newsfront (1978) before working in Hollywood, where he made films like Patriot Games (1992) and The Bone Collector (1999), before returning to local Australian issues in Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002).
Globalization suggests a monolithic structure, a form of cultural imperialism by, in this instance, the United States, which according to the model, gobbles up the film industry of small nations, with all the negative effects on the local industry that often accompanies such rationalization. Yet there are many qualifications to this simplistic view. The companies themselves are global in their ownership. News Limited, the Australian company effectively owned by the expatriate Australian (but US citizen) Rupert Murdoch, owns Twentieth Century Fox. (However, News Limited is changing its home location to Delaware, USA.) Sony bought out Columbia and Tristar to form Sony Pictures Entertainment. The shareholders in these companies may not be nationals of the country where the company is owned or has its head office, thus the companies themselves may be classified as international.
Another unexpected event that challenges the argument of monolithic cultural imperialism is the broadcast of films that originate in non-American nations to ethnic communities (see also ETHNIC REPRESENTATION). Typically in Australia, the process involves the recognition of a demand in a particular ethnic community, the interest of a group of businessmen from that community, who then lease a satellite channel and transmit television and film programming that originate in the “home” country. Members of that community buy satellite dishes and decoding cards for that channel. Thus the technology associated with globalization (satellite) becomes important for the maintenance of cultural identity, a process that is the antithesis of monolithic globalization.
An effect of globalized audiences is an increase in interest in countries where popular films are made, and a subsequent increase in tourism to that country. For example, films like Crocodile Dundee (1986) and the *Lord of the Rings trilogy exposed Australia and New Zealand respectively to the international world, placing those countries on the world stage—if only for a brief time—and resulting in an increase in international tourism to those countries.
The globalization of the Australian film industry has been a continuing process since the early years of the 20th century. It has had both positive and negative effects, as judged by those who stand in different ideological and economic positions, and depending on the particular plane of the globalization sample that is under the microscope. See also GENRES.
GREATER UNION ORGANISATION (GUO). The Greater Union Organisation is Australia’s oldest and largest film exhibitor. G.U. came about through the amalgamation of Spencer Pictures with West’s Pictures and Amalgamated Pictures to create the General Film Company of Australasia. In 1913, this organization joined Greater J.D. Williams Amusement Company to form Union Theatres/Australasian Films. Australasian Films was a distribution company, with buyers in cities like London and New York, while Union Theatres was an exhibition chain, which formed a partnership with Birch, Carroll and Coyle in Queensland in 1928, and which still exists today, owning many multiplexes in regional Queensland as well as in Brisbane. During the Depression in the 1930s, cinema attendances fell, and the English, Scottish, and Australian Bank as the major shareholder forced the liquidation of Union theaters. One of the managers of Union Theatres, Stuart Doyle, purchased the old company, sold off the distribution arm, Australasian films, and resurrected the exhibition arm, Greater Union Theatres. Doyle directed the company into film news magazine production through the Cinesound company, while competing with the Hoyts organization for the audience dollar. However, the Depression continued and their bank financiers forced an unpopular merger.
During World War II, audiences flocked to the silver screen again, and in 1945, the United Kingdom-based J. Arthur Rank Organization bought 50 percent of Greater Union. The company was loathe to support local production, preferring product from overseas with proven generic pedigree, and it rejected Ealing’s overtures to coproduce films in Australia in 1948. However, it did support the 1949 production of Sons of Matthew, but lost money and made no further attempt to invest in local production until the revival. The 1973 Tariff Board Review criticized the exhibition and distribution chains for their lack of investment in local production, resulting in a radical change of direction for the three major exhibition chains, and significant funding of local productions, including The Man from Hong Kong (1975), Oz (1976), Break of Day (1976), and My Brilliant Career (1979), among others.
During this time, the industrial shakeout and reorganizations continued, along with improvements in exhibition venues. In 1955, in partnership with Hoyts, Greater Union built the first drive-ins, and introduced stereo and 70mm film in an attempt to compete with television. This refurbishment and upgrading continued in the 1960s, along with changes to the corporate entity. The renamed Greater Union Organisation bought a 33 percent interest in Village Theatres. In a complex corporate restructure, GUO became a part of Amalgamated Holdings Limited, which owns other leisure facilities, and in 1984 the company bought out the Rank holdings so that the company was once again Australian owned, as is Hoyts. On the distribution side, the distribution arm Greater Union Film Distributors merged with Village Roadshow Distributors, to become one of the three major distribution companies. Greater Union has moved into partnerships with other companies; for example, the Movie World Theme Park on the Gold Coast of Queensland is a joint venture of Greater Union, Village Roadshow, and Warner Brothers, as are multiplexes in major cities (see also WARNER BROTHERS MOVIE WORLD STUDIOS). As might be expected from these mergers and vertical integration, Greater Union has been the subject of monopoly investigations by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), in particular over the acquisition of the cinema advertiser Val Morgan by Hoyts, Greater Union, and Village Roadshow; however, the ACCC did not find that the merger was inconsistent with its policies.
GRIFFITHS, RACHEL (1968– ). Rachel Griffiths lived on the Gold Coast of Queensland until she was five years old. She is an acclaimed performer on the stage as well as in film, has an education degree in dance and drama, and has written and directed two short films. Her role as the sharp-tongued Rhonda in P. J. Hogan’s Muriel’s Wedding (1994) won her international recognition, and she was nominated for an Oscar with her performance as Jacqueline du Pre’s sister Hilary in Hilary and Jackie (1998). In Australia, she took the lead in Me, Myself, I (1999) and Amy (1998). With Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis, and *Sam Neill, she appeared in Children of the Revolution (1996). As the bottle-blonde Carol Twentyman in A Hard Word (2002), she played a morally ambiguous, hard-edged wife to Guy Pearce’s Sam.
Griffiths’ international credits include the lead in Sara Sugarman’s Very Annie-Mary (2001), opposite Pete Postlethwaite in Among Giants (1998), Blow Dry (2001), Divorcing Jack (1998), My Son the Fanatic (1997), Jude (1996), and a cameo in My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997). Her recent work has been in the United States, where she appeared as Johnny Depp’s mother in Blow and opposite Dennis Quaid in The Rookie (2002). Other films include Ned Kelly (2003), Blow (2001), Welcome to Woop Woop (1997), To Have and to Hold (1997), Cosi (1996), and Small Treasures (1995).
GROSS, YORAM (1926– ). Born in Poland in 1926, Gross attended both the University of Krakow and the Polish Film Institute. By 1958, he was in Israel and made his first animated films, Chansons Sans Paroles and We Shall Never Die. Four years later appeared his and Israel’s first feature film, the puppet animation Ba’al Hahalomot (Joseph the Dreamer). Meanwhile, a year later, he made the commercially successful live-action comedy Rak Ba’Lira (A Pound Apiece). By 1968, he had settled in Australia, later establishing Gross Film Studios in Sydney. First though, he had to postpone features in favor of whatever was on offer. Over the next nine years, this was to include short films, documentaries, commercials, protomusic videos for television, and feature titles and graphics. To teach others the craft of animation, he published The First Animated Step in 1975, which was accompanied by a demonstration film of the same name.
Finally, in 1977, he made a triumphant return to features with Dot and the Kangaroo. This was carefully pitched to work both in Australia and internationally. Most especially, it was planned to fit the dominant Disney-feature animation format. Later, in 1986, Gross began selling to the Disney cable television channel. Dot and the Kangaroo also initiated what would become a trademark for Gross—the constant mixing of animated characters and settings with live-action footage of actors, landscapes, and animals. In turn, the enormous commercial success of Dot enabled Gross to spinoff the character into a series of features. In succession there appeared Around the World with Dot (1982), Dot and the Bunny (1984), Dot and the Koala (1985), Dot and the Whale (1986), Dot and Keeto (1986), Dot Goes to Hollywood (Dot in Concert, 1987), and Dot and the Smugglers (Dot and the Bunyip, 1987). Paralleling Dot was a second recurring character. Beginning in 1992, the feature Blinky Bill: The Mischievous Koala spun off a television series. This sold to 80 countries and, later, became an interactive CD-ROM.
Outside of these two cycles, Gross has produced a string of other features. The Little Convict (1979) concerns two young convicts transported to labor on a forbidding government work farm. At the same time, this story is frequently interrupted by Rolf Harris as narrator who comments and leads sing-alongs. Next came Sarah (1980), which included Mia Farrow in a live-action part. This film was set in Europe and drew on Gross’ childhood experiences in World War II. In 1981, he adapted his novel Save the Lady into the script for a live-action film of the same name. Meanwhile his next two films were set in the Australian outback. Camel Boy (1984) concerned the role of camels in outback exploration while Epic (1985) involved baby twins orphaned and raised by dingoes. By 1991, Gross made his first fully animated feature, The Magic Riddle, a children’s story concerning fairy tales. Altogether then, Gross is an artist of the first order. Where others have resorted to computer animation, he has steadfastly continued to make films that are traditional full animation. The mainstay of Australian theatrical feature animation for over a quarter of a century, he is deeply committed to Australian subjects.
GULPILIL, DAVID. Arguably, David Gulpilil is one of the two most well-known Aboriginal actors. Before appearing as the guide for lost children in Walkabout (1971), he lived in a traditional way in eastern Arnhem Land, where he spoke little English. When he is not filming, he still lives in that way with his extended family, a lifestyle that he loves.
He costarred with Denis Hopper in Mad Dog Morgan (1976), as the only ally of the bushranger. His major role in that year was in Storm Boy (1976), a film set in the arid Coorong saltwater wetlands area of South Australia, in which he becomes the surrogate father to a boy whose own father has grown distant. Gulpilil’s Fingerbone Bill teaches the boy to be in harmony with the environment and with the pelican, which the boy befriends. The film achieved both critical and box-office success, and Gulpilil was nominated for the best actor in the Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards for 1977. He showed his immense versatility in following this naturalistic, poetic film with his characterization of a tribal Aborigine transposed to the slumlike urban setting of inner-Sydney in Peter Weir’s The Last Wave (1977). He appeared briefly in The Right Stuff (1983), and then in Crocodile Dundee (1986), as the tribal Aborigine who jokes with Dundee about taking part in a ritual corroboree as a way of keeping the old folks happy.
A few minor roles followed in the unreleased Dark Age (1987), Wim Wenders’s German-French-Australian coproduction Bis ans Ende der Welt (Until the End of the World) (1992), Dead Heart (1996), and Serenades (2001). He followed this with the role of the tracker Moodoo in Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), where his character and powerful screen presence reflected the depths of 50,000 years of Aboriginal lore. In that year, he starred in Rolf de Heer’s The Tracker (2002) in the character that carries the film title, and won best male actor in the AFI awards and the Film Critics Circle of Australia awards. He was nominated for best supporting actor for Rabbit-Proof Fence.
This success has to be seen in context though. While applauding his ability and powerfully wrought roles, filmmakers pay him token sums, in a kind of parody of the colonial payment of trinkets and mirrors for land in the early days of European settlement. Now, however, the payment is for acting ability. For example, he allegedly earned US$6,500 (AU$10,000) for his part in Crocodile Dundee, which grossed over $200 million at the box office. For his role in Rabbit-Proof Fence, he earned $20,000, and a similar amount for the starring role in The Tracker.