MAD MAX TRILOGY (1979–1985). In the 1970s, Dr. George Miller and Byron Kennedy joined forces to make Violence in the Cinema Part One, an experimental film produced by Kennedy, and written and directed by Miller. This was the genesis for the Mad Max films, comprising Mad Max (1979), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). A fourth film was made, but has not been released. The first film reintroduced the action and adventure genre to the Australian industry, after some years of art and period films, at a time when the industry was in a renaissance (see REVIVAL). However, this action-and-adventure style was unlike those that had come before in the Australian industry, and was more in tune with those films of the same genre being released in the United States. Much of the films’ success was due to the initial coming together of the production/direction team of Kennedy and Miller, and Mel Gibson as Max. Miller is a master story-teller with a camera, and his understanding of the dynamic of the story and the kinetic sense of filmmaking is a primary element of the success of the three films.
The first in the series, Mad Max, was a resounding success in Australia, and did achieve considerable notice in the United States. Fear of the Australian accent caused the film to be overdubbed for its US release, which did not seem to harm the film’s success. However, it was re-released in 2000 in the original, Australian version. Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson in his first internationally recognized leading role) is a cop in a postapocalyptic dystopian Australia. When a biker gang murders his wife and family, Max gives up the law to extract revenge, in the same way that Clint Eastwood and others have done in similar, Western-style films. The film documented the transition from the world of innocence and beauty to the amoral and violent outlaw world that then pervaded all three films. Mad Max was nominated for a number of Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards, including best film, best director, and best original screenplay, and for Hugh Keays-Byrne—the Shakespearean actor from the United Kingdom, who had starred as a biker in Stone (1974)—best actor in a supporting role, as Toecutter. The film won AFI awards for editing, sound, and original music score.
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) continued the story of the loner, Max, now no longer with any affiliation with the law, and his ongoing battle with the bike gang, who have now become even more evil and rapacious. This time though, Max is protecting a small settlement, whose gentler members have access to the most precious commodity in the postapocalyptic desert wasteland, fuel. The AFI nominated Dean Semler for cinematography and Brian May for music. Miller won the award for best direction, and other awards included best costume design and best achievement in editing, production design, and sound. Recognized as a science fiction film, Mad Max 2 won a Saturn award for best international film.
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) starred Tina Turner as Aunt Entity, the governor of Bartertown, a trading post in the desert, filled with criminals and thieves. Here Max has to fight for Aunt Entity, but is thrown out of the town. He stumbles on a group of orphans, who survived a plane crash during the nuclear war, and who believe that he is their pilot, Captain Walker, returned to them. This is a much more reflective film, exploring elements of greed and consciousness, innocence and rebirth, with the sort of questioning that is often found in films set in postapocalyptic times. The film returns to the innocence that was lost in the first film, in a cyclical movement through unconsciousness and evil and a rebirth into what might be a better world. Although the popular success of this film was not as marked as the second, it has elements that may enhance its timelessness. The action elements are not neglected, however. One of Miller’s achievements is the thunderdome, one of the first-class and unique ideas for staging a fight.
The Mad Max trilogy catapulted a number of people to international success: Miller, Gibson, and Semler. The trilogy also drew international attention to the Australian film industry, at a time when many films exported from Australia were for arthouse release.
MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER, THE (1982). The Man from Snowy River is the seventh most popular film in Australia, as measured by box-office revenue, grossing $17.2 million since its release. It won an Australian Film Institute award in 1982 for best original music score, was nominated for cinematography and sound awards, and in the same year won the most popular film award at the Montreal Film Festival. In 1983, it was nominated for best foreign film in the Golden Globes awards.
Australian critics were initially ambivalent in their appraisal of the film, as it was another film since the revival that spurned both the quasi art film mood exemplified by Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) and the lowbrow ocker films that were released at the same time. The film was a commercial success, deriving much of that success from the Western and Hollywood genres. Director George Miller drew on his knowledge and experience of Westerns and adventures to make a film of action, romance, and the Australian bush, that tapped into a growing appreciation of the bush in Australian culture, exemplified in the blossoming of both Australian country and Western music, and outback clothing stores catering to middle class professionals in the city. The title is that of a famous poem by A.B. (Banjo) Patterson, which is an epic of adventure, horses, and the high country, but without the romance of the film. Like the poem, the film recalls a simpler lifestyle, told with simple filmic effects in a story that spurns gratuitous violence and sex.
The young man who becomes the Man from Snowy River, Jim Craig (Tom Burlinson), has to leave his father’s mountain property to earn self-respect and some money on the lowlands, where he also finds love in the person of fiery Jessica Harrison (Sigrid Thornton). After many adventures, he returns to claim his rightful legacy in the high country of the Australian Alps and proves himself through his pursuit of valuable horses.
MASCULINITY. An analysis of the representation of both men and their relationships tells us something about masculine traditions in Australia. As films are both cultural artifacts and contain explicit messages, any interpretation of masculinity must address the context of the time in which the film is set, as well as the time the film was made. Clearly, such a project is beyond the scope of this entry, and it is adequate here to explicate some threads in the weaving of the masculinity tapestry in Australian film.
A significant element of masculinity in Australian cultural history, and therefore Australian film, is mateship. European settlement of the east coast of Australia took the form of a penal colony in 1788, supported later by free settlement. Survival depended on loyalty to one’s “mates.” Later, this loyalty was required in order to explore and settle the vast, inhospitable environment. In times of war, mateship was a measure of the quality of relationship, as a mate was one whom a soldier would happily accompany into the jungle; that is, one who would be dependable and able to offer support. In The Australian Legend (1958), Russell Ward defined mateship as the “strongly egalitarian sentiment of group solidarity and loyalty . . . [which] was perhaps the most marked of all convict traits.” Mateship was not an explicit theme explored until the first films of the revival, like Wake in Fright (1970) and Sunday Too Far Away (1975), suggesting that its reality may have been unconscious in earlier history. In addition, the conscious use of mateship as a story line occurs only after it had been recognized as being significant in the Australian legend.
The relationships between men are often both explained by the concept of mateship, but are limited by it. For example, when a film like Crocodile Dundee (1986) is classified as a film about, in part, mateship, it tends to cast a pall over it, as mateship is not necessarily a positive characteristic. For many, who see mateship as having similar traits to “redneck” culture in the United States, mateship is a negative characteristic, with overtones of homosexuality, violence, abuse of alcohol, racism, and exaggerated testosterone episodes. For those same people, when mateship appears in some form on screen, then it is symbolic of negative elements in the character of Australian men. However, both national and international film audiences seem to enjoy other representations, as evinced by the success of films like Crocodile Dundee, where masculine traits are positively represented, including characteristics like courage, a laconic attitude, a certain innocence, and naivety. At the same time, the film does not take such characteristics too seriously, and neither do the characters themselves.
Mateship and the growth of unionism in Australia are one and the same, as the collectivization of men into groups to fight the tyranny of the “cockies,” or sheep farmers, was seen to be an egalitarian movement toward fairness for all, and the ideal of a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Unlike the situation in many countries where unionism developed in the industrial centers, the shearer’s union—the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU)—grew and was most powerful outside the industrial cities, in the towns and shires of rural Australia. Sunday Too Far Away tells of a group of men, some of whom were fiercely competitive in their determination to be the best shearer, but who worked in unison to achieve their aims. Those who attempted to break a strike, the “scabs,” were seen to be quite low on the scale of humanity. Masculinity here is sometimes tough, but it is also considerate to those mates who are unable to perform. In this context, being a man meant standing up for one’s integrity, not to accept humiliation, and to stand up for one’s mates. As the endnotes to Sunday state, “The Strike lasted nine months. The shearers won. It wasn’t the money so much. It was the bloody insult.” A similar theme was the subject of Strikebound (1984), about the strike of miners on the coalfields of Gippsland in eastern Victoria in the 1930s, who struck over low wages and dangerous working conditions. In this instance, women were active participants in the industrial action, boycotting local businesses that supported the colliery. Masculinity did not imply a marginalization of women; rather an understanding of difference. (This was not “an accepting of difference” as this would imply some kind of rejection of the idea that they were the same. Rather, the fact of difference was clear and unequivocal.)
Other elements of the masculine are exhibited in the ocker films of the 1970s, including The Naked Bunyip (1970), Stork (1971), The Adventures of Barry Mackenzie (1972), Alvin Purple (1973), and Number 96 (1974). Ocker came from the term applied to men who were unabashed Australians; these films celebrated this “Australianness.” The male leads were boorish, obsessed with sex and bodily functions, and also antiauthoritarian, antitraditionalist, antipomp, anti-pretense, and anti-British. If the 1960s was a period of liberation for women, then the 1970s was, at least in film, a liberation for men, but such liberation was subverted by its “over-the-top” extremism, and the send-up by the characters of the stereotypes. Psychological motivation did not drive these character; social stereotypes did. The dialogue contained plays on language that were not understood by English or US audiences, so the films were popular only in Australia. And they were very popular. Alvin Purple was the most successful feature film released between 1971 and 1977.
The ocker films were tied to a particular moment in government policy about films. Between 1969 and 1975, the Australian government wanted to promote a film industry, and subsidized films. However, such films were to be “about” Australia and the Australian identity, and were to be commercially viable. Thus, new filmmakers from university experimental film courses, and experimental theaters, seized on the opportunity to use government funds to make films, and the ocker films were the commercially successful result. Never has the nexus between government policy and the construction of a particular cultural identity been so clear.
Other films have shredded the positive construction of masculinity. Shame (1988) is a scathing critique of the mateship that suppresses truth, that creates a prison of silence for women, that builds a façade of civilization over a pit of criminal and violent behavior. Mimicking Shane (1953), the hero rides into the small, isolated town on her motorbike, and proceeds to tear down the charade of lies on which the local, small-town masculine culture is founded.
Masculinity has many manifestations in Australian film, just as in other national film. Some elements of masculinity are unique to Australian films, and some are shared across cultures and across film genres, such as the action/adventure genre. The representations of masculinity are products of culture, sometimes assisted by government policy.
MATESHIP. See MASCULINITY.
MATRIX, THE (1999). Although arguable, The Matrix is regarded as an Australian film as it was shot on location in Sydney, New South Wales. Fox Studios were used for studio shoots, and some special effects were manufactured by Australian companies. Not that this makes a lot of difference, as many of the scenes are unrecognizable as Sydneyscapes. Interestingly, while produced by Village Roadshow (in partnership), the studios that are associated with Village on the Gold Coast were not used. Hugo Weaving achieved further fame, yet little critical acclaim, for his role of Agent Smith, the leader of the agents who work for the controllers of reality. Robert Taylor played one of his offsiders, Agent Jones. With its story based on ancient Vedic scriptures regarding the illusory nature of everyday reality, Matrix was regarded as the benchmark for science fiction films for a short time. A computer hacker, Neo, discovers that the world of the everyday is actually a virtual reality called the matrix, and controlled by a malevolent cyber-intelligence. The aim of this complex reality is to harness the energy of humans for the matrix’s campaign of further domination. Neo, and his newly found friends, are pursued by the agents as they try to destroy the web of illusion. The film spun off two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003), which were not as successful.
MATURATION/COMING OF AGE FILMS. Coming-of-age is a continuing theme in Australian feature films, especially in the revival period. Hence, before looking at particular films that conform to this template, it is worth asking just why such a preoccupation has been so favored. The answer would appear to be three-fold. First is the myth perpetuated by white Australian society that the country is a “young” one. With the different independent British colonies federating together to form a new political entity, the Commonwealth of Australia, in 1901, such a notion would seem plausible. However, with very many other nation-states across the planet laying claim to also being new and young, this particular notion is not especially sustainable. The second level that appears to support the proposition of youth has to do with the Australian feature film production industry being given state support as a new emergent industry in 1972. It too can make claim to the notion of adolescence, ever growing into a future maturity. Not surprisingly, even in the first cycle of ocker comedy between 1970 and 1975—films such as The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972) and Alvin Purple (1973)—offer the prospect of the Australian male innocent, which the rest of the world (mostly in the shape of sexually predatory females) wants at any price. Finally, too, maturation and coming of age is a key ingredient of the 19th-century bildungsroman, the novel depicting the coming of age, a significant precursor to the Australian period (art) cinema (see ART AND PERIOD FILMS). The latter was at its height in the second half of the 1970s and has continued in a more muted way down to the present. Not surprisingly, then, the visual and narrative rite of passage of a young person, male or female, has been a recurring theme in Australian cinema in the recent present.
Various different constructions and permutations within this pattern are, of course, possible. The basic gender dichotomies will suffice as the initial point of departure. For the male, maturation may lie in the arms of an experienced, usually older woman, as in The Mango Tree (1977), a film echoed nearly 20 years later in The Heartbreak Kid (1993). In the former, the young man, played by Christopher Pate, is tutored by his grandmother even while he is sexually initiated by his French teacher. However, other films can overlay this kind of narrative of maturation with another one of physical and public maturation through action and adventure. Hence, in The Man from Snowy River (1982), the boy finds his manhood in the saddle among the other riders and this is coupled with the plot of romance. There is obviously a strong homoerotic element at work in these films and this is made explicit in others, especially those involving war. The pattern is especially evident in Gallipoli (1981), a war film set in Turkey during World War I. The film concerns two youths who join up for military service and finally fall under the slaughterous gunfire of the Turks. As though to mark their difference in class and maturation, one is dark-haired and experienced in the ways of the world while the other is blond and more naive. However, to deflect attention from the fact that this is a love story between two men, there is an obligatory visit to a brothel in Egypt on the way to battle. Moreover, in battle, the more experienced one survives while the more heroic and naive one is killed. In turn, too, some of these elements of “Boys Own Adventure” are repeated in The Lighthorsemen (1987) where heroism is again measured by the young male protagonist’s ability to stay in the saddle.
On the other side of the ledger are films concerning the maturation of young women. Here Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) is a seminal work concerning a narrative of female maturation with a deliberate interpretative invitation to the viewer. On a hot summer’s day, a handful of teenage schoolgirls disappear while on a picnic. The film refuses to resolve this puzzle and ambiguously allows it to be linked to the maturation of the girls. Two other notable features in this general cycle are The Getting of Wisdom (1977) and My Brilliant Career (1979). However, in these, the young woman protagonist seeks emancipation from inscription in a patriarchal order rather than in the cinematic excesses of Romanticism.
With the period film cycle petering out in the early 1980s, one would have thought that this might have spelled the end of this theme as an object of continued interest for Australian filmmakers. That has not proved to be the case. Instead, perhaps reflecting the ongoing conflation both of “youth” as a continuing desirable demographic in the cinema as well as in television and also because new feature directors and writers are usually young themselves, maturation and rites of passage continue as main themes. Hence, for example, in the wake of the period film, several more contemporary films in a social realist genre such as Freedom (1983), The FJ Holden (1977), and Fast Talking (1984) reaffirmed a continuing interest in youth, especially young men, cars, the road, and working-class male culture. Equally, Puberty Blues (1981) also signaled that many of these same elements could be reconfigured around young women and their coming of age. While the young girls finally find mature company with each other rather than with males, so the heroine of Muriel’s Wedding (1994) comes to leave behind her fantasies about heterosexual coupling in favor of the joys and securities of female friendship.
A common narrative in maturation films generates from the activities and attitudes of the adolescent of immigrant background. Waves of predominantly European immigrants after World War II influenced Australian society, adapting to and changing life in Australia. Although the generation gap cleaved Australian children from their parents, for immigrant families adapting to Australia as well as dealing with their Australianized offspring, the disjuncture was sometimes greater. Moving Out (1983) works through the trials and tribulations of an Italian-born migrant family, where the parents cling desperately to their old ways in the face of rapidly changing teenage expectations (see also ETHNIC REPRESENTATION).
Other films include Careful, He Might Hear You (1983), which explores the custody battle waged by two aunts, through the eyes of the orphaned boy. The film won eight Australian Film Institute awards. Less successful was The Year My Voice Broke (1987), a tale of teenage pregnancy and its consequences. Flirting (1991) tells the story of a boy’s affair with an African girl, brought together by the proximity of their boarding schools, while others attempt to thwart their love.
In summary, coming-of-age films have been a major element in the visual and narrative repertoire of Australian feature film in the period of the revival and show every sign of continuing in this position into the future.
MCDONALD, GARY (1948– ). McDonald’s first, most widely known character in Australian television was the spectacular and bizarre Norman Gunston, but he has appeared in many films since that time. He is one of the most successful character actors in the Australian film industry, appearing in some 15 films since 1973, and at least as many television series, as well as film released to video. He graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1967, appeared as the mechanic in the cult film Stone (1974), then in Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), The Picture Show Man (1977), Pirate Movie (1982), Ginger Meggs (1982), and Molly (1983). He played the lead role of Robert O’Hara Burke in the unsuccessful Wills and Burke (1985), and the director of a workshop for intellectually impaired people in Struck by Lightning (1990). Supporting roles in Those Dear Departed (1987), Place at the Coast (1987), and Mr. Accident (2000) led to strong supporting roles, first as the Doctor in Moulin Rouge! (2001), and then as Mr. Neal in Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002).
MCKERN, LEO (1920–2002). Leo McKern was born in Sydney and moved to the United Kingdom after serving in World War II. He became involved in the theater, spending three years with the Old Vic and two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Later, he moved into film and television as well, making over 60 films in a fruitful and long career, paralleling that of Peter Finch. He appeared in such films as Help! (1965) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981). He is probably most well-known for his portrayal of the denizen of the Bailey and Pommeroy’s Wine Bar and terror of many a judge in the long-running series, Rumpole of the Bailey. His dislike of flying prevented him returning to Australia often, but McKern played the lead in two significant films. First, he played the irritable and selfish Frank in Travelling North (1987), a story adapted from a David Williamson play about a couple who find a satisfying relationship in their later years as they head to warmer climes geographically. For this role, he won an Australian Film Institute award for best actor in a lead role. Second, in the remake of the Steele Rudd story, Dad and Dave: On Our Selection (1995), he played Dad, the somewhat slow-witted and comic, but essentially fair-minded and lovable father of the bush family. He played a smaller role as Bishop Maigret in Paul Cox’s Molokai: The Story of Father Damien (1999), along with Australian David Wenham. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1983 in recognition of his contribution to the performing arts. McKern died in 2002 after a long illness.
MIKE AND STEFANI (1952). Easily the most accomplished in filmic and human terms of early documentaries produced by the Australian National Film Board, Mike and Stefani was a dramatized feature-length film. The film tells of the wartime and postwar displaced people of Europe and in particular of the Ukrainian couple, Mike (Mycola) and Stefani. It was directed by Ronald Maslyn Williams and photographed by Reg Pearce in Europe in 1948–1949. Williams had journeyed there to make a film about the work of the International Refugee Organization. At one camp at Leipheim in Germany, he met Mike and Stefani who were about to be interviewed by an Australian immigration officer. Williams filmed this encounter and, while they waited to hear whether they had been accepted for immigration to Australia, reconstructed on film the details of their life from the late 1930s, often with thousands of other refugees acting as extras in crowd scenes. He had little in the way of film equipment, in fact only what he and Pearce could carry between them: a 35mm camera, a half-dozen or so lights, and a wire recorder. Williams was away for over a year. On his return, the footage was edited, dialogue was postsynched, commentary overlaid; a musical soundtrack of voice and orchestra added; titles inserted.
The film has been aptly described as neorealist. Loose and episodic in structure without the tight cause-effect chain of classical narratives, the ending is open ended: the two are on their way to Australia but have been warned that, because of the shortage of housing, they may have to separate again and Stefani’s brother has not come with them. The narrative chain is also loose because the characters are caught up in large public historical events beyond their control. Additionally, Mike and Stefani has much of the same mise-en-scene and iconography of neorealism with the characters appearing as ordinary people, much location shooting and the film depicting a set of contemporary events. Finally, voice-over narration by an omniscient unidentified commentator constantly works to link the story of Mike and Stefani into the larger arena of public, historical events.
Two other elements in the film also warrant attention. The first of these is a sparer, more poetic, observational style that generally runs across the surface of the film, thereby connecting it both with a handful of other Australian documentary films of the period, a comparable impulse to be found in some of the contemporary films of the Canadian National Film Board and even the films of Robert Flaherty. The second element in the film anticipates later developments in the documentary film generally. The sequence in question is the interview of Mike and Stefani by an Australian immigration official in the long climactic segment, filmed and sound recorded as it happened, anticipating by 20 years the impulse toward cinema vérité. The fact that the film was a documentary carried its own label of truth. Certainly Australian government officials saw the segment with the tight, relentless questioning by the formal, unsmiling official as unfavorable. The film was not given wide distribution. Nevertheless, despite this official neglect at the time, the greatness of the film has become clearer with the passing of years. Fittingly, in 2002, the National Film and Sound Archive unveiled a newly restored print.
MILLER, DR. GEORGE (1945– ). Sharing the same name as another director who graduated through the Crawford TV police dramas and won universal acclaim with The Man from Snowy River (1982), this figure is often referred to as Dr. George Miller. Born in western Queensland in 1945, he graduated as a medical doctor and practiced in Sydney for 18 months. Films were his first love though, and he began his craft as first assistant director in In Search of Anna (1978). On a weekend filmmaking course, he met Byron Kennedy from Melbourne and the two decided to become partners to pursue a mutual love of filmmaking. With the recent controversy over brutality in films, such as Clockwork Orange (1971) and Straw Dogs (1971), still fresh, their first film, a 1972 short called Violence in the Cinema, Part 1 was memorable for such juxtapositions as a critic reading a sanctimonious tome against violence in the cinema even as an assassin was chopping off bits of his head with an axe. This was a forecast of things to come. Securing financial backing outside state agencies, Miller and Kennedy as director, producer, and joint writer made Mad Max (1979), a film that rewrote the rules about Australian feature film. For here was an action/adventure film set in a futuristic society but was nonetheless recognizably Hollywood. Telling a classic story of revenge that was more usually associated with a genre such as the Western, Mad Max featured a lawman who turns his back on the law when road gangs who have swapped horses for bikes and cars destroy his wife and child. The state film agencies were aghast at the film with critic Phillip Adams (Miller and Kennedy had used an actual newspaper diatribe of his as the tome in Violence) recklessly and foolishly asserting that the film had the moral uplift of Mein Kampf.
However, the public loved the film, as did overseas distributors in Japan and the United States. After a trip to Hollywood, Miller and Kennedy were ready to follow the adventures of the former lawman again using actor Mel Gibson in the central role. The result was Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), a stunning opus in pure cinema that demonstrated the mastery of film form and style that Miller and Kennedy could attain once they had commensurate budgets. Set in the desertlike landscapes around Broken Hill in New South Wales, the film swapped the revenge tale for that of the beleaguered fort so beloved not only of Westerns but also of war, foreign legion, and other adventure films. Mad Max 2 was an enormous hit internationally and allowed Gibson to start his career in Hollywood as a star. Meanwhile in Italy, the film spawned a host of imitations and might even be seen behind such Hollywood efforts as Escape from New York (1985). Kennedy died in a helicopter crash in 1983 and Miller then turned to other production partnerships. With the shift of Australian commercial television into a stage that can now be recognized as one of “quality,” Miller seized on an opportunity to make a miniseries about the most momentous event in recent Australian political history. The result was The Dismissal (1983), which Miller codirected with Phillip Noyce, George Ogilvie, Carl Shultz, and John Power. The miniseries told the story of the dismissal of the government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the governor-general, Sir John Kerr, on 11 November 1975, a radical and still controversial episode—it boasts its own website (whitlamdismissal.com)—in Australian political history. The Kennedy Miller company had remained in place and this was a conscious effort to begin to build a company style. It certainly was successful for over the next dozen years the company would give rise to a host of both television series and feature films where the actual name of the individual director was less important than the company brand itself.
The cycle of television miniseries in these years included Cowra Breakout (1984), Vietnam (1987), and Bangkok Hilton (1989). Meanwhile, feature films also appeared including The Year My Voice Broke (1987), Dead Calm (1989), Flirting (1991), and, later, Babe: Pig in the City (1998). He produced this film as well, and had produced the earlier Babe (1995). These works, whether for television or for the cinema, were very different in tone, mise-en-scene and narrative to The Road Warrior and one could be forgiven for thinking that there was both a filmic internationalist as well as a nationalist inextricably linked in Miller’s vision. In any case, the third part of the Mad Max trilogy had appeared in 1985 as Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome. Codirected by Miller and Ogilvie, the two made the unfortunate mistake of shaving about 20 minutes from the film’s screen time, which had the effect of making the film a less perfect masterpiece than its two predecessors. Curiously, Miller seems not to have pursued a Hollywood career with the same commitment and energy as other Australians of his generation. In 1983, he directed an episode of the film The Twilight Zone for Stephen Spielberg; in 1987, he made The Witches of Eastwick; and in 1992, Lorenzo’s Oil. Instead, he has given a good deal of time to producing for Kennedy Miller in Australia. Indeed, still apparently calling Australia home, he wrote, produced, and directed his personal overview of Australian cinema, 40,000 Years of Dreaming, in 1996 as part of the international recognition of the centenary of cinema.
MILLER, GEORGE (1943– ). Remarkably and confusingly in a relatively small film industry, two directors with the same name and the same spelling came to public attention at roughly the same time. They can be separately identified by the fact that the other is slightly older and first trained as a medical doctor (see MILLER, DR. GEORGE). Born in 1943, this George Miller left Scotland as a child and grew up in Melbourne. He worked at Crawford Productions and soon began directing television series such as Homicide (1964), Division 4 (1969), and Matlock Police (1971). Miller was a solid craftsman and continued his television work with other Crawford series such as The Sullivans (1976), Bluey (1976), and Young Ramsey (1977). At the same time, he was also in demand as a freelancer and worked for such independently produced series as Cash and Company (1975) and on prestigious miniseries such as Against the Wind (1978), The Last Outlaw (1980), and All the Rivers Run (1984).
Meanwhile, his career was taking him in the direction of feature films. It was the immense commercial success and the more guarded critical success of his feature directorial debut, The Man from Snowy River, in 1982 that made this Miller known to a much wider public. But, unlike Dr. George Miller and the Mad Max films, this Miller was not involved in a producer capacity. Instead, he had been engaged for the project as a journeyman director by producer Geoff Burrows, a fellow graduate from the Crawford police series of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This success helped consolidate Miller as a feature film director, indeed his only other miniseries work was Anzacs (1985) and The Far Country (1986). He continued his work in features putting his name on such Australian films as Cool Change (1986), Bushfire Moon (1987), Les Patterson Saves the World (1987), Over the Hill (1992), and Gross Misconduct (1993). But Miller has also moved offshore, directing such films as The Aviator (1985), with Christopher and Rosanne Arquette, The Neverending Story 2: The Next Chapter (1991), Andre (1994), Zeus and Roxanne (1997), and Robinson Crusoe (1997). He has directed many television features in recent years. Altogether though, there is little to say about Miller’s directorial output. Clearly, The Man from Snowy River did much to enhance his name as a craftsman across both the Australian and the international film industries but, equally, 20 years on, his oeuvre provides no compelling reason for any critical revaluation.
Other features include Frozen Assets (1992) and Andre (1994).
MILLIKEN, SUE (1940– ). One of the most energetic and influential women in the Australian film industry, Sue Milliken has worked both on set in a management capacity and also at a bureaucratic level operating with and in various of the Australian film agencies. Born in 1940, she trained as a journalist. She learned about television continuity in the Australian Broadcasting Commission and her first drama was the Fauna children’s series Skippy. After further continuity work with Fauna, Milliken was production manager on the Disney telefeature Born to Run (1976). The latter’s profits helped spawn the production company, Samson Films, whose first film was Weekend of Shadows (1978). By now, Milliken was associate producer. Her first full credits as producer were on The Odd Angry Shot (1979) and Fighting Back (1982). Meanwhile, since 1980, she has managed the Australian branch of the completion bond company, Film Finances. Other films that have involved her as producer include The Fringe Dwellers (1986), Les Patterson Saves the World (1987), Black Robe (1991), Sirens (1994), Dating the Enemy (1996), and Paradise Road (1997). Meanwhile, wearing her other bureaucratic hat, Milliken undertook major reviews of two state film bodies, the South Australian Film Corporation in 1988, and chaired one concerning the Western Australian film industry in 1992. In 1993, the Australian Film Institute presented her with the Raymond Longford Award, which recognizes people who have made significant contributions to the industry. That same year also saw her become chair of the Australian Film Commission, a position she held until 1997.
MINOGUE, KYLIE (1968– ). Kylie Minogue was born on 28 May 1968, in Melbourne, Victoria. While she is best known as a singer and for her music videos, she became internationally famous for her television roles. Her acting career began as Charlene in the television soap Neighbours, a hit in the United Kingdom as well as in Australia. Her film debut was The Delinquents (1989), as Lola, followed by Street Fighter (1994), as Cammy. She starred in the Australian independent short film, Hayride to Hell (1995), appeared in the comedy Biodome (1996) and the short film Misfit (1996). She played herself in the Australian film Diana and Me (1997), about the paparazzi and Princess Diana, unfortunately released at the time of Princess Diana’s death, and promptly forgotten. She appeared in the thriller Cut (2000), a coproduction of Australian and German companies, starred in Sample People (2000), and then appeared as the Green Fairy in Moulin Rouge! (2001).
MOULIN ROUGE! (2001). Moulin Rouge! is the third most successful film at the Australian box office, grossing $27.7 million. It is also the fifth most successful Australian film at the US box office, returning US$57.4 million in the few years since its release. Written by Craig Pierce and Baz Luhrmann, and directed by Luhrmann—who directed Strictly Ballroom (1992) and Romeo + Juliet (1996)—the film has a multinational cast, including Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent, Jacek Koman, and Australians Nicole Kidman, Richard Roxburgh, Gary McDonald, Christine Anu, Matthew Whittet, and David Wenham.
The star is Satine (Kidman), the star dancer and singer in the production at the famous nightclub and bar, the Moulin Rouge, and object of the affections of the financier of the musical production, the villainous Duke (Roxborough). The writer of the production, young English poet Christian (McGregor), had escaped from his home and traveled to the Parisian district of Montmartre, where he had fallen in with the bohemian crowd and was befriended by Toulouse-Lautrec (Leguizamo). He falls in love with Satine, but the Duke of Worcester threatens their joy, as his financial support for the production depends on his unconditional access to Satine. The production is woven through a set design that is as intensely rich as the imaginations can provide. The film is a musical, and the traditional songs weave the narrative in this Goyaesque world of fancy.
Moulin Rouge! was nominated for and won many awards, making it one of the most critically acclaimed Australian films. It won two Academy Awards for best art direction and best costume design, and was nominated in six other categories, including best picture and best actress in a leading role. It won five Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards for best editing, best cinematography, best sound, best costume design, best production design, and was nominated in five other categories. The film won three Golden Globes, including best picture—musical or comedy. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) conferred three awards on the film (best sound, best performance by an actor in a supporting role, and film music). In addition, Moulin Rouge! won awards from the American Film Industry, the American Latino Media Arts (ALMA) awards for positive portrayals of Hispanics in the media, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), the United States Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, the Film Critics Circle of Australia, and many others.
MURIEL’S WEDDING (1994). Muriel’s Wedding is the ninth most popular film at the Australian box office, having grossed $15.8 million. It won four Australian Film Institute awards for sound, best lead actress, best supporting actress, and best film, and was nominated for seven other AFI awards. In addition, it won an Australian Performing Rights Association award for best film score. Some critics rated Muriel highly, others thought it was a poor blend of comedy and tragedy about a woman who was an empty-headed loser, albeit among many others. Muriel (Toni Collette) is shunned by her own dysfunctional family, as well as by her dysfunctional friends, partly because she has no redeeming features. Instead, she likes to listen to Abba songs and to daydream. Moving from Porpoise Spit to the big city, that is in this case Sydney, she meets Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths) who proceeds to help her become, if not liberated, then a little more than she was. She marries, not because she loves the man, but because a big wedding is her dream.
MUSICALS. The musical is included here in the same genre as comedy, being tied to it as a kind of light entertainment, often involving romance. There are few examples of musicals, although music has always been a significant nondiegetic element in Australian film. One reason for the lack of musicals in the Hollywood tradition is the sheer size of the financial and human resources that such productions require. Large casts and high-fidelity recording and playback facilities were expensive, and filmmakers needed to attract large audiences to such films. This scenario was not possible in Australia. Nevertheless, with changing technology making the production of music a simpler affair, some musicals were produced. If a musical is a film where the narrative is carried in the lyrics of the songs, or in some other way in the music, then only a few examples of musicals would exist, most notably the films of Baz Luhrmann; namely Moulin Rouge! (2001) and perhaps Strictly Ballroom (1992). However, if musicals are classified by the centrality of music in and to the narrative, then other films might be classified as narrative, such as Star Struck (1982), Bootmen (2000), and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). Certainly, Moulin Rouge! and Priscilla have reached the global audiences that justify the financial outlay.
MY BRILLIANT CAREER (1979). Based on the book of the same name by Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career is another coming-of-age story made at the height of the art and period genre cycle of the revival (see MATURATION). Directed by Gillian Armstrong, the film is a showcase of the early work of Judy Davis, *Sam Neill, and Wendy Hughes, and it was through this film that Davis and Neill achieved international recognition. The story follows the career of Sybylla Melvyn—in the days when careers for women were limited—from her father’s dilapidated farm, to her grandmother’s home, where she meets Harry Beecham, who is both a good catch and is interested. Sybylla is anything other than willing to settle down to such an existence, and her strong will points her in the direction of her chosen career, writing.
My Brilliant Career won critical acclaim around the world, and established Armstrong as a director of high stature. She was nominated for a Golden Palm at Cannes in 1979. At the Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards in the same year, the film was nominated in five categories and won six awards, including best film, best director, best adapted screenplay and best achievement in cinematography. Judy Davis won two 1981 British Academy for Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards, for best actress and best newcomer, and the film was nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign film in the same year. In addition, the film was nominated for an Oscar for best costume design, and Don McAlpine won the cinematographer of the year award from the Australian Cinematographers Society.