New Queer Cinema film log

by: Kylie - Filed under: Film analysis

New Queer Cinema

Use Control F to find the film title /  article you are looking for.

This post was originally written as a film log for an ISC (Independant Study Contract) at Murdoch University in 2003 supervised by Yingchi Chu and Antonio Traverso.

My viewing and subsequent critique focused mainly on the lesbian coming-out genre for two main reasons:

  • Initially I had very limited access to any New Queer Cinema resources and am in debt to film lecturers, Murdoch uni library and close friends for their aid.
  • It was also because most critics were so dismissive of the lesbian coming-out genre having any merit: after watching films like Better Than Chocolate I found there was definite social commentary and pain underlying, or even overshadowing, the young-love story. Besides that, sometimes love or lust is our world’s focus or balm…

I am quite happy for students et al to use this information if the source is referenced / acknowledged: this film log formed the basis of the essays I wrote and the lecture I presented for the ISC.
Not all films watched are included in this film log for reasons of timeliness and coherence.

-K. Jakobsen 2010

Films, commentary and research

week one

Wedding Banquet, the (Ang Lee, Taiwan, 1993)
We can often guage what something is by what is isn’t (ala self/other dichotomy). Michael Bronksi bemoans the limited repertoire of new queer cinema’s coming-out genre.
Ang Lee’s the Wedding Banquet illustrates how positive representation can lack depth – this film is a fairly mainstream example of Taiwanese cinema that foregrounds the multiplicity of coming-out, albeit in a relatively individualistic way. It does highlight the constant shifting of what is new queer cinema – two gay characters are not enough.
Note: is a film only classified as new queer or new third cinema when it resists a discourse of authority in many ways?
Readings:
Michael Bronski. “Positive images and the coming out film: The art and politics of gay and lesbian cinema.” Cineaste 26, no. 1 (2000): 20-26.
Fanny Jacobson. “Guest Lecturer -Transcultural Cinema and Queer Subjectivities.” Paper presented at the H350 Issues in Screen Analysis: Encountering Africa, Asia and Latin America through a Changing cinema lecture on New Queer Cinema, Murdoch University, Perth WA 2001

week two

Just desserts (Monica Pellizzari, Australia,1993) from Beyond the Glass Ceiling (short films by Australian women directors includes Lead Dress, Excursion to the bridge of friendship et al.)
Much cross over between new Third and Australia’s new poor cinema. The specific films cited represent women and sexuality in various ways, embodiment, sexuality, adolescence and foods’ relationship (Just Desserts), matriarchial fear of a girl’s potential sexual freedom (the Lead Dress) and the bridge between two women of similar, yet different cultures (Excursion to the Bridge of Friendship).

Readings:
Searching for a way of expression (Rudkiewicz)
“Making a National Cinema, National Cinemas and the national: the messiness of national cinemas?, New Australian Cinema/ New German Cinema; independance over profit” Tom O’Reagan in Australian Cinema

week three

Bound (Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski, USA, 1996)

and High Art (Lisa Cholodenko, Canada/USA, 1998)
There is a history of onscreen lesbians dying at the end of films like The Killing of Sister George (Altman), in representing such a historically situated cliche High Art was disappointing when watched in the same week as Bound.

Although not written by women, the male hetero gaze being especially satisfied in one scene, Bound literally and figuratively had far more guts than High Art.

Bound has a cult following (at least in Switzerland )has won audience appreciation awards, and although Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly are reputedly ‘straight’ actors this film blew me away. As a fan of b grade gore movies and occasionally a mafia flick Bound showed how these types of conventions could be subverted for the pleasure of queer viewers.

Like many of Katherine Bigalow’s characters these women were strong, attractive and humourous, their relationship develops and as the action increases they take charge of their destinies by any means neccessary. A reference to lesbians as invisible is also made, showing the filmmakers’ awareness of film history where women onscreen are not seen to be lesbians (Fried Green Tomatoes being the oft-quoted example) and dominant discourse’ denial of women as lesbian if they’re not visibly butch or in the arms of another woman. It was pleasurable seeing a relatively mainstream film that was not a lesbian coming out movie, if they did come out they kicked the door off its hinges on the way out!!
Readings:
“When is a lesbian not a lesbian? lesbian movies and the mainstream femme film” and
“Cruisin’ for a bruisin’: Hollywood’s Deadly Lesbian Dolls” in Chris Holmlund. Impossible bodies : femininity and masculinity at the movies. London ; New York: Routledge, 2002.
“Chaper 6: the Public/Private: Negotiating Subjectivity” p.160- and “Chapter 2:Coming out in a new world: Monika Treut’s Virgin Machine” p.23 (2pp missing from article) Chris Straayer. Deviant eyes, deviant bodies : sexual re-orientations in film and video, Film and culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
“Dark and Lovely Too: Black Gay Men in Independant Film” by Kobena Mercer p.238 in Martha Gever, Pratibha Parmar, and John Greyson. Queer looks : perspectives on lesbian and gay film and video. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Bound unofficial Swiss webpage

week four

But I’m a Cheerleader (Jamie Babbit, USA, 1999).
Michael Bronski abhors But I’m a Cheerleader for its misrepresentation of the “reparative therapy movement” as a depoliticised practice . I disagree, in terms of setting as a reflection of situational ideology But I’m a Cheerleader represents the scenes within the center/centre in 1950′s pastels, highlighting the draconian philosophy behind such ‘therapy’ whereas the queer bar Cocksuckers has a grungy laidback feel – it feels like a bar of the 1990s/new millennium.
Furthermore, the characters depicted change according to their surroundings but many cannot fit the center’s idea of what is ‘normal’ or straight because there is no such thing.
This film uses humour, particularly parody and irony, to represent a contentious issue in a readily distributable form – humour has always been an effective political tool when no other would have been allowable. But I’m a Cheerleader still contains a lesbian love/coming out narrative but its backbone is a denial of conditioned femininity/masculinity being a ‘cure’ for queer. *

Readings:
Michael Bronski. “Positive images and the coming out film: The art and politics of gay and lesbian cinema.” Cineaste 26, no. 1 (2000): 20-26.
Liz Gibbs. Daring to dissent : lesbian culture from margin to mainstream, Women on women. London: Cassell, 1994.
Thomas Waugh. Introduction to The fruit machine : twenty years of writings on queer cinema. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2000
*But I’m a Cheerleader extract from essay “Girls on the Side: new queer cinema and the lesbian coming-out genre” by Kylie Jakobsen for Independant Study Contract A-genda: Women of New Queer Cinema 2002, supervisor Antonio Traverso, Murdoch University , Perth Western Australia

non teaching break


Go Fish (Rosie Troche, USA, 1995),
Love and Other Catastrophes (Emma-Kate Croghan, Australia, 1996).

Love and Other Catastrophes (Emma-Kate Croghan, Australia, 1996): starved for representation; described by one friend as a “cute film” Love and other Catastrophes is an example of the hetereogenous representation of lesbian sexuality as so normal it’s not even worth a passing comment – can be grouped with positive representations aimed to combat stereotypes. Although not very political or counter cultural, the ironic representation of the main hetero girl character writing her thesis on Doris Day is a nice face-slap for negative/streotypical queer typcasting. Not a film of the coming out genre, it aims at representing a universal sexuality that is really a white middle class sexuality.

Readings:
Contemporary Australian Cinema – A Symposium compiled by Fiona A. Villella from senses of cinema site
Susan O’Sullivan “Girls Who Kiss Girls and Who Cares?” In The good, the bad and the gorgeous: popular culture’s romance with lesbianism, edited by Diane Hamer and Belinda Budge. London: Pandora, 1994.
Erika Addis What is a gay film? [cited August 2002]. No longer available from http://www.students.aftrs.edu.au/Syd9/pandorpages/quest11.html

week five

The celluloid closet (Robert Epstein, USA,1996):
Based on Vito Russo’s book of the same name this string-of-interviews style documentary represents Hollywood’s visible and invisible queer contributors (on and offscreen).
Although interesting in terms of censorship, stereotypes and film history very little critique seemed to be involved. For example, protests by GLAAD at screenings of films like Cruisin’ for its negative stereotypes of gay men were not contextualised in terms of the historical specificity of positive and negative representations and how it is now understood that films cannot possibly represent positive images of saintly queer people ad infinitum thus ignoring a complex representation of humanity/sexuality.

Also less emphasis on queer women in Hollywood’s vaults – perhaps, to paraphrase B. Ruby Rich, because men are archeologists and women are alchemists in terms of film history.

My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, UK, 1985), Bagdad Cafe

Readings:
The Intersection of race, sex and class in Stephen Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette; or Whose DIrty Laundry is it?”p.104- in Gender and Film
Martha Gever, Pratibha Parmar, and John Greyson. Queer looks : perspectives on lesbian and gay film and video. New York: Routledge, 1993.

week six

I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (Patricia Rozema, Canada, 1987),
When Night Is Falling (Patricia Rozema, Canada, 1995).
These two films are interesting when compared – I see when Night Is Falling as a film that is not solely of the lesbian coming out genre, and not new queer cinema either. However, as many theorists have noted, it is difficult to classify lesbian filmmaking into a coherent, identifiable form.
I enjoyed When Night Is Falling for its lack of ‘sweet young things’, its humour and acknowledged fantastical ending. This film represents the strictness of Theologism and patriarchy balanced with circus-folk and resurrections. To me, When Night Is Falling and its two main women characters are necessarily a product of the 1990s just as the lesbian characters in I’ve heard the Mermaids Singing were secondary crooks in the 1980s.

Readings:
Edith Becker, Michelle Citron, Julia Lesage, and B. Ruby Rich. “Lesbians and Film.” In Jump cut : Hollywood, politics, and counter cinema, edited by Peter Steven. New York: Praeger, 1985

week seven

Show Me Love (Lukas Moodysson),
All Over Me (Alex Sichel, USA, 1997)
Show Me Love is a lesbian coming-out film from Sweden that explores the physical and psychological impact of adolescent loneliness and sexuality. Like most films from the lesbian coming-out genre, this film does not solely concentrate on ‘girls who like girls’ or unrequited love. It sets a traumatic coming of age against a harsh backdrop of peer pressure and school-yard taunts.

Like All Over Me this film is a character-centred linear narrative revolving around a girl’s love for her friend; unlike All Over Me, the initial love interest returns her affection. However, both films show the potential cruelty of supposed friends towards the main character and All Over Me distinguishes between an unsympathetic hetero youth culture of drugs, violence, sexism and exploitation and a queer diverse one.

Show Me Love doesn’t explore a context outside school and biological family, whilst All Over Me revolves around the apartment building, work, live music scene – the world seems bigger and ‘uglier’, a friend’s death being a pivotal moment for the main character’s dismissal of her supposed best friend.

In sum, both films represent girls who at 15-16 discover themselves as ‘different’ and understandably cope (or not) in varied ways with varied amounts of support from peers and parents.

Readings:
Dmetri Kakmi. Queer Cinema: A Reality Check [Website] [cited 27th August 2002] now in Senses of Cinema archives.
Show Me Love review in Bright Lights Film Journal:
Teenage lesbians gleefully terrorize poor Sweden by Gary Morris (online)

week eight

Salmonberries (Percy Adlon, 1991, Germany)
Paris Is Burning (J. Livingstone).
The concept of family is strong in both these films, in Salmonberries friend and potential lover are family whilst the gay fashion/vogue houses are often the focus of family in Paris is Burning. Myth of nuclear family as the only definition of family is challenged to include a community of supportive friends.
Salmonberries
K. D. Lang plays a woman searching for clues to her parentage/past. It has been argued that Lang’s status as icon (outside the confines of this film) allows the audience more viewing pleasure in this instance. I originally saw Lang’s ability to adequately represent a woman ‘passing’ as a man diminished because of the knowledge of her gender and due to media coverage ‘we’ know she isn’t. However, in light of the short time the main character does pass for a man (and even this is debatable), K.D. is not disrupting audience or even character expectations – she is merely merging dualistic idea(l)s of gender (and sexuality) . There are feminine and masculine markers that define this character but they are not the only things that define her and the woman she is in love with is no less ‘marked’ by her ‘feminine’ dress or her strong character and traumatic past. In other words, as seems to be the case in much new queer cinema of this millenium a woman’s onscreen sexuality is only one part of the plot and part and parcel of a multiplicitious, complex, engaging self/culture.

Readings:
“Salmonberries” in Tamsin Wilton. Immortal, invisible : lesbians and the moving image. London ; New York: Routledge, 1995.

week nine

Hedwig and the Angy Inch (John Cameron Michael, 2001, USA)

Readings:
Chris Straayer. Deviant eyes, deviant bodies : sexual re-orientations in film and video, Film and culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.

non teaching break

Killing Swine (Kym McGlyn, Australia)
Magic, witches: Macbeth – “something wicked this way comes”. Experimental short about immigration in Australia and the current stance of our political ‘leaders’. Ruddock, Bush and Howard are overhrown by witch (Barbie) dolls from diverse backgrounds. This film is dischordant, angry Warhol-like colours and the spiral representing karmic conditions of chaos as the white men speaking and acting for *all* Australians on issues of terrorism and immigration/welfare are shown to terrorise in their own ways.

Watching Lesbian Porn (Dayna McLeod, Canada)
Fall , Stuck (Jamie Babbit)
Broken (Eve Bregman, Los Angeles, 2002)
Readings:
“Politics of Exhibition: Queer Film and Video Festivals”p.78- and “Introduction” in Samantha Searle. Queer-ing the screen : sexuality and Australian film and television. St. Kilda, Vic.: Australian Teachers of Media in association with Australian Film Institute Research and Information Centre and Deakin University School of Visual Performing and Media Arts, 1997.
Lesbian Leather Shorts (Dangerous to Know productions)
Couch in New York (Chantel Ackerman)
Readings:
Lesbians make movies Alisa Lebow
Yvonne Tasker. Working girls : gender and sexuality in popular cinema. London ; New York: Routledge, 1998.

week 10

Fire (Deepa Mehta, India, 1996)

the Man Who Cried (Sally Potter)

Readings:
Crocodile Tears: Sally Potter’s The Man Who Cried by Rose Capp from senses of cinema site

Fire review in Bright Lights Film Journal (online) The first of the Canadian-Indian auteur’s controversial attacks on the privileges of patriarchy by Gary Morris.

Judith Halberstam. Female masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.

weeks 11-13

Pride [film] Festival 2002
By Hook or By Crook (Harry/Harriet Dodge and Silas Howard/Flipper, 2001, USA)

Shy, Billy and Valentine are partners in (petty) crime. Shy and Valentine meet when Valentine is attacked and Sly intercedes, they get food and go to a club where Shy ‘borrows’ Valentine’s wallet to buy a cap gun. Shy visits Valentine the next day, returns her wallet and meets Billy, Valentine’s friend and flatmate. Issues about family are explored including Valentine’s adoption and search for her mother and Shy’s father’s death.
The dual representation of mental distress and lesbian sexuality are seldom represented as interestingly and compassionately onscreen (ref: see the aptly named The Killing of Sister George).

Unlike the overly(?) positive representation of lesbian characters that marks many lesbian coming-out films Shy, Valentine and Bobby are great characters with a few problems that are reasonably ‘sorted’ by the end of the film.By Hook or by Crook contains an awareness of the multifaceted ‘nature’ of people in a simultaneously humourous, tragic and sublime setting.

festivals and other resources

Queer Screen, Sydney http://www.queerscreen.com.au/
Pride WA: http://www.pridewa.asn.au
MQFF (formerly MGLQF): Melbourne Queer film festival
International Movie Database [Web site]. 2001 [cited September 9 2001]. Available from www.imdb.com
Bright Lights Film Journal/gay and lesbian reviews et al
updated to LGBT & Queer

All text and images by Kylie Jakobsen Murdoch University 2002 unless stated otherwise. This research is for educational purposes only.

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Cast and crew detail – Lust and Revenge

by: Kylie - Filed under: Film analysis

Lust and Revenge – principal cast and credits

Material current as at 2001 (written for Australian Cinema unit at Murdoch University) K. Jakobsen 2010
Please acknowledge the reference if you use any of the research

  • Director: Paul Cox
  • Screenplay/Scriptwriters: Paul Cox and John Clarke
  • Director of Photography/Cinematographer: Nino Martinetti A.C.S.
  • Production Designer: Neil Angwin
  • Production Manager: David Lightfoot
  • Sound: James Currie
  • Editor: John Scott
  • Music: Paul Grabowsky
  • Executive Producer: William T. Marshall
  • Producers: Paul Cox and Jane Ballantyne
    • Starring:
      Nicholas Hope, Gosia Dobrowolska, Claudia Karvan, Victoria Eagger, Chris Haywood, Norman Kay, Ulli Bruve.
    • Special appearances by:
      Robert Menzies, Bryan Dawe, John Hargreaves, Max Gillies, Wendy Hughes, Pamela Rabe.
    • Produced with the assistance of the South Australian Film Corporation and;
      financed by Australian Film Finance Corporation Ltd.

Overview of work from the Lust and Revenge cast and crew until approx 2003

Cast previous work

Nicholas Hope

“Nicholas Hope is perhaps best known for his tour de force performance in Rolf De Heer’s Bad Boy Bubby, for which he won the 1994 Australian Film Industry Award for Best Actor, and a Best Performance Award at the 1993 Venice Film Festival. He’s also appeared in Paul Cox’s Lust and Revenge, Hal Hartley’s Henry Fool, and …starred in Bent Hamer’s Water Easy Reach. His theatre credits include School For Scandal and Cosi (both for the State Theatre Company of South Australia) and Simpatico for the Sydney Theatre Company”

from Palace films: Goddess of 1967

  • Goddess of 1967, The (2000) Dad/Granddad
  • Nar morket er forbi (2000) Edvin…aka Passing Darkness (2000)
  • Darkest Light, The (1999) Father Mark
  • Getting Hurt (1998) (TV) Edgar Bosco
  • En dag til i solen (1998) Windy …aka Water Easy Reach (1998)
  • “Frontier” (1997) (mini) TV Series Sir George Pipps
  • Henry Fool (1997) Father Hawkes
  • Little White Lies (1996) Barrett
  • Lust and Revenge (1996) as Karl-Heinz Applebaum
  • Iashunga (1995) Sheriff Lamont …aka Duello tra i ghiacci (1995) (Italy)…aka Grand nord (1995) …aka North Star (1996) (USA)
  • Life of Harry Dare, The (1994) Kevin
  • Exile (1994) MacKenzie
  • Bad Boy Bubby (1993) Bubby
  • Notable TV guest appearances: Farscape (1992-1999 various roles)

from the International Movie Database

Claudia Karvan

  • Karvan made her screen debut in the children’s film Molly (1983)
  • Echoes of Paradise (dir. Phillip Noyce, 1987 )
  • High Tide (dir. Gillian Armstrong, 1988 )
  • The Big Steal (dir. Nadia Tass, 1990)
  • Holidays on the River Yarra (1990)
  • Redheads (1992)
  • The Heartbreak Kid (1993),
  • Broken Highway (1993).
  • Exile (dir. Paul Cox, 1994)
  • Lust and Revenge (dir. Paul Cox, 1996).
  • Dating the Enemy (1996)
  • The Violent Earth (1999)
  • Passion (1999)
  • Paperback Hero (1998)
  • Strange Planet (1999)
  • Never Tell me Never (tv) (1998), and Two Girls and a Baby (tv) (1998)

(from Palace films: Passion and Two Hands)

Gosia Dobrowolska

‘This is not the first time Dobrowolska has played a sexually repressed character in a Cox film, a point which she finds amusing. “You think that’s how Cox sees me, huh”? she questions laughingly. But Cecilia is distinct from many of the Cox women Dobrowolska has played.’

Cinemedia: From interview with Gosia on Lust and Revenge

  • Tydzien z zycia mezczvzny (1999) Anna Borowski …aka Week in the Life of a Man, A (1999)
  • Never Tell Me Never (1998) (TV) Nurse Anne
  • Hidden Dimension. The (1997) Claire
  • Lust and Revenge (1996) Cecilia Applebaum
  • Kevin Rampenbacker and the Electric Kettle (1994) …aka Cops and Robbers (1994)
  • Exile (1991) Midwife
  • “Seven Deadly Sins” (1993) (mini) TV Series- Greed
  • Custodian. The (1993) Josie
  • Touch Me (1993) Sarah …aka Beriihrungen (1993)
  • Big Ideas (1992) Anna Novak
  • Careful (1992) Zenaida
  • Resistance (1992) Mrs. Wilson
  • Nun and the Bandit. The (1992) Sister Lucy
  • Woman’s Tale. A (1991) Anna
  • Great Air Race. The ( 1990) (TV) Thea Rasche …aka Half a World Away (1990)
  • Phobia (1990) Renata Simmons
  • Golden Braid (1990) Terese
  • Around the World in Eighty Ways (1987) Nurse Op Cox …aka Around the World in 80 Ways (1987)
  • I’ve Come About the Suicide (1987)(TV) Geneviev
  • Surfer. The (1986) (uncredited) Gina
  • Silver City (1984) Nina
  • Costume Designer -filmography: Exile (1994)

John Hargreaves

‘Adding a tinge of sadness to the film was the participation of the late John Hargreaves, who had also previously worked with Cox on My First Wife. “It was his last role. We knew he was ill, and though he looked it at times, he covered it with a truly brilliant performance. He inspired us all.”

Cinemedia: From interview with Gosia on Lust and Revenge

Wendy Hughes

“It also contains appearances by most of the actors cast in Cox films, such as Wendy Hughes, who received acclaim for two of Cox’s best movies: Lonely Hearts and My First Wife. “Like all of us, Wendy was very keen to be a part of this film, but there were no female parts left.” The solution to this vexing casting problem? ‘She plays a man.’ And so convincingly, that recognising her is an art form in itself.”

Cinemedia: From interview with Gosia on Lust and Revenge

Crew – previous work

JAMES CURRIE Sound Designer

Mixer of more than fifty features, James has increasingly become an overall soundscape designer of films. His long association with Paul Cox, dating back to Man Of Flowers, culminated recently in his first Imax Film, and his pioneering work on the binaural sound system of Bad Boy Bubby has been internationally recognised.

(http://www.palace.net.au/onehand/castcrew.htm)

JOHN SCOTT  Film Editor

One of Australia’s most distinguished editor’s with a career that parallels that of the Australian film industry, John Scott has cut feature films for directors as diverse and well known as Paul Cox and Gillian Armstrong. His numerous credits include Bruce Beresford’s The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Phil Noyce’s Newsfront, Fred Schepsi’s Roxanne, and more recently Paul Cox’s Lust and Revenge.

(http://www.palace.net.au/onehand/castcrew.htm)

PAUL GRABOWSKY Composer

A music industry luminary, Paul Grabowsky is renowned as a performer and composer. His feature film scores include:

  • Lust and Revenge (1995)
  • Lucky Break (1994)
  • Exile (1994)
  • The Last Days of Chez Nous(1991) and;
  • A Woman’s Tale (1991).

Grabowsky has also worked with Jerry Goldsmith on two Fred Schepisi films; Six Degrees of Separation and IQ.

A five time nominee for Australian Film Institute awards for Best Musical Score, he won an AFI Open Craft Award for The Good Looker in 1996. Grabowsky leads his own 20 piece ensemble, The Australian Art Orchestra. He has won two ARIA Awards for Best Jazz Album, Six by Three (1990) and When Words Fail (1996).

Paul Grabowsky has a long list of film credits to his name – although more (in) famous for his spot on the Steve Vizard show. The classical music used throughout complements the international (or at least European) potential audience of Lust and Revenge.

JOHN CLARKE Scriptwriter

  • Dagg Day Afternoon (1977) (comedy)
  • Royal Commission into the Australian Economy, A
  • (1993) (TV) (satire )
  • Man and Boy (1986) (short)
  • Anzacs (1985) miniseries

(Ausfilms database)

NINO MARTINETTI Director of Photography

  • Hurrah (1998) (drama )
  • Place of the Dead, The (1995) (TV) (drama )
  • Heartbreak Kid, The (1993)(comedy )
  • Nun and the Bandit, The (1992)(drama )
  • Golden Braid (1990) (drama )
  • Woman’s Tale, A (1991)(drama )
  • Bony (1990) TV (crime )
  • Flair (1990) minseries
  • Danger Down Under (1988) (TV) (unknown )
    Alternate Titles: Austral Downs, Harris Down Under
  • Gift, The (1988) (TV) (family )
  • Wills and Burke (1985) (TV)(comedy )

NINO MARTINETTI, IAN DEWHURST

  • Women of the Sun (1992) (TV) (drama )

(Ausfilms database)

PAUL COX Director, Co-Scriptwriter and Co-producer

  • Nijiinsky (2000) (drama )
  • Innocence (1999) (drama )
  • Damien (1998) (drama )
  • Lust And Revenge (1996) (satire)
  • Exile (1994) (drama )
  • Touch Me (1993) (short ) Alternate Titles: Erotic Tales (1993); Tales of Erotica
  • Nun And The Bandit. The (1992) (drama )
  • Golden Braid (1990) (drama )
  • Woman’s Tale. A(1991) (drama )
  • Island (1989) (drama )
  • Gift. The (1988) (TV) (family)
  • Cactus (1986) (drama )
  • Vincent (1986) (documentary )
  • Handle With Care (1985) (docudrama )
  • My First Wife (1984) (drama )
  • Man Of Flowers (1983) (drama )
  • Lonely Hearts (1982) (drama )
  • Calcutta (1981) (short )
  • Kostas (1979) (drama )
  • Inside Looking Out (1977) (drama )
  • Illuminations (1976) (drama )
(Ausfilms database)
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Lust and Revenge film review

by: Kylie - Filed under: Film analysis

Critical review of the film and its literature

Author’s note:
Lust and Revenge reviewed and researched in 2001 for the Murdoch film unit Australian Cinema and this article has not been updated since.  K. Jakobsen 2010

Please acknowledge /  reference me if you use any of the material below.

Outlining research ‘tactics’ was a requirement of the assessment and is included at the end of this page.

Plot Synopsis

Lust and Revenge (Cox, 1996) is about marriage on the rocks, life modelling, counselling, new age self-reflection, and money. Its main focus is the financial and corporeal excesses of the Australian art industry. George Oliphant (Chris Haywood) commissions a sculpture from the scupltor Lily (Eva Hamburg) for the opening of a new wing of the art gallery. The wing is dedicated to George Olliphant’s late wife and his daughter Georgina (Claudia Karvan) oversees the commission.

The model for the sculpture is Karl-Heinz Applebaum (Nicholas Hope) and his wife mistakenly believes he is not modelling nude. Celia Applebaum (Gosia Dobrowolska) works in a new-age shop and is very devoted to her work; although now seemingly not devoted to Karl and ‘their’ dream of owning a cottage in the country. The Applebaums’ marriage difficulty is exacerbated by Celia’s discovery that Karl is a life-model. Celia’s spiritual mentor Baba Charles (Norman Kaye) has ‘orders’ to pressure her for money for their cause and as Nicholas knows (has met) the wealthy George Oliphant, they both decide to make Karl ask Oliphant for a large donation to the Centre for Synchronic Awareness.

Georgina’s psychiatrist ‘prescribes’ her an experimental drug to calm her down.The drug is an (initially) potent aphrodisiac and this plot element largely contributes to Lust and Revenge being a movie with much lust and little revenge.

Paul Cox notes this in his autobigraphy:

Lust and Revenge is a satire about art, money and sex. We could have taken it further but my desire for revenge had almost evaporated by the time we refined the screenplay.
(Cox, 1998: 185)

Stylistic elements

In addition, the sympathetic characterisation was not conducive to all-out revenge. By the end of the film the characters all achieved major change in their lives; both internal and external. This was more due to lust acting as a catalyst for character change than revenge being the motivation. On saying that, aspects of the script used destruction of material objects to represent shifts in relationships between the characters and of individual psyches. Georgina Oliphant shifts from harrassing her ex-husband by vandalising his property to desiring life model Karl-Heinz. Celia Applebaum smashes the bronze sculpture that is a false representation of the Applebaums’ love; with it she discards the empty promises of her marriage and her new-age religion. In their place she embraces independance from both institutionalised happiness and institutionalised spirituality.

There is an honesty in this film’s characterisation, but also a subtle life lesson: money doesn’t make you happy. George Oliphant finds out that an actual aphrodesiac is more potent than money as an aphrodisiac. The only seemingly content character throughout is the sculptor Lily (Eva Hamburg). When her art is compromised her boundaries shift but she never succumbs to the lust or revenge that subsumes the others- her love of her work and her partner is enough. It is not internal factors that threaten this love; external factors like bureaucracy do.

Generic elements

Lust and Revenge seems to adhere to a form of realism. Martinetti carefully frames the shots to emphasise the emotion of a particular scene and particular characterisation. To show togetherness the shot of the National Art Gallery Board congregating in the new wing is a mid-shot from just before the arch; this gives the audience a perception of the Board as united – just before conflict is introduced.The increasing fragmentation of the Applebaums’ relationship is realised when they argue in their house: Celia is behind the lead light window and Karl-Heinz is in front left frame, the shot physically divides them in separate rooms and figuratively fragments Celia’s image on screen with the window’s lattice work.Paul Cox is renowned for his love of light and the scene where Baba Charles arrives to expectant ‘disciples’ is simultaneously well-crafted and ironic. Baba launches into a touching anecdote about his journey from his old life as a rich man to his enlightenment when he met Master Baba Thomas. He tells the group that a Great White Light shone from Baba Thomas’ eyes to his. At the end of the group meeting Baba Charles is positioned under a stained-glass lampshade; the light envelopes him as he says “We must have more money!! Thank you for your love”.

Critical Uptake

Overall, Australian critics do not view this film favourably. I could not find any film criticism dated at the time of the film’s release but subsequent reviews either presented a confused or overly critical view of the film (Martin, 2000; Ausfilm, 2000).

Cinephiles and critical intellectuals also tended to criticise all Cox’ work when reviewing one of his films. When Innocence (Cox, 2000) was shown at the Melbourne International Film Festival Adrian Martin criticised it for its:

Clumsy narrative exposition, clunky dialogue… flat jokes, dreary staging (mise en scene, where art thou?), faux-poetic Super-8 inserts (I personally volunteer to smash that camera), empty exhortations to “love the world”, veteran actors (Julia Blake and Charles Tingwell) all at sea – yes, it’s the latest Paul Cox movie. [my emphasis]

One of the reasons for this particular criticism would be that Cox’ films are neither overtly commercial or easily categorised as ‘quality’ or prestige cinema. As Martin is a self confessed popular culture advocate his repertoire tends to prioritise American popular culture most of all (Phantasms, 1994: 7-17).

Circumstances of its production release and festivals

Paul Cox’ rich international reputation is not reflected in his film budgets. Phillip Tyndall comments on Cox’ “incredible energy, persistance and vision….which is almost always achieved with comparatively small budgets of about [one] million [dollars]” (Tyndall, 2000).

In 1996 at the Hof International Film Festival in Germany two of the other Australian films chosen were the highly lauded quality film Shine (Hicks, 1996) and the ockeresque Mr Reliable (Tass, 1996). Heinz Badewitz, Festival Director of the 2001 Hof Festival is interested in Australian films made for international release that “aim to convey to international audiences an authentic Australian touch and the spirit of ‘down under’ “. Cox films seem more cosmopolitan than this ocker or quality pronouncement and local film agents find Cox difficult to ‘rope in’ to their prioritised repertoires of more commercially viable or more high quality films.

However, Cox films are still extremelly well received internationally and the list of festivals that Lust and Revenge was screened at include Cannes where it was launched in the Marche; the commercial marketplace (AFC, 1996).

It is obvious that Cox is held in high regard on the International festival circuit. In an open invitation to Australian filmmakers the Programming Coordinator of the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada, Steve Gravestock, includes Paul Cox as in illustration of directors who could appear in the ‘Masters’ section of the festival “while the masters section showcases internationally acclaimed filmmakers like Paul Cox…”(AFC, 2001).

General position of Australian film and its value: Multiculturalism and Representation

Many Australian films of the 1990s reflected government policy of the time; there was a prioritisation of the positive representation of multicultural Australia. Two out of the three films in the book Long Shots to Favourites: Australian Cinema Successes in the 1990s (Reid, 1993) have a strong theme of multiculturalism. Strictly Ballroom (Luhrmann, 1991) celebrates it and Romper Stomper (Wright, 1991) problematises it. One of the themes of Proof (Moorhouse, 1990), a film also discussed in Long Shots, is diversity. In an interview Cox compares Australian national cinema to Iranian cinema and “that what Australia lacks in repression-induced soul, it makes up for in diversity” (Bunney, 2001). Lust and Revenge does not foreground the theme of diversity but it is present. Examples are the sculptor Lilly’s lesbianism and Cecelia’s non-English speaking background.

Another similarity between Proof and Lust and Revenge is the two-tiered nature of the characterisation in both films. In Proof the relationships between a blind man (Hugo Weaving), his housekeeper (Genevieve Picot) and his friend (Russell Crowe) translate to a comment on the larger issues of trust, truth and perception of both. Similarly, Lust and Revenge is about the interactions of the characters on one level and how frail humanity and human relationships are on another. This point can be seen in the recurring motif of the commissioned sculpture. The scuplture is everchanging: from sketches of a clothed man to a naked one; from a lone male clay figure to a heterosexual couple; from clay to bronze and finally – when the clay/bronze sculpture is shattered – to skin encased in clay. The sculpture can be likened to self: at times soft and malleable; at others alone; or fractured; and sometimes only calm on the surface.

Tyndall (2000) also observes the presence of such humanity in Cox’ work:

The themes in his films – isolation, faith, hope, love, survival – remain the same and reoccur over and over, but above all else Paul Cox’s films are about human frailty.

Situate the film in relation to Australian national cinema as a medium sized English language cinema.

Lust and Revenge, Strictly Ballroom, Romper Stomper and Proof all have the common theme of multiculturalism but all represent it in different ways. It may seem obvious to have illustrated commonalities in characterisation; but the minutiae are as important as the ‘big picture’. Each of these films has contributed to a national identity and contrariwise this identity is fragmented by such contributions. Ideas of self differ as much as ideas on multiculturalism. The most important thing is that diverse views are represented so all audiences can, at some stage, identify with who and what they see on the screen: that is one way Australian cinema can contribute to the national identity.

As Bunney (2001) notes:

A country’s cinema, whether Iran’s or ours, is part of the national psyche…there are many untold stories and diverse perspectives yet to nourish a growing audience. A new year, though, always holds the potential for Australian stories that confront our history and our present with humanity and vision.

While Lust and Revenge is a skillful and entertaining construction of the director, cast and crew it is only one of Paul Cox’ films and only one story on the Australian cinematic landscape. Many Australian cinematic agents are less thrilled with the Paul Cox ‘experience’ than I was but this disparity is also a diversity. Critics are part of the audience and Cox acknowledges their frailty:

“A lot of people have in the past been very bored with my films. I understand this and I forgive them for it”, he said with a wry smile on his face. (Tyndall, 2000)

Websites and Search Engines (includes methodology)

Links from sites

Note from author – research was conducted in approx 2003 please email me using the Contact page if links are out of date.

Generally found websites from a variety of sources like Ozfilm database and then used selected links from these major sites. Even if the site wasn’t specifically about what I was looking for e.g. film site on UK cinema, sometimes even these sites provided links to resources I had not encountered previously.

World wide web Search engines

Searches inside film industry sites were the most useful; for example Cinemedia, when compared to external search engines like Metacrawler and Google which were not particularly helpful in title seaches. If I had made my searches less specific then I probably would have achieved better results – or at least some useful film sites. Metacrawler has an option that allows to to search just Australian sites. Google has a web directory where you can narrow down your search by category listings and metacrawler has recently followed suit: this makes a search more organised and not so much like looking for the needle in the proverbial haystack.

Murdoch University library

When I used Murdoch University Library’s online site to search for Paul Cox I found only found a list of his movies.
However, when I used telnet on campus to search Murdoch library I found Cox’ autobiography (suggested by Garry Gillard) and a number of journal articles.
Search by subject heading on telnet was very useful (and with foresight would have been for the web library as well). I searched by subject “motion picture industry – - Australia” and “motion pictures – - production and direction – - Australia” which produced relevant results such as The Independant Filmmakers Journal (SWL2 J 791.430994 IND1); Gary Maddox’ Report to the Australian Film Commission 1992 on Independent Film and Television Producers (SWL4 P 384.80994 MAD). I also found a video titled Other People’s Money released in 1986 (Link L2 FS 791.430994 BAX) that proved invaluable to my understanding of the production side of the Australian film industry.

Online presence

High online presence. Mostly reviews from Urban Cinephile et. al. The Australian Film Commission website was invaluable; although my Acrobat Reader had trouble opening some of the documents I found. In the file summaries they appeared to be the ones I would have found most useful(!).

I could not find any TV ratings, distribution, box office or budgetary information. I searched the Australian Cultural Network (which the AFC site is part of) for Adfilm the distributor of Lust and Revenge. I should have looked on the ACNielson site and at a newer version of Australian Film 1978-1994 (1995), ed. Scott Murray, Oxford University Press in association with AFC and Cinema Papers, South Melbourne, Australia (SWL2link R791.430994 AUS 1995). This is obviously not a website and should be under ‘published reference sources and guides’ but I think if I had found this book earlier I would not have spent fruitless hours searching the internet for information that is (very) probably in the library.

Databases

I think I am inept at database searching. I found very interesting journal articles on SWETSnet; none of which were relevant. I shall reread the library information sheet…

Published reference sources and guides

Festival listings were provided mainly from the Australian Film Commission Website in the ‘Festivals’ section.

AFC Media Release 1996, Australian Films to Cannes 1996 (online), Available World Wide Web: http://www.afc.gov.au/news/media/medrel/23apr96.html
(Accessed 7 May 2001)Most critics’ pages I found were located on a particular film site like www.sensesofcinema.com – see bibliography below.

Annotated Bibliography

Bunney, Andrew 2001, From Wogboy to Mallboy: The Good, The Bad and The Lovely (online), Available World Wide Web: http://www.senses of cinema.com/contents/01/12/australian.html (Accessed 3 May 2001)

Cox, Paul Reflections: an autobiographical journey. Currency Press Pty Ltd: NSW, 1998

Martin, Adrian 1996, TV Time Tunnel in ‘Phantasms’, McPhee Gribble, Victoria Australia

Martin, Adrian 2000, Worst Film of the Festival: Innocence from Daily Reports: Melbourne International Film Festival www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/8/miff/daily.htm

Reid, Mary Anne 1993, Long Shots to Favourites: Australian Cinema Successes in the 90s, Australian Film Commission, NSW Australia
Tyndall, Philip 2000, Paul Cox – Filmmaker (online), Available World Wide Web: http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/9/cox.html (Accessed 5 May 2001)
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