Wikipedia

Australia (2008 film)

Australia is a 2008 epic romance film directed by Baz Luhrmann and starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. It is the second-highest grossing Australian film of all time, trailing Crocodile Dundee. The screenplay was written by Luhrmann and screenwriter Stuart Beattie, with Ronald Harwood. The film is a character story, set between 1939 and 1942 against a dramatised backdrop of events across Northern Australia at the time, such as the bombing of Darwin during World War II. Production took place in Sydney, Darwin, Kununurra, and Bowen. The movie was to be released on 13 November 2008 in Australia[5] and 16 November 2008 in the United States;[6] however, Fox announced that it had pushed back the release dates in both Australia and the United States to 26 November 2008,[7] with subsequent worldwide release dates throughout late December 2008 and January and February 2009.

• 1 Plot
• 2 Soundtrack
  • 2.1 Recurring motifs
  • 2.2 Additional music
• 3 Main cast
• 4 Production
  • 4.1 Casting
  • 4.2 Pre-production
  • 4.3 Costumes
  • 4.4 Principal photography
  • 4.5 Post-production
• 5 Tourism tie-in
• 6 Release
  • 6.1 Box Office
  • 6.2 DVD
  • 6.3 Nominations
• 7 References
• 8 External links

Plot

In 1939, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) travels from England to northern Australia to force her husband to sell his faltering cattle station, Faraway Downs. Her husband sends an independent cattle drover (Hugh Jackman), called simply "Drover", to Darwin to transport her to Faraway Downs. Lady Sarah's husband, who has been trying to sell 1,500 head of cattle to the military, is murdered shortly before she arrives. Meanwhile, Faraway Downs' manager Neil Fletcher (David Wenham) is trying to gain control of Faraway Downs so that Lesley "King" Carney (Bryan Brown) can have a monopoly in the Northern Territory, which will give him leverage with the Australian army. Fletcher claims that the murderer of her husband is an Aboriginal elder with magical powers, "King George" (David Gulpilil).

The childless Lady Sarah is captivated by the young boy Nullah (Brandon Walters), who was born to an Aboriginal mother and an unknown white father. Nullah tells her that he has seen her cattle being driven onto Carney's land — in other words, stolen. Because of this, Fletcher mistreats Nullah and threatens him and his mother. Nulluh proves to Lady Sarah that Fletcher is a liar by showing her that the windmill, which Fletcher has deemed broken, is instead fully functional. Fletcher loses control of the gentlemanly charade he had put on for Lady Sarah and violently attacks Nullah, his mother and another Aboriginal woman, although he is eventually stopped by a horrified Lady Sarah. Lady Sarah fires Fletcher and decides to run the cattle station herself.

Sergeant Callaghan arrives to try to take Nullah away, so Nullah and his mother hide from him in a water tower. One of the officers accompanying the Sergeant tries out the water windmill, and Nullah's mother drowns while saving him. Afterwards, Lady Sarah comforts Nullah by singing (very badly ) "Over the Rainbow" from the film The Wizard of Oz. Nullah finds a great interest in the song, and proceeds to tell her that King George is his grandfather, and that like King George he too is a "magic man".

Lady Sarah persuades Drover to take the cattle to Darwin for sale so that Faraway Downs can be saved. Drover, a white man, is friendly with the Aborigines, and therefore shunned by many of the other whites in the territory. He had married an Aboriginal woman, but she died after being refused medical treatment in a local hospital because of her race. Drover leads a team of six riders, including Lady Sarah, Drover's Aboriginal brother-in-law Magarri (David Ngoombujarra), Nullah, and the station's accountant Kipling Flynn (Jack Thompson), to drive the 1,500 cattle to Darwin. Carney's men set fires to make the cattle stampede, and Flynn is killed. At the last minute, Nullah stops the cattle from stampeding over a cliff by apparently using magic learned from his grandfather. Lady Sarah and Drover develop a romance, and she gains appreciation for the Australian territory. Carney's men poison all the water sources along the cattle-drive route, so the group risks driving the cattle through the dangerous Never Never desert, which they accomplish with the help of King George. Delivering the cattle in Darwin, the group races them onto the ship before Carney's cattle are loaded. That night, Lady Sarah and Drover attend a ball for the "Children's Island Mission", where she unsuccessfully attempts to make the upper class whites realize that half-Aboriginal ("creamy") children belong to their mothers and not to the government, but the organizers of the Children's Island Mission insist that Aboriginal women soon forget their "offspring", indirectly comparing them more to animals rather than people.

Two years later, Lady Sarah, Nullah and Drover live together at Faraway Downs. However, Fletcher kills Carney and frames it as a tragic accident, marries his daughter Catherine Carney, takes over Carney's empire, and continues to menace Lady Sarah. It is determined that Fletcher was the actual murderer of Lady Sarah's husband and that Fletcher is also almost certainly the father of Nullah. Nullah is drawn to perform a ceremonial coming-of-age walkabout with his grandfather "King George", but is instead captured by the authorities and sent to live on Mission Island with the rest of the half-Aboriginal children (dubbed the "Stolen Generations"). His grandfather is thrown into jail, accused of murdering the late Lord Ashley. Lady Sarah vows to find Nullah again, and while trying to secure Nullah's return, begins working as a radio operator in Darwin during the escalation of World War II. Lady Sarah prepares to sell Faraway Downs to Fletcher, believing that it will aid her in gaining Nullah back. The sale is interrupted by the Japanese bombing of Darwin and Mission Island. Lady Sarah fears that Nullah has been killed.

Drover, who had quarrelled with Lady Sarah and gone droving apparently never to return, hears (mistakenly) that she has been killed in the bombing. (It is later revealed that the dead woman thought to be Sarah is in fact Catherine Fletcher, who volunteered to take Sarah's shift at army radio headquarters so Sarah could go to Nullah.) Drover finds out about Nullah's abduction and sets out with Magarri, Ivan (the hotelier) and the only member of the Children's Island Mission to volunteer himself to help, Brother Frank. to rescue the children from the island. When Japanese soldiers arrive, Magarri sacrifices himself to buy the others time to escape. Lady Sarah and the inhabitants of Darwin prepare to evacuate on the last convoy out of the city. When Drover and the children sail back into Darwin, Nullah plays his harmonica with the tune of "Over the Rainbow". Lady Sarah hears the music and reunites with the three.

Fletcher, watching them, knows Nullah is the one link that can relate him to a past that would ultimately ruin him, also concluding that the boy must have cursed him, and so he attempts to shoot Nullah. King George witnesses Fletcher from the top of a tanker just as Fletcher is about to fire, and spears Fletcher through the chest just as he pulls the trigger. As Fletcher is dying, King George reprimands him for trying to kill his own son, and his magical grandson. Lady Sarah watches as Nullah falls to the ground and Drover rushes over to him. As Drover holds him in his arms, Nullah opens his eyes, and smiles, revealing that the bullet was a blank. Lady Sarah, Drover, and Nullah return to the safety of remote Faraway Downs. On the way back to Faraway Downs, King George calls for Nullah, his grandson, to go walkabout. Lady Sarah embraces Nullah and lets him go to his grandfather, who explains that they will return to his land, and then looking at Lady Sarah, says "our land".

Soundtrack

Recurring motifs

Harold Arlen's song "Over the Rainbow" from 1939's The Wizard of Oz -- which is screened during the course of the story, as a new release—and Bach's aria "Schafe können sicher weiden (Flocks in pastures green abiding)" from the Hunting Cantata BWV 208 serve as recurring motifs in the film. The Arlen song bonds Lady Ashley and Nullah and relates to the Aboriginal concepts of Rainbow Serpent, Songs Lines, Dreamtime, and "magic men," like Nullah's grandfather and Nullah himself.

Additional music

David Hirschfelder composed the score. Interpolated musical numbers include the jazz standards "Begin the Beguine," "Tuxedo Junction," "Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)," and "Brazil." The final scene receives a lift from "Nimrod" from Edward Elgar's "Enigma" Variations.[8] Luhrmann hired singer Rolf Harris to record his wobble board for the opening credits[9], and Elton John composed and performed a song called "The Drover's Ballad," to lyrics by Luhrmann, for the end credits. Also used in the end credits is "By the Boab Tree," a song nominated for a 2008 Satellite Award,[10] again with Luhrmann lyrics, performed by Sydney singer Angela Little. Little's rendition of "Waltzing Matilda" completes the end credits in some versions of the film.[11]

Main cast

• Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley, an English aristocrat who inherits the cattle station Faraway Downs in Australia
• Hugh Jackman as The Drover, a drover who helps Lady Sarah Ashley move the cattle across the property
• David Wenham as Neil Fletcher, a station manager who plans to take Faraway Downs from Lady Sarah Ashley
• Bryan Brown as Lesley 'King' Carney, a cattle baron who owns much of the land in northern Australia
• Jack Thompson as Kipling Flynn, an alcoholic accountant who enjoys a luxurious lifestyle
• David Gulpilil as King George, a magic tribal elder, grandfather of Nullah
• Brandon Walters as Nullah, a young Aboriginal boy whom Lady Sarah Ashley finds at Faraway Downs
• David Ngoombujarra as Magarri, the Drover's colleague and friend
• Ben Mendelsohn as Captain Emmett Dutton
• Essie Davis as Catherine 'Cath' Carney Fletcher, wife of Neil Fletcher and daughter of King Carney
• Barry Otto as Administrator Allsop, the King's representative in the Northern Territory
• Ursula Yovich as Daisy, the mother of Nullah
• Yuen Wah as Sing Song, a Cantonese chef at Faraway Downs
• Jacek Koman as Ivan, the saloonkeeper and innkeeper in Darwin
• Tony Barry as Sergeant Callaghan, the head of the Northern Territory police who tries to take Nullah to Mission Island. This ultimately results in the death of Nullah's mother as she is hiding with Nullah in a water tank while the police are looking for him.[12]

Production

Originally, Baz Luhrmann was planning to make a film about Alexander the Great starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman, with a screenplay by David Hare.[13] The director had built a studio in the northern Sahara but a rival film made by Oliver Stone was released first and after several years in development, Luhrmann abandoned the project to make a film closer to home.[13]

Luhrmann spent six months researching general Australian history.[13] At one point he considered setting his film during the First Fleet, 11 ships that sailed from Britain in 1787 and set up the first colony in New South Wales. The director wanted to explore Australia's relationship with England and with its indigenous population.[13] He decided to set the film between World Wars I and II in order to merge a historical romance with the Stolen Generations, where thousands of mixed-race Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families by the state and integrated into white society. Luhrmann has said that his film depicts "a mythologised Australia".[13]

Casting

In May 2005, Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman entered negotiations to star in an untitled 20th Century Fox project written by director Baz Luhrmann and screenwriter Stuart Beattie, with Luhrmann directing the film.[14] For her role, Kidman learned to round up cattle.[15] In May 2006, due to Crowe's demanding personal script approval before signing onto the project, Luhrmann sought to replace the actor with Heath Ledger.[16] Crowe said he didn't want to work in an environment that was influenced by budgetary needs.[17] About this casting issue, Luhrmann said, "it was hard pinning [Crowe] down. Every time I was ready, Russell was in something else, and every time he was ready, I would be having another turmoil".[13] The following June, Luhrmann replaced Crowe with actor Hugh Jackman.[18]

In January 2007, actors Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson, and David Wenham were cast into Australia.[19] In November 2006, Luhrmann began searching for an actor to play an Aboriginal boy of 8–10 years old and by April 2007, 11-year-old Brandon Walters was cast into the role.[20]

Pre-production

The untitled project was scheduled to begin production in September 2006, but scheduling conflicts and budget issues postponed the start of production to February 2007.[17] In November 2006, Luhrmann explored The Kimberley to determine the amount of production to be shot there. In December 2006, Bowen was chosen as a filming location for a third of the production, portraying the look of Darwin.[21] Bowen was chosen as a prospect due to the financing of $500,000 by the Queensland government.[22] In April, Kununurra was chosen as another location for Australia, this time to serve as Faraway Downs, the homestead owned by Kidman's character.[23] Entire sets were built from scratch, including a stand-alone set in the Queensland town of Bowen, the re-creation of war scenes near Darwin Harbour, and the construction of an outback homestead in Western Australia.[24]

Costumes

Academy Award winning costume designer Catherine Martin did extensive research for the film's outfits, studying archival images and newspapers from the 1930s and 1940s Australia. She also interviewed descendants of the original Darwin stockmen in order to find out if they "wore socks with his boots when he rode a horse, that's something you either get through a snapshot, or something you have to go talk to the people who lived there about".[25] The Asian-inspired costumes of the film were intended to evoke the romanticism of the era, and one of the centrepieces of the film's costuming is a red chrysanthemum-printed Chinese cheongsam or qipao that was made for Nicole Kidman's character.[26] The film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design.

Principal photography

The director planned to begin filming in March 2007.[27] However, principal photography began on 30 April 2007 in Sydney,[28] and Kidman found out that she was pregnant. She instantly withdrew from her next film, The Reader.[29] Afterwards, the production moved to Bowen on 14 May.[23]

Filming in Kununurra was a gruelling experience for the cast and crew with temperatures soaring to 43 °C (109 °F) which, one day, caused Kidman to faint while on a horse.[29] In addition, she worked 14 and 15-hours days while dealing with morning sickness.[29] While shooting in a remote region of Western Australia, the shoot had to be rescheduled when the Faraway Downs set, the homestead central to the film's story, was reduced to mud from torrential rain – the first in 50 years.[30] The cast and crew went back to Sydney to shoot interior scenes until the expensive set dried out.[24] In addition, at one point, the entire country's horses were in lock down over equine flu.[13]

Filming lasted five months, wrapping up at Fox Studios, Sydney, on 19 December 2007.[31] In late April, Luhrmann titled his project Australia. Two other titles that he considered for the film had been Great Southern Land and Faraway Downs.[32] On 11 August 2008, eight months after filming wrapped, several members of the cast and crew were back at Fox Studios, Sydney, to film pick up shots.[33]

Post-production

Two weeks before the film's premiere, the Daily Telegraph erroneously reported that Luhrmann gave in to studio pressure after "intense" talks with executives and re-wrote and then re-shot the ending of Australia for a happier conclusion after "disastrous reviews" from test screenings.[34] To counter these negative reports, the studio had Jackman and Kidman promoting Australia on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which dedicated an entire episode of the program to the film,[35] and Fox Co-Chairman Tom Rothman spoke to the Los Angeles Times where he described the Telegraph article as "patently nonsensical. It's all too typical of the way the world works today that everybody picked up an unsourced, anonymous quote-filled story in a tabloid from Sydney and nobody ever bothered to check to see if it was accurate".[34] Rothman also said that Luhrmann had final cut on his film. The director admitted that he wrote six endings in the drafts he authored, and shot three of them.[36]

Tourism tie-in

Tourism Western Australia spent $1 million on a campaign linked with the release of Australia in the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe and South Korea that ties in with an international Tourism Australia plan.[37] Concerned about the recession and fluctuating international fuel prices, the tourism industry hopes that Luhrmann's film will deliver visitors from all over the world in the same kind of numbers that came to the country following the 1986 release of Crocodile Dundee and the significant increase in visitors to New Zealand since 2001, after the release of the Lord of the Rings films. Federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson said, "This movie will potentially be seen by tens of millions of people, and it will bring life to little-known aspects of Australia's extraordinary natural environment, history and indigenous culture".[37] Tourism Australia is working with Luhrmann and 20th Century Fox on a publicity campaign titled, "See the Movie, See the Country", based on movie maps and location guides to transform the film into "a real-life travel adventure".[37] In addition, the director made a $50 million series of commercials promoting the country.[30][38]

Release

Box Office

The film has been a box office success worldwide, despite a disappointing gross in the US, similar to Luhrmann's three previous films. As of 11 April 2009, the film had grossed $211,282,098 in its partial worldwide releases. Profits for the film stand at just over $133 million.[3][4]

In Australia, the film grossed $AU6.37 million in its opening weekend, setting the record for the highest grossing opening weekend for an Australian film and bumping the latest James Bond movie Quantum of Solace to second place.[39]

Australia performed less well in the United States, where it surprised box office analysts by opening only at #5, behind Quantum of Solace, Twilight, Bolt, and Four Christmases. It grossed $20 million.[39] However, Fox officials are happy with the numbers, as they said they were expecting only an $18 million opening gross for the movie.[1][2] They further pointed out that Baz Luhrmann's other films, like Moulin Rouge!, Strictly Ballroom, and Romeo + Juliet, started slowly and then built momentum.[40]

Australia's ticket sales outside of the US is about $161 million from 51 countries. It opened at No. 1 in Spain, France and Germany but at No. 3 in Britain.[39]

DVD

In the United States, Australia sold almost two million DVDs in one month, 80% of what the studio predicted it would sell altogether. Since being released in Australia, the DVD has sold double what the studio expected.[41]

Nominations

Satellite Awards nominations:

• Original Screenplay – Baz Luhrmann, et al.
• Original Score – David Hirschfelder
• Original Song – "By the Boab Tree" (Angela Little, Baz Lurhmann, et al.)
• Film Editing – Dody Dorn, Michael McCusker
• Sound Mixing & Editing – Wayne Pushley, et al.
• Costume Design – Catherine Martin

Critics' Choice Awards nomination:

• Young Actor/Actress (Under 21) – Brandon Walters

Chicago Film Critics nominations:

• Cinematography – Mandy Walker
• Most Promising Performer – Brandon Walters

81st Academy Awards nominations:

• Costume Design - Catherine Martin

Film Critics Circle of Australia nominations:

• Best Film - Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Knapman, G Mac Brown
• Best Supporting Actor - Brandon Walters
• Best Cinematography - Mandy Walker
• Best Music Score - David Hirschfelder

References

External links

• Official Website
• Australia at the Internet Movie Database
• Australia at Allmovie
• Australia at Rotten Tomatoes
• Australia at Box Office Mojo
• Australia soundtrack (listenable)
• Tourism Australia's campaign produced by Baz Luhrmann
• Slide show of costume designs for Australia by Catherine Martin from the New York Times
• Pictures from Australia on SkyMovies

Australia sign board

Filming of Australia at Stokes Hill Wharf