Tag: history
Interview: Nick Barkla on Inside Fighter
Inside Fighter is the kind of uncontrived and intimate cinematic portrait – free of pretence or judgement – that acts as a reminder of the possibilities of the documentary form. For each and every second of the film’s relatively brief 51-minute running time, it is clear that first-time director Nick Barkla has entered into the…
Interviewing Philippe Mora: History and Hitler Deconstructed
At some point in the early 2000s, as a young cinephile burrowing into the nooks and crannies of Australian film culture, I came across the name Philippe Mora. At the time, like many others, I understood Philippe Mora to be a director of camp horror classics like The Beast Within (1982), The Marsupials: The Howling…
Philippe Mora: Five films about the fabric of truth
It’s possible that there are not a huge number of people amongst the general public who will immediately recognise the name of film director Philippe Mora. And those who do recognise the name might be inclined to associate it with his stint making satirical genre films like The Beast Within (1982), Howling II: Your Sister…
Jake Wilson on Mad Dog Morgan: Histories, Myths, Legends and Motivations
It was in 1976 that Philippe Mora released his underappreciated classic, Mad Dog Morgan, starring Dennis Hopper as the once notorious bushranger Daniel Morgan. In many ways, Jake Wilson’s excellent new monograph of the same name, the latest entry into the Australian Screen Classics series from Currency Press, positions Mad Dog Morgan as a fusion of…
Rupert Goold’s True Story: Another Dead Man Walking
Twenty years ago, Tim Robbins tackled the issue in Dead Man Walking. Ten years ago, it was Bennett Miller in Capote. Now, Rupert Goold has taken it on in True Story. The unifying issue in all three movies concerns the relationship between a murderer and another character who would serve as confessor, advisor, perhaps even…