Simon Wincer Top Ten

 1) Lonesome Dove (1989)

2) Free Willy (1993)

3) Snapshot (1979)

4) Phar Lap (1983)

5) DARYL (1985)

6) The Last Frontier (1986)

7) Against the Wind (1978)

8) The Lighthorsemen (1987)

9) Harlequin (1980)

10) Into the West (2005) 

Jack Thompson interview from 1975 Cinema Papers

 

Play review - "Crunch Time' by David Williamson (2020)

Williamson's last play to date, I think. 

Mixed feelings. 

Great idea - rich man dying, wants to make amends with kid. Younger Dave would've gone for it full throttle - done King Lear (which Williamson adapted in the 70s), a rich monster tormented here by his greedy kids. He could've drawn on his own experience of blended families - the first wife, etc. A version of The Great Man where the Great Man is alive. Something like that.

But, no.

Here it's just two kids, both sons. One's a bit of a smart talking pants man, the other a nerd. Nerd is so bitter about having been fired by dad, justifiably, he doesn't let his father see his grandchildren. This makes the nerd a major fuckwit but I think we're meant to empathise.

Female characters are thin, even for Dave - gold digging faithless shrew (nerd's wife), cuckolded woman (smooth talker's wife), faithful well educated Kristin substitute (tycoon's wife). The word "tart" gets trotted out. Does this get a big laugh?

A promising subplot about the nerd rooting his brother's wife is hinted at but not done - why not have them have sex? It would've given the piece more point.

Tremendous potential here. The father dying painfully and wanting the kids to assist kill him - that's very good. The scene where he dies is powerful - this is good writing.

Not so good is the fact so much of it consists of short scenes and the action is told in chronological fashion. This all could have played out in two scenes - asking for help to die and then dying with all the exposition played out. Did Williamson lose interest in long scenes?

The euthanasia stuff is fresh. The regretful patriarch is tired as is the sooky son. A great play in here if only Williamson was forced to do a few more drafts.

Movie review - "Brilliant Lies" (1996) ***1/2

 Very expert version of a strong play. Didn't do much at the box office - maybe it was more telemovie material by then. There was Disclosure I know but that had the stars and a best selling novel.

The cast is excellent. Gia Carides is an ideal David Williamson female: sexpot, aggressive, loves middle aged men, lives off men. She's supported well by her sister Zoe and Anthony La Paglia looking trim and terrific. Michael Veitch is superb and touching as the Christian brother, Ray Barrett very good as the dad, and Neil Melville gives typically strong support.

La Paglia possibly plays his part too one note - all angry scowling - when a little more variation might've been more interesting. The wailing that "I'm a middle class straight white man the world is against me" is depressingly still relevant in 2022.

The direction is matter of fact rather than flashy. Lots of talk. Flashback sequences are perfunctory - maybe they should've shown the actual scenes played out. The family scenes are warm and well done (some critics carped the characters were unlikable but I don't think so... they're all funny and Zoe Carides and Michael Veitch are moralistic). The humour is sharp The theme of lying is expertly explored. But still... it's a TV movie.

I always felt they should've tweaked it so Catherine Wilkins was gay and hooked up with Zoe Carides.

Movie review - "The Removalists" (1975) ***1/2

 This must have been incredible to watch on stage back in the day - Aussie society with its knockabout ockers smacking each other around, the verbal jousting, the machoness. What a writer.

This film is a worthy encapsulation of the play. It's basically a filmed play but quite well done, with a superb cast. Everyone is perfect: Peter Cummins as the blustering cop, John Hargreaves as the callow newbie, Jackie Weaver as the dim sister, Kate Fitzpatrick as her wealthy sister, Chris Haywood as the supremely neutral removalist who only gets wound up when people say moving things are easy, Martin Harris as the vile husband.

The drama ebbs and flows, explodes and subsides. It's got Williamson flaws that we would see time and time again - both women just Want It - but the depiction of men are perfect: the little Hitler cop, the gangly youth, the ocker stud. The set is quite ugly. Tom Jeffrey generally directs well. There's some awkward bits like a close up of Jacki Weaver's boobs when she arrives.

Random observation - I wonder if this was even if subconsciously influenced by A Streetcar Named Desire... if Blanche married someone straight, this could be her coming to fetch Stella from Stanley's place.

Book review - "Home Truths" by David Williamson (2021)

Enormously enjoyable. Better than his wife's biography. Peak Boomer - there's an index "Williamson - real estate purchases". Invaluable. Names names of inspirations and circumstances. Has an engineer's thoroughness. 

Leaves out some stuff eg his Macbeth. Some bitchy swipes eg people being mean to Kristen. Both of them seem like big personalities. Talks a lot about kids. The Bob Ellis orgy is in there. 

Wonderful book though.

Movie review - "The Perfectionist" (1985) **

 Could an adaptation of this play have worked? Maybe. I mean, it was a personal work which Williamson wrote in response to the poor reaction to a farce, Celluloid Heroes. The material was there - it dealt with universal themes. It didn't have a particularly strong story or bright lines but had good characters. And there was a central concept: married couple hires male nanny and the mum is hot for her.

Jackie Weaver and Steve Vidler seem uninterested in each other. When she propositions him it has been set up in story but seems out of the blue and they have no chemistry,

John Waters has an unlikeable character who he can't make likeable, he's very glum, no humour. Maybe Graeme Blundell or someone would be better casting. Weaver seems too sensible and asexual. Maybe Kate Fitzpatrick, who plays Weaver's horny friend, would've been better as the female lead.

It's not very well directed - the blocking is poor and there's no visual help to accentuate the character interactions. There's no warmth between Weaver and Waters - some humour and attraction would've helped. It's understandable why she leaves, not why she does off with Vidler or returns.

It ambles along. The play isn't a masterpiece but this simply isn't very good.

The kids are good.

Movie review - "Duet for Four" (1981) **

 The collaborations of Tim Burstall and David Williamson were so crucial to putting the Oz film industry of the 70s on a firm footing that it's odd in a way this reunion slipped under the radar. Or maybe not... it was an original script, not based on a play, and it had sat in a draw for over half a decade, after it was written in the wake of Petersen's success.

That had starred Jack Thompson and this one features the actor they used when you couldn't get Thompson, Mike Preston - another muscly blonde, but far less good an actor. He plays a more macho Williamson type - he's broken up for from his wife (Diane Cilento) and has a new partner (Wendy Hughes) with little kids. He seems to have plenty of money, running a toy factory, supporting Hughes and some kids and also his ex Cilento who has a new lover.

The key roles never seem quite right. Cilento is very glamorous, it's good to see her in an Aussie film, but I never quite believed her, or Preston. Or come to think of it Michael Pate though it's nice to see him.

Gary Day plays another in a long line of his alpha sleezes but he seems more at home. There's some typically poorly drawn Williamson females, like the two girls at a party who stand around sizing up the attractiveness of Rod Mullinar and Preston. Hughes plays a woman complaining about looking after the kids and doing her PhD. There's other Williamson worries - the cost of divorce, concern about environment, the difficulty of remaining faithful, the hassles of dealing with an ex-wife, dealing with struggling teenage kids (he didn't have any then but he would soon and they'd be a constant of his plays from the late 80s onwards).

I wish it had been set in some industry other than toys. I mean, that is an interesting metaphor but it's really standing in for the Australian film industry, with its domination from America... and Williamson, who can and has done a lot of research on different fields, wrote this too quickly to do the research to really know it. If they'd done it on the film industry he simply would've known more. Maybe he was worried about being sued.

There's some 70s style nudity with some throwaway shots of Wendy Hughes topless in bed and Clare Binney topless in the shower.  sort of comes out of nowhere and winds up having a big part when pate tries to seduce her... I felt this role could've been combined with Thornton's or Hughes or at least the girl who plays Day's girlfriend, Vanessa Leigh. And maybe Comber and Cilento should have gone off to Queensliffe with the others. There's too many characters.

There's 70s style Williamson "shock value" with Day, Leigh, Binney and Preston sitting around watching a porno and Preston kissing Day's girl while Day is in the room. That is pure Don's Party (Binney was in that movie). So too is talk of middle class people subsiding others (lovers, kids), Warwick Comber being upset Cilento talked to an art critic from The Age,

The script needed another draft. There's no real reason why Preston's daughter Sigrid Thornton couldn't be Cilento's daughter as well (or was she? i'm not sure). There's another character too Arthur Dignam, who is Preston's lawyer, giving advice about the business and the partnership. Oh and there's Sigrid Thornton's boyfriend.

But you know something? I enjoyed it. I mean, it's not very good - too unfocused, too many characters, Preston isn't up to it, doesn't have many or even any really funny lines, the toy industry background feels underused. But there's interesting actors, it tells a story, I like the Aussies teaming up to take on the Yanks at the end. The domestic violence faced by Cilento feels all too real. It was an easy watch.

Book review - "The things we did last summer : an election journal" by Bob Ellis (1983)

 Some excellent lively writing. It's padded out with interviews, not from Ellis, but say one Fraser did on the ABC. There's also extracts from Ellis' plays like The James Dossier and A Very Good Year. This would be better off at half the length because there is some marvelous writing on Hawke, Hayden, etc. Some good stuff and a lot of padding.

Play review - "The Department" (1974) by David Williamson

 I remember liking this more on the first read. Maybe I was impressed by the authenticity. There's a lot of detail. Too much. It's bogged down. Lacks strong characters. There is Robby the lead dept head but even he we don't get to know much. There's a tall skinny larrikin called Peter - was this Williamson? The characters aren't strongly defined or is the drama. A lot of tech talk. Not a bad play just feels muddy. I think Williamson cracked how to do this workplace intrigue with The Club.

Play review - "Travelling North" by David Williamson (1979)

 Warm, funny, full of life and sadness. Williamson in Bergman mode, maybe. He's famed for his ability to write boomers but he also does the older generation well, never better than this one. It helps that the lead guy was based on Kristin's stepdad (I think).

It's a wonderful work. The short scenes are effective here because so much time is covered. The support characters of the daughter, the doctor, the annoying neighbour are all sympathetically sketched. I wondered if perhaps it misses a reunion between Frank and his estranged son. The Brett Whitley comedy at the end is funny.

Play review - "Money and Friends" by David Williamson (1991)

 I remember the hugely effective sales line when this came out - "would you lend a friend $10000?" That is a key point in the drama but not the whole thing. I thought it would come up the front and then explore the issues but what Williamson does, very cleverly, is set up the characters first, and their dilemma, dramatise the friendship the rich characters have for their friend, and then introduce the $10k request towards the end so it has real impact.

The characters are awful and self centered etc but Williamson sketches them with insight and affection. Also the core of this is warm and lovely, in an unexpected way: the platonic friendship between Peter and Margaret is very well done and acts as a counter balance to the selfishness of the others. It's sentimental but in a believable way because it's so razor sharp. The chopping between time and location is very well done.

Margaret is one of Williamson's best female characters - I wonder if this is his fantasia of how Kirstin would turn out if she left Dave, i.e. living down the coast and humping twentysomethings - and weak-but-nice Peter is very well drawn too. They all are. It's a much better play than I remembered.

I feel Williamson went back to the well a few times and tried to repeat this one with tales of the rich and awful by the beach (Amigos, Let the Sunshine, When Dad Married Fury) but never had the same luck.

Play review - "The Perfectionist" by David Williamson (1982)

 After the misfire of Celluloid Heroes Williamson went back to personal works with this tale of a modern day (then marriage) resulting in one of his most personal plays. One assumes it's personal.

It is certainly peak boomer with its whining middle class leads, academics and well off but not as much as they want, dealing with kids and affairs and blaming their parents for their problems and doing secondments overseas.

But it has, not surprisingly, tremendous authenticity - Williamson goes there and the results are his most fleshed out leads, particularly one of his strongest female characters (uncertain, resentful, ambitious, adulterous, humorous), presumably because he's inserted Kristen.

Structurally he doesn't quite seem to nail it: it starts in Denmark, they meet Erik the babysitter, then it comes back to Australia, we meet Stuart's parents, then it becomes battle of the sexes in Australia and Stuart loses his job and it seems to go forward several years. But I couldn't think of how else to do what Williamson wants to do and the chopping between scenes works smoothly, better than say in Top Silk.

It's funny and the theme of how much a partner has to give up in a marriage hasn't dated. It's a fascinating, thought provoking, lumpy work. I don't think it should have been filmed though.

Play review - "Third World Blues" by David Williamson (1997)

 Williamson's re-do of Juggler's Three shores up the second half especially - the first scene seemed less impressive to me but that might be because I was more familiar with it, and also the original take had a ripped from the headlines quality. 

The second half tightens the structure and Graham becomes more of a driving force. The play is more sympathetic to him (he gets a big monologue towards the end) but it's still clear he's a horrible controlling nasty person, even before he went to Vietnam. 

A very good play.

Play review - "Top Silk" by David Williamson (1989)

 One of those Williamson plays I wish he'd try again because the central dramatic situation is so strong: a  leftie lawyer has become a top QC and clashes with his legal aid lawyer wife, and they have a son who is an underachiever. The central dramatic situation of the son of a brilliant man struggling to find his way in the world is very touching.

The ethical dilemmas aren't bad - the QC is tempted to represent a Rupert Murdoch type, the wife is tempted to pay a bribe to get an old flame out of trouble.

The treatment is disappointingly non theatrical, for a play involving lawyers. There's an excellent finale where the QC defends the old flame, which is well done and makes you wish Williamson had leaned into that more... more arguments, more legal showmanship. But there's a lot of short scenes for the most part - it's written like a film script.

And the "social issues" talk bits clunk - a thing that would become all too common in Williamson plays in later years eg talks on drug policy, media ownership. I'm not saying they're not worth treating or Williamson's heart isn't in the right place but as written here it has a "cut and paste" quality.

And the wife is far too perfect Kirstin surrogate - irresistible to every man in the play, a perfect mother, socially conscious.

But the core is strong. I wish he'd have another go, less on the nose social commentary, more theatricality, more legal arguments, less scenes.

Anyway it made a tonne of money. It tells a story, I couldn't pick how it was going to end, all that.

Play review - "A Handful of Friends" by David Williamson (1976)

 Interesting Williamson. Slower paced. More polite. More British. Which does make its explosions more effective.

There's a lot of short scenes, which I feel it didn't need to be. It all could have played out over the one dinner party. Was this the influence of Williamson going in to screenwriting? He gets extra power when he plays it in continuous time.

There's also a lot of sexual fluidity. Williamson clearly had a high old time in the 70s. The academic has affairs, one with a lesbian, his sister is incestuously interested in him but also sleeps with Sally, who is married to the academic's best friend, who has slept with both with academic and the academic's wife.

The best friend is a filmmaker - Bob Ellis said it was based on him but it reads nothing like him, it's more like successful Williamson (I think Williamson said Tim Burstall was an influence), with the academic being Williamson's portrait of himself if he never went into writing.

The most fun character is the best friend filmmaker and his wife - who is ambitious but not evil, and I feel Williamson describing Kristin. (Who the hell is the bisexual incestuous sister based on?). He's shifted the medium from theatre to film... I'm not sure that entirely works, there's lots of talks about critics and writing, it feels as though it would have suited theatre or books more.

There's some moments of great insight - such as the academic admitting he gets places by sucking up and "giving good interview". The wife is very sympathetic.

For me it wasn't a wholly successful play - a bit too flabby and uncertain, in need of another draft, I feel - but a lot of good things about it.

Play review - "Soulmates" by David Williamson (2002)

 Williamson takes on the world of literature and low art vs high art debate. Low is represented by a best selling chick lit novelist, based on Kathy Lette, who Williamson knows and admires and it's one of his most engaging female heroes.

He tries to be fair to the antagonist, the snobby literary critique, supposedly based on Dinny O'Hearn, making it clear he loves his wife and people talk about him being loyal and principled. However Williamson can't resist stacking the deck - the critic is a bad lover, and Williamson never dramatises his principles, we just see him pestering a friend into publishing a worthy book. 

He might have a work of more complexity if he got stuck into the Kathy Lette character too - I don't know, had her cheat on her husband, or try to write something literary, or plagiarise or something. She's a little too perfect still. (She is engaging, I just felt her character could have done something more in the second half to do with theme... like realising she's not the soulmate of her husband or have her fall in love with the Jackie Weaver character or something).

Also Williamson doesn't quite nail high literature - there is more to it than suffering; I think he over simplifies because it's not his bag. And the supporting characters of the publisher and his wife, and Kathy Lette's husband, felt as though they could have been used more - to complicate things. It's a little linear.

This review has turned out more critical than I intended - irony! It's a fun play, a bright social comedy, with some witty lines. It tells a story, the world is vivid, and his female characters are stronger than usual. He should have brought back the Kathy Lette character in another play.

The literary critic is one in a long line of Williamson characters supported by a partner because they can't make a living from their art - this seemed to pop up in every second Williamson play of the 21st century.

Play review - "Birthrights" by David Williamson (2003)

 A very strong story with rich emotional undercurrents, very well structured. It's heavily female orientated and women have never been Williamson's strong suit. The dialogue and characterisation felt as thought it could have used another draft - there's clunky sounding stuff about refugees and Keating and Howard (it's all in character I just wish it had been smoothed over so wasn't so bald), and the teenage girl character is wild and yep has sex with an older middle aged man.

It is moving, every character earns their weight, there's funny lines.

Play review - "What If You Died Tomorrow?" by David Williamson (1973)

 Not often revived and not super focused, but endlessly fascinating if you are a fan of Williamson because it is so clearly autobiographical.

Williamson writes about a successful writer, a novelist rather than playwright - the leap isn't super convincing, I didn't entirely buy his chats with his "editor" which were clearly meant to be director/producer (the relationship isn't the same). He was married with kids but has left his wife to be with a woman with kids who has left her husband. Unlike Juggler's Three we don't meet the abandoned partners but there's plenty going on - they live in an artist colony, he is visited by his editor (an alpha male... based on Tim Burstall?), a female editor who wants to poach him and sleep with him, his gay agent,  and his parents.

Because it's so based on real life the female characters are among Williamson's best -the harried, smart, greedy, engaging new love, the horny editor who had a fling at the colony, and his mother. 

The male characters are less impressive-  is this the one Williamson play where that's the case?

It's a brave self portrayal - Williamson shows himself to be super touchy about critics, threatens his step kids with violence, a groper when drunk. 

There's quite a hot seduction scene although Williamson can't help go for the gag (his character can't get it up). It's very early 70s with its artists colony and bickering greatest generation parents and tolerance of infidelities.

Williamson writes with real skill about his parents' generation. I'm surprised he didn't do that more.

Yet the piece isn't a whole success. It sort of ambles - it lacks the cohesive tightness of Don's Party. But an interesting, entertaining play.

Play review - "Jugglers Three" by David Williamson (1972)

 I have memories of loving this play when I first read it at uni  - I had heard it was based on his real personal situation and was taken aback that someone could be so honest in its writing. Then I heard Williamson would run it down, and indeed he rewrote the play as Third World Blues, and was wondering if I remembered it wrong.

So on re-reading...

The opening is electric. Man turns up to the flat of his married lover. The husband of said lover is there, back from Vietnam. This is tremendous. Then it becomes apparent the Vietnam vet is going to kill the husband and tension is disappated. There's appearances from the woman they both love, the man's wife, the vet's old pal from Vietnam who has committed robbery. There's a cop similar to the ones in The Removalist and also another man in love with the main woman, Jamie, who feels like a surplus character - he could have been folded into the pompous Williamson surrogate.

Williamson can tell a story - I love how he gets out  of the armed robbery stuff by having the cop take the proceeds as a bribe. This is good writing.

Yet something about the piece is wonky. Too many characters or something. Or the way it's dealt with doesn't work. The stakes start off high and then go low. Maybe that's it.