A Film By John Duigan
Critical Review and Bibliography by Louise Tinsley
Principal Crew and Cast
Director: John
Duigan
Writer: John Duigan
Producer: Terry Hayes
George Miller
Doug Mitchell
Production Company: Kennedy Miller
Director of photography: Geoff
Burton,ACS.
Characters:
Danny Embling: Noah Taylor
Thandiwe
Adjewa: Thandie Newton
‘Gilby’ Fryer: Bartholomew Rose
Melissa Miles: Kym
Wilson
Janet Odgers: Naomi Watts
Nicola Radcliffe: Nicole Kidman
Facts and Figures
Year of production: 1990
Year of release: 1991
DVD release date: 9th-7th-2002
Running time: 99 minutes
Box Office takings: Australia:
$1,635,044
U.S: $ 2,415,396
International Sales: Kennedy Miller
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Awards:
4 AFI awards: Best Film 1990
Bibliography Of Reviews and Interviews
Information on Flirting was difficult to come by. I did most of my searching on the internet and started off by doing a Google search and went from there. On the first search I got 1,490 entries under Flirting John Duigan. There were a large number from overseas, especially France and Spain. I found some great bibliographic details on John Duigan but very little else. There was the hype surrounding Nicole Kidman, Flirting was the last film she made in Australia before trying her luck ( and succeeding) overseas. Most of the bibliographical entries here are for reviews, which are all fairly similar. Flirting is universally praised ( I did not read one really bad review) by these critics, professional or otherwise. The other bibliographical details are the where I found statistical information, box-office statistics were a complete nightmare to get a hold of ( definitely worth paying membership fee to urbancinefile). The entries with the asterisk next to them are the sites I found most useful and interesting . Finding books on Australian was not especially easy but finding them with reference to Flirting was nigh on impossible. ( It is entirely possible that this is due to my searching skills over Flirting being overlooked J). As it was O’Regan makes brief references to Flirting, along with many other films, to illustrate a point.
Statistical
Stuff
·
http://www.afc.gov.au/GTP/wcboshare.html
: a great site for Australian film statistics ,lots of graphs and so on.*
· http://www.afc.gov.au/GTP/release.html:
same site, different statistics.*
· http://www.afc.gov.au/GTP/mrboxaust.html
: box office information and rating for every Australian film.*
· http://www.bfi.org.uk/gateway/databases/
: this site has got links to other film sites with little reviews , a very
useful place to visit.*
· http://www.thenumbers.com/movies/indexF.html
: great site for box office information.*
Reviews
· http://www.barnesnadnoble.com/search/product.:
easily followed, the least insane of movie sites and reviews I looked at.*
· http://www.entertainment.msn.com/movies
· http://www.geocites.com/kakimochigirl/flirting.html
: this is a site of love, has stills of Flirting plus excerpts from the script.*
· http://www.moviesunlimited.com
· http://www.movies.o.com/filmography/credits?movie_id+35042
· http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Flirting-1041181/reviews.php=
: a weird website but lots of reviews.*
· http://www.tvguide.com/movies/dadtabase/showmovie/
: this comes under the strange but true category , this site had statistical
information as well.*
· http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Duigan,%20John
: a min-biography of John Duigan with hyperlinks to all of his movies.*
Books
O’Regan, T., 1996, Australian National Cinema, Routledge, London.
Critical Review of Film and its Literature
The Plot, Synopsis and Personal
View
The film Flirting is set in 1965 in rural Australia. It is the sequel, the second instalment of a trilogy, to John Duigan’s The Year My Voice Broke. It follows the adventures of Danny Embling , played by Noah Taylor, as “ the school dag” ( Warner Home Video, 1991) at all boys boarding school. Danny meets Thandiwe Adjewa, Thandie Newton, who is a Ugandan academic’s daughter, attending the girls boarding school which lies across the lake from his school. At the risk of being clichéd they are both outsiders at their respective schools but find mutual understanding with each other as well as a little bit of love. Both Danny and Thandie have good friends in Gilby, Melissa and Janet . Unexpected support comes to their clandestine relationship in the form of Nicola Radcliffe, Nicole Kidman, the serene and very grown up head girl at Thandiwe’s school. Thandiwe has to leave due to political problems in her father’s country so her and Danny have their last night together in roadside motel, a bottle of champagne having been supplied for the event by Nicola.
Flirting is one of those films where everything sits right. The feeling from this film is one of potential intrigues, of doing things that feel right but by other’s standards are wrong ,of expectation secret rendezvous and who knows what will follow.
There are some very uncomfortable adolescent fondlings in some scenes, other scenes continue in places where others would have left off and in some instances the “squirm” factor is high. There are also some wonderful lines in the film. An example of this is when Nicola is describing letting the gardener touch her, a feeling she describes as “ shivery delicious”. Or when Melissa and Janet come up to Danny and Thandiwe at a school rugby match and ask them what they are doing, to which Thandiwe replies, “ Just flirting”. Another example is at the school debate when Thandiwe speaks the song ‘Tutti Frutti’ as part of her speech. The film is reminiscent in tone and even the teasing that both Thandiwe and Danny are on the receiving end of, although in some cases cruel and racist, is not seen to do any lasting damage. Both our hero and heroine know that there is more to life than school. It depicts that time of life when you are not quite an adult but not really a child anymore. The sincerity of youth which can descend into childish behaviour at any given time.
The cinematography is beautifully done by Geoff Burton. The scene at the end when Danny is reading a letter from Thandiwe on top of a rock, looking quite Byronesque, depicts a an almost bleak view of the Australian bush without it being depressing. The schools and their surrounds are shot in a way that the audience could smell or feel them. The shot of Thandiwe’s school posing against a moon lit lake conjures up romantic images coupled with infinite possibilities of what lies beyond its walls. The sound adds to this imagery, with all the scuffles and squeaks of school shoes on floorboards ( you can sense the splinters) and a soundtrack which sets the whole film off. Danny’s voice over throughout the film allows the audience to empathise with his character and involves them on a more personal level.
So I’m quite gushing in my praise for this film but it really is good. The embarrassing awkwardness in some situations, the adolescent love undermined by the authority of the schools and interrupted by political strife in a far off country. The Australian colloquialisms in the language , the sounds of magpies in the morning and crickets at night ( the gushing continues…). It’s a nostalgic look at life in Australia in the 60s, in two boarding schools. It subtlety provides examples of the parochialness of rural Australia, where Australia belonged in the 60s ( firmly tied to British apron strings).In this case Duigan’s writing is not forcing a belief system on the audience but represents the situations in such a way that the audience can absorb that, despite the fact that Thandiwe and Danny seem to be above their tormentors and can rationalise how narrow-minded their fellow students and teachers can be, both characters frustration and hurt is displayed. Tom O’Regan ( 1996,p. 243-257) talks of the ‘ugly Australian’ and ‘othering the Australian’ when discussing the distinctiveness of Australian film. This give an interesting insight into the idea of how central characters in the film are not fitting standard perceptions of successful, also racism and parochialism are conveyed without demur, plus the idea of inviting the audience to participate in Australian “lifeways”( O’Regan,1996,p.250).
Although he themes of cross cultural adolescent love and being the
“school dag” are universal there is a distinct Australianness to Flirting. Its sounds and imagery as well as dialogue all take
the audience to rural Australia. Hawley ( 1994 in O’Regan 1996,p.221) sums this
up,
“ Most of our films today are neither protesting their Australianness or defending it-they jut are. They’re celebrating idiosyncratic aspects of our society, by are not just ‘feel good’ movies. There’s an edge…”
Critical Uptake
In order to do a critical uptake of Flirting and examine the circumstances of its production it would be useful to find any information. A lot of the reviews found on Flirting were American, with dates varying from 1990 to 1995 as its release date. This was very disheartening trying to access archives to find out what the response to the film was at the time, especially a professional Australian response. The fact that Flirting won the 1990 AFI Best Film award, as well as three others ( the closest as to what the three others were for was knowing it got nominated for sound but did not win), indicates that the critical response at the time in the industry and amongst the cast and crew’s peers was favourable. Flirting is referred to in passing on most of the sites I visited, as a step up for the lead actors and John Duigan ( with such films as Lawn Dogs or Sirens).
The Director and Actors
The lead actors in Flirting, Noah Taylor, Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts, have seen their careers based in Australian movies and mini-series have all gone on to international film careers with international acclaim. As too has Thandie Newton, who was ‘discovered’ for Flirting when Duigan came to her school, in London, to cast an unknown for the film. Noah Taylor achieved international acclaim with Shine, Naomi Watts with Mulholland Drive and Nicole Kidman, just recently with The Hours . Keep in mind this is not discounting the work they have done in between times, much of it to critical acclaim.
John Duigan wrote Flirting as a sequel to The Year My Voice Broke and it was the second part of n intended trilogy ( Maltin 1994,p.1). Apparently both films are quite autobiographical . It was easy to find bibliographical detail of Duigan’s work, with reviews, interviews and production details. Flirting is mainly described as charming but it was case of the one line wonder as far as reviews and production details go.
Australian Film’s Value and
Position
One of the stand out points about Flirting was how little there was to be found on it as a critically acclaimed Australian film .Maybe this had to do with the fact that it is thirteen years old, or I was looking in the wrong places or perhaps it is an in indication of the value of Australian film that Australians themselves put on it. O’Regan ( 1996, p.111) writes that,
“ Value is especially significant for Australian
cinema. It needs to be positively regarded by audiences, distributors,
exhibitors, investors and critics”.
O’Regan ( 1996, p.112) also points out that Australia being a National cinema alters the idea of value,
“The national cinema idea provides a rhetorical means
to think the necessity of public support, interest, help and marketing edge,
without which Australian cinema could not survive.
The point that O’Regan ( 1996) makes about placing value on national cinemas is that they all have their peaks and lows, whether it be French, American or Australian. Film policies reflect what is happening at the time or as a reaction to what has happened in the past. But all of these aspects film, from its physical presence to its script to the technicians , government policies, cinemas, cinema distribution, marketing and so are all intermingled and reliant on one another in some way. O’Regan’s ( 1996,p.144) main point being,
“ …is to recognize just how limited are the descriptions we generate from our habitual vocabularies of value in the cinema”.
Flirting and
Australian national cinema as a medium sized English language cinema
Australian national cinema in the 1990s is said to be diverse and internationalised ( O’Regan 1996). The story of Flirting holds ties to similar coming of age films in the U.K and U.S yet it is distinctive enough to not be accused of complying to the Hollywood standard.
“ Australian cinema is structured by the options available to it in the
international system, given its exhibition, and distribution market, its
English language character, its size and place in the cinema and its close
connection with and difference from American and British culture.”
( O’Regan 1996,p.110)
Flirting has connections to the ‘quality’ films of the late seventies. It is nostalgic in outlook, there is a focus on the landscape; albeit not a large focus, and that it is appealing to different markets ( mainstream and arthouse) on different levels. A remark about ‘quality film’ by Stuart Cunningham ( in O’Regan 1996,p.140) could place this Flirting very definitely into this 70s classification,
“ Prototypically we are invited to follow the growth through childhood/
adolescence/struggling young maturity of a central character against the
background of personalism, made all the stronger by the placement of character
or groups of characters in a privileged position and the corresponding
invitation for audience identification with this position”.
It seems that Australian national cinema in the 1990s could have been all things to all people. Flirting fitted this in that it is critically acclaimed ( AFI awards) yet was not nostalgic for an Australia of old, though not in a blinded way. (Once again) O’Regan ( 1996,p.107) says when referring to Australia in the context of a medium sized English language cinema,
“ In antipodean context there is and
‘experience’ of alack of common narrative, central authority, unity of place
and time. And this underwrites the experience of cinematic diversity”.
So due to the diverse nature of Australian national cinema in the 90s Flirting was able to revert to the ‘quality film’ of the seventies in style and form and received critical acclaim. Its being an medium sized English language film allows it to be available to other markets yet distinctive enough that it could not be accused of complying to a Hollywood copying of coming of age films. However the internationalisation of Australian film in the 1990s and the cultural transfers and Australian film identify would have shaped Flirting’s distinctiveness in an international forum and appreciation for it could lie across the board, nationally as well as internationally.
Reference
List
O’Regan, T., 1996a, Australian National Cinema, Routledge, London.
O’Regan, T., 1996b, ‘Film in the 1970s’, in OzFilm Site, Typescript Murdoch University.
O’Regan, T., 1997, ‘ Australian Cinema in the 1990s’, in P.Tapp (ed.), Australian Feature Films, Melbourne: Informit, RMIT and The Australian Catalogue of New Films and Videos Ltd. CD-Rom and OzFilm Site, pp.1-19.
*Also refer to Bibliography.
Filmography
Flirting dir.John Duigan,1990
Lawn Dogs dir. John Duigan, 2000
Mulholland Drive dir. David Lynch, 2001
Shine dir. Scott Hicks, 1996
Sirens dir. John Duigan, 1994
The Hours dir. Stephen Daldry, 2002
The Year My Voice Broke dir. John Duigan, 1987