 |
 |
 |
Home | About | Synopsis | Interviews | Music | Video
Festivals | Critics Say
|
|
|
|
INTERVIEWS The Director: Davida Allen | VICKI: Susie Porter
Interview
The Director:
Davida Allen
Interviewed by Maureen Gourlay, November 1998Where did the idea for Feeling Sexy come from?
As an artist I've always worked from my own observations, and I am fascinated with relationships. How they last and why they deteriorate, and why the gloss of new relationships fades, and what is it that can keep people together for years. And one day, I suddenly realised that I could write stories.
The idea for the film has come from my interest in the imagination and the power of one's imagination. I wanted to tell a story that had an answer. The problem being it is hard to keep novelty in your life. What is the spice of life? How do you keep feeling alive, when every day can be the same? When the people you share the day with are the same? How can two people within marriage keep feeling like they did when they first met each other? The newness, the exhilaration of new love? It is hard to keep everything new and shiny. Everything grows old and dull. I wanted to disguise a recipe of how a marriage can stay together. I believed I had a recipe for keeping a marriage alive, and I decided to disguise it in a fairytale, where my two characters would be called Greg and Vicki.
Is it autobiographical?
It's hard to paint snow if you've never seen snow, but at the same time I've been writing the script for 10 years and over that time Greg and Vicki have become their own characters. Once you decide to write a story, you think of how the characters would react to situations, and to do that, I drew on people that I knew. Vicki started to surprise me with the things that she would do once I let her go in a world of fiction.
You're best known for your images of female domestic life - it's obviously been a major theme in your work and you've also done landscapes, like the recent Zilzie show at Australian Galleries. But in Feeling Sexy there's hardly a landscape, we hardly move from inside the limits of an inner city suburban woman's life, you know, she goes from the kitchen to the bathroom, to the supermarket, back to the kitchen and so on. Can you ever imagine landscape being of interest to you in a movie?
You see, I painted the landscapes just before I got to make the movie. The script had already been pretty well done but Glenys said, well Davida I've got a few movies to finish, you're just going to have to bide your time, do what you want to do, you keep happy, really she was saying dog paddle for a couple of years... So in hanging around waiting, there was this pull to the landscapes which are outside of the house. You know, Davida looking beyond that domestic angst, 'cause I'm getting older and the children have grown up, and I personally have got time now, to maybe fantasize about bigger spaces. Strangely enough the fantasies in the movie are all outside the house...
In some films, like say, Dr Zhivago, which I know is one of your favourite films, there's enormous attention paid to the simple beauty of the landscape. I'm interested in whether or not you've finished with the domestic landscape in paintings and in film now or whether the last painting show, the Zilzie landscapes, is an indication of what is to come in the next film maybe?
Yeah, I probably have left the domestic world behind...
So in the next film..?
No no , at the end of the day it's what you need to get rid of out of your head, so I will always see women with adolescent children in shopping centres, and I will identify with that, and because I'm a woman I'll always identify with the woman. My feeling of what I want to do in life, you see it as a truth with other women, I'm not alone in how I'm thinking, so that, if it happens to be in a garage or a kitchen, I think I'll always be inside the kitchen, but sometimes looking out, wondering what's there.
So do you think you'll basically be telling women's stories?
Well that's all I know, I'm a woman, it's hard, it's hard not to....
So having just finished the whole business of making a film, how does it feel?
Well, you know I'm still here, smiling, and Glenys and I are still here talking. To me it was like climbing a mountain, there are some times you just do not think you can keep going. I mean being a bushwalker, there are some times, even though you're so fit and so good, there are moments when you climb a mountain, you think I cannot keep going, why on earth would I want to keep going, then you turn around and you see this absolute totally extraordinary cloud that's ahead of you, and the only way you're going to get to touch that is to keep going.
What about the tediousness of filmmaking, I mean a lot of it is incredibly slow, you know sitting in a mixing studio for 36 hours trying to hear whether a single click is in the right place or not...
No, the tedium and the time haven't worried me one little bit. The thing that I will have to become resilient more and more about is how to just keep remembering the egolessness of the process, that and the fact that you have to never give up your faith in what you are doing. That is so important. The film's got its own message, so that the film keeps telling you, Davida, if a semi-trailer is going to come and drive through it, don't worry it'll be okay, it'll be strong enough to look after itself. You have to believe so strongly that the people around you... and I've been spoilt, I mean my experience as a first time filmmaker is probably quite unique. What first time filmmaker would have had the experience of Glenys and Chris, and the people Glenys put around me? In a strange way I've had the luxury of realising what the real truth of movie making is - You have people around you who believe in that movie as much as you do, and that that movie will only get born with their talent, and with their dedication and it's their movie as much as yours.
What I've realised, and it is so different to painting pictures where the onus is on me, like I leave the studio and I have to make the decision, is that a good painting or isn't it a good painting, and when you ask people to give their opinion, you really only ask the people who are going to say it's good, you protect yourself, because it's so lonely you're there all by yourself, you've got no-one to discuss this with, it's a very very private exorcistic game with yourself. That's what I did for 23 years and needed to do in order to paint the pictures I painted. You'd never ask, you'd probably ask very few people what they'd thought of it along the way.
But with the movie, Chris and Glenys came along and said, that's great except we've got a limited amount of time in a cinema, you know, this is it, this is their chance, if they don't get it then, and if they don't enjoy sitting still, in my case for 50 minutes, you've lost them, whereas in an art gallery they can go back two or three times, they can ramble around, and for all you know they still haven't got what you wanted them to get.
So, why do you care more about the cinema audience than the art gallery audience?
I can remember thinking that there was so much wankery in the art world, a lack of integrity somehow, and there's so much crap around, it got to the point that I thought, well you know, are my pictures only great because I've made name for myself? You know, sticking out there painting about things that no-one else has been game to paint about it? I'm notorious, more than anything else - so the question was are they buying them and looking at them because they're Davida Allen's or because they're interesting images?
Who do you think has bought your paintings?
I've absolutely no idea.
Do you think it's the same people who'll see the film? No - I reckon the film will have a much bigger audience.
The interesting thing is that people who see paintings don't have to buy them... That's the other thing - had the question been who looks at your pictures, my answer would have been, mothers look at my pictures, fathers look at my pictures, children look at my pictures, they always get a reaction from anyone who looks at them. Who buys them is different. They're people who have got money. In the olden days it was probably people who had the guts to cope with something as confronting as that on their wall.
Strangely enough the rules are so different with movie making and one of the biggest things which I've learnt is to hold your audience, learning about the power... Chris has been extraordinary, making me concentrate on the audience, and Glenys constantly saying what do you want your audience to think about- do you want them to go down that lane, because if you put that sound on it, they've gone a long way away - don't you want them to be looking at the child at the tea table spilling the porridge all over the mother's notes that she's writing, like constantly focus, focus, focus, on what do you want the audience to get out of this, so it's completely the other side of the coin.
I mean in the painting, I know what I want them to do but am I making myself clear, the big question is - am I? It's more fatefully dangerous with movies 'cause if you don't communicate they'll walk out of the theatre half way through, or they'll walk out going Oh that was a load of shit. It's sort of scarier cause the audience is much more expecting this to work.
Davida Allen exhibits her paintings through Australian Galleries
15 Roylston Street
Paddington NSW 2021Telephone: (+61 2) 9360 5177
Interview"VICKI" - Susie Porter
Interviewed by Maureen Gourlay, November 1998
How would you describe the relationship between yourself and Director, Davida Allen?
Very unlike any other director I've worked with - she's a first time director, not in the film industry and a mother of 4. The relationship was more like a mother/daughter one rather than the director having all of the power. It was a great relationship - Davida would bring me flowers - and she was always aware of how I felt. She had a lot of respect for the artists - the actors - in the film. It was more like talking to a friend than a director.
Who was Vicki?
Vicki was a firecracker that had her spark dampened - all through her life she had all these dreams in her head, she was a real dreamer - and when she got older and got married and had children - all her dreams and her zest for life had gone and she didn't want to settle for domesticity.
What does the film say to you?
I think one word to describe it would be hope - and the fact that the use of the imagination can solve lots of problems. Especially today, where new technology is there all the time i.e. TV. The time we have left to use our imagination is limited. I think a lot of things can be solved by the use of the imagination - optimism - is a big message also.
How much of Vicki is in you?
Quite a lot of myself is in Vicki - I've got the essence of her - in that I feel I'm a firecracker and that if I was put in the situation I'd feel the same way. Vicki reminds me of a song that I know by the Beach Boys, it goes like "Reality is not for me - and it makes me laugh - Fantasy girls and Disney World I'm coming back".
How do you prepare for sex on screen?
Take my clothes off... I think there's no real way to prepare for a sex scene - for me I try to be as unselfconscious as I can. A lot has to do with the relationship you have with the other actor. I also make sure I know how it's going to be shot - that can relax you.
Can you describe any moments when you were Feeling Sexy during the making of the film?
There were moments when making the film that I felt like a woman - the whole film was centred around men - and I was playing this woman who was being desired and I developed this confidence which to me made me feel sexy.
Do you sympathise with Vicki's betrayal?
Yes I do, um... this will be similar to the other answer but I know that as human beings we're not all perfect - and when you're put in situations they may not bring out the best in you. But I can empathise with Vicki because if I was in the situation - I'd be feeling similar things - but also as an actor the biggest quality as an actor you can have is empathy - as an actor regardless of whether Susie empathised with Vicki - I would have in order to play the role.
How do you feel about marriage and having children after making this film?
Well, nothing has essentially changed - I know if kids are screaming I'd go - Oh my god - I'd go insane, but I also realise that when you have your own children it's different. I'm biologically ready - but I'm not psychologically ready - I've got a lot more to experience yet before I have a child.
Are you planning on getting married in the near future?
No, but one day I do want to have a family and a partner. I don't want to be like Shelley Winters in a bath of gin. If I wasn't married I could easily live a life of loneliness and probably some form of alcoholism. Cheers!!
Home | About | Synopsis | Interviews | Music | Video
Festivals | Critics Say
All site content copyright © 1999, 2000 Binnaburra Film Company
Site
by
JMV