American Cinematographer - February 2009 - (Page 63)

image problem. “People thought of us as a big farm with no industry and no culture,” says McAlpine. “The country did have a thriving [film] industry in the 1920s; they made wonderful films and kept up with the change to sound, and in the 1930s, it was going great guns. Then the Hollywood studios moved in and said they wanted to be a part of it. Everyone thought that was great, but the studios bought up most of the Australian production facilities and closed them down to prevent competition. Then World War II happened, and the industry really stopped until 1969.” After shooting two comedies with Beresford, McAlpine began shooting four films a year in Australia. A small group of filmmakers was starting to do serious work, often focusing on Australia’s history. When McAlpine shot the drama The Getting of Wisdom for Beresford, he felt he was taking a step in his own artistic development. “It was the life story of an Australian author, sort of a mini My Brilliant Career, and it was the first time I had a chance to shoot beauty instead of just story.” My Brilliant Career came next, and McAlpine’s camerawork on the lush historical drama brought him a lot of attention. “I think we were trying to find an identity,” he says of his fellow filmmakers Down Under. “A lot of the films we were doing were about our own history, similar to America’s Westerns. It was really us trying to tell ourselves as much as anybody else that we Australians have an identity of our own. Everyone [in the Australian industry] was sort of thrilled on a whole different level than happens today; we had small crews, and everybody was working outrageous hours and giving their all. A cinematographer never got more than two answer prints, but we had remarkable people in the lab and got the very best out of those two prints. We may have been ignorant about some techniques and not that efficient, but we were certainly working hard.” Breaker Morant, set during the Boer War, was a big production for the country at the time, and the reaction it received internationally was also significant. “It was my first eight-week shoot — so lavish!” McAlpine recalls with a chuckle. “I hadn’t done anything on that scale before. There’s a scene where the Boers attack the fort and the soldiers defend the door with a machine gun, and I remember Bruce [Beresford] saying, ‘We’ve got to shoot this with seven cameras.’ And I said, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I was ignorant about shooting that kind of action. So we got in all the extra cameras for a day, and everybody had one! We shot the finale over two dawns, and then we’d continue on to about 10 or 11 a.m. Above: The cinematographer at work on Paul Mazursky’s Tempest (1982), “doing what I have to do,” he notes wryly. Below: Tempest actors Susan Sarandon and John Cassavettes wait with McAlpine on location in Greece. Photos courtesy of McAlpine. American Cinematographer 63

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - February 2009

American Cinematographer - February 2009 Contents Editor's Note Short Takes: Circus Production Slate: The International Reverte 2 Worlds in 3 Dimensions Dead Reckoning Embracing Anamorphic Citizen of the World Post Focus: Restoring Manhatta New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Peter Suschitzky

American Cinematographer - February 2009

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