Tag: Peter Weir

Those opening moments of 1993’s somewhat misplaced, Fearless, are extraordinary. The drifting shots of Max (Jeff Bridges), walking through smoky crop field, carrying a baby…

Next stop in my Around the World adventure was to Australia. I was keen to see Picnic at Hanging Rock, after reading Robin’s great piece…

“You must learn to love someone other than me, I won’t be here for long.” – Miranda In among the American heavyweight movies of 1975,…

Hot off the success of his now-classic anti-war epic, Peter Weir took on the adaptation of Christopher Koch’s potboiler about a collision between romance, journalistic obligation and revolution, The Year of Living Dangerously, which would become his last purely Australian effort.

If society can be considered the organism, the family is the structural adhesive that holds the cells of that organism together. As every organism is bombarded daily by threats and external pressures, the family is where these challenges are met and dealt with; problems are examined and the family unit adapts, and the organism evolves. Things can get dicey, however, when the adjustment that works for the family does not exactly jive with society’s expectations, and this makes for inimitable drama onscreen.

“Journalism is the first draft of history,” Phil Graham, newspaper publisher and part owner of the Washington Post, once said. I would add that films about journalism – whether fictional  or based on true events – would be the postscript to history, with license.

Whether it’s a frustrated and dedicated maverick taking on a situation alone – often against orders – or an escalated paramilitary effort launched due to the scale and sophistication of the lawbreakers, we like our law enforcement tales precise and no-nonsense.