The Electrical Experience (14 page)

‘Come on, George, you'd better get up.'

‘What time is it, Ben?'

‘Nearly eleven.'

‘Nearly eleven, and we haven't begun our tour of the Points of Historical Interest. Haven't been to the Lookout. Some thing could happen yet to make this town go ahead. Remember Dorman Long and Co.,
and what they did for Moruya. Granite for the Sydney Harbour Bridge.'

‘Maybe, George. But this town's doing O.K.'

‘Ben, I've seen the flower of this town leave.'

‘George, come along, I'll drive you home. Here wipe your eyes.'

‘I'm not crying, Ben. Nothing wrong with my eyes. Why, look, everywhere you look—McDowell Cordial bottles, broken glass. I tell you who I saw the other day. Can't bring his name to my lips. He was with the Coastal Steamship Company. I think he was on the
Benandra
when it sank on the Moruya Bar. Crying? Yes, I'm crying. Why shouldn't I damn well cry?'

‘George, come on, stand up, old fellow.'

‘What did we pay for the Lookout? How much did it eventually cost the club?'

‘Oh, I don't know, George. It was a long time back. Seven hundred pounds, I think.'

‘There could have been economies.'

‘Will you help me, Mr Becker? Give me a hand, and we'll get George over to the car. Come on, George. Stand up.'

All right, children,

one, two, three.

‘My recollection, Ben, is that it cost more than £700.'

‘Give me a hand. Come on, George, over to the car. Steady now, he's quite a weight.'

‘He seemed to be in good spirits when he called for me at the motel. Obviously the demolished factory and all.'

‘Come on, George, you can't sit here in the rubble.'

‘I think, Ben, I'll start again from scratch. It's my view that there'll be a swing back to country-made things. I'll start again from scratch.'

‘Come on, George. Here wipe your eyes. No one is going to listen to your whingeing. You've done very nicely.'

Extract from an Application for a Film Development Corporation Grant for the Film
The Australian of the First Half Century.

 

‘… as the material covers a lengthy time-span, a stylised form of storytelling is employed. Each sequence is, we hope, to be one shot. There is absolutely no cutting within the interview sequences. The documentary footage will be interlaced with the interview sequences. Each sequence will either fade or iris in and out. There will be enough emotive, even perhaps heart-rending, material without building up melodrama by cutting. In the enclosed treatment we list interview “topics”, but the filmed interviews will essentially be ad-libbed …'

It is not my idea.

We, the film crew, arrive at the football ground: Director Stewart, Peter Sound, Gary Camera, Continuity Jane (who is also on with Stewart), Terri Props, etc., Me Script. But there is no script.

We are looking for an Australian, vintage 1910 or thereabouts.

We stalk through the crowd draped in equipment, me hanging back. We are going to pounce on the ‘subject'—extract him clean, gut him from his life.

—how about that guy, says Peter Sound, pointing at a hatted fifty-year-old.

We look.

—no, says Director Stewart, hardly looking, no.

Peter Sound can never be right. A sound man can never be right about anything outside Sound. That would be wrong.

—I think
that's
him, I think that's him says Director Stewart, pitch rising up with enthusiasm.

We all look. A hatted fifty-five-year-old sits on a newspaper in a synthetic knit shirt, binoculars, smoking a roll-your-own. He does not wear sunglasses. Stewart had stipulated that he must not wear sunglasses. The man must be pre-sunglass. Stewart raises both arms
outstretched as if to hold us back from rushing the man. As if we might startle the man and send him fleeing into the undergrowth of crowd.

‘The Undergrowth People'—a title?

—back, let's get some long shots, candid, just pull in on him.

We stand shooting. I clap it. I feel that just by being there for any purpose other than football-watching offends the spirit of the place and interferes with others.

Director Stewart has not revealed his plans in detail. He has told us he will not fully reveal his plans because he does not want us leapfrog-thinking him, because he does not want to bruise the vision with too many inadequate words and minor misinterpretations (he says that most films are ‘a multitude of minor misinterpretations put together with a multitude of minor compromises', he wants to avoid this), because he does not want to reduce his vision to something that can be ‘explained', because we must learn to follow the
scent
rather than the
plan
, and, with uncharacteristic honesty, he says he has not thought through what he wants.

As for the script, he says we will write the script
after
we have shot the film.

—right, cut, now let's approach him. I will do the talking, says Stewart.

—do we walk in single file? I say flippantly.

We approach with all the stealth of a film crew, leads, boxes, clapperboards, clipboard, bumping and breaking all before us.

—excuse us, sir.

The hatted Australian, binoculars to eyes, shifts with fright.

—may I have a word with you? We are a small film unit. We are making a film about football and its followers. We would like to talk with you about it. There is a small payment, of course. We have received a grant from the Federal Government. But we are no big Hollywood company or anything like that.

It is Stewart's
ABC
voice which he took with him when he left.

—come again mate? says the fifty-five-year-old politely defensive. Is he being sold something? He does not grasp.

Stewart is patient. He explains further.

The man looks at each of us and says:

—oh yeah?

I avoided his gaze. I am not sure whether this means, yes I will do it, or yes I understand, or just a question rolled into a reply.

The man doesn't know the camera is on silent roll. Stewart had patted his head, which is the signal for silent roll.

The Australian in the hat, for want of something better to do with the situation, has gone back to the football, obviously unable to size up the situation, having no stock response for this.

Informally, Stewart squats beside the man and motions to me to hand him the prepared ‘dummy' questions: age, place of birth, so on.

Stewart asks him which team he follows, using now
a modified voice, used by intellectuals when talking with Real Australians.

—come again, mate, the man says. On cue.

It clearly means, ‘What are you doing squatting there beside me, asking questions in that phony voice.'

The man turns his eyes back to the game, but he is still paying some sort of attention to Stewart.

Continuity Jane throws up her eyebrows at me.

—end of roll, says Gary Camera.

While Gary is reloading the camera, Stewart explains it all again to the man.

—don't think I'm your man, he says.

—come on, it won't take long and there's money in it.

This, I think, will offend his dignity. I think it suggests that he, an Australian, is mercenary. The working people can't be so easily bought, I've been told.

—not my line of work, friend, he says.

Eyes back to the football, binoculars, up, we've lost him. The impassive self-contained Australian. Ah yes.

None of this is my idea. I am embarrassed.

Continuity Jane crouches down.

—oh please, it would help us a lot if you would.

Her voice is the one little girls use with their daddies, and later in public relations.

He looks at her, a different approach, sucks his teeth. The approach I thought was now discredited—as sexist.

—nah, not my line, girlie.

—oh please, you'd be so good at it. You're so
right
.

—you're just trying to get around me, he says, winking at Stewart.

Face breaking into girlish smiles, Jane pushes back a wisp of hair from her ingenue face and has to admit she is trying to win him over. So artful.

—please? she pleads.

—what's it all about again? he says, weakened.

She explains this time.

He's buying time, getting the information together in his head, taking in a little more on each repetition, piecing it together.

—tell me if I've got this straight. You (pointing at Jane) want to make a picture about me (points at himself) about what football team I follow and my opinion. Have I got you straight?

—yes, says Jane, turning deferentially to Stewart, who nods vigorously.

What she and Stewart are saying is just not true. I know that much.

The Australian turns back to the football. Considering, he pulls a blade of battered grass from the trodden football ground, makes tooth-picking movements, thinking, thinking.

He turns back to Jane.

—you want to make a picture about me going to the football, right?

—yes.

—can't see the story in that.

He's right.

—about football, the followers, the different teams, she says, making it up.

—you say you're from the government?

—no, we have money from the government, a grant.

—you from
TV
then.

—no, just doing it for ourselves.

—the government gives you money to make a film about me going to the football?

—yes, Jane says, smiling hard.

—can't for the life of me see the story in that.

What we got the grant for was to make a film about the prejudices, the beliefs, the life-style (especially ‘life-style', oh yes, the life-style, especially) of the self-contained Australian of this vintage;
The Australian of the First Half Century,
we called it in our submission.

To be fair, I guess that Stewart's way is to begin on familiar ground like football, so that we can break and enter the man's personality.

—just a few questions, Jane says, wheedling.

—suppose it's all right, fire away, but I can tell you now there's no story in me.

He is now the humble man.

Now he's submitted, he becomes immediately embarrassed and uncertain of what he's supposed to do. He has shifted into a limelight which is too bright for his liking but—too late. He is no longer unnoticed.

I clap it. The man is moving about his hands and head, shifting his newspaper mat, ill at ease as all hell.

He answers the dummy questions, trying at the same time to look over Stewart's hand at the written list on the clipboard.

Yes, he played football at school, and then for the town team at Milton, and in the army. He played
outside centre. They were the best days of his life. The days of football matches.

He's a bachelor.

—work?

—been many things in my day.

Oh, of course, I think, of course.

—working out at the abattoirs at Homebush just now. Could have been many things. Could have got on.

Lost promise.

—I'm from the South Coast, worked on the coast mainly.

Probably knows my father, Terri says to me.

We finish all the routine questions and Stewart hops about saying, fine, wonderful, that was great.

—what we want, says Stewart, is to come to where you live tomorrow and ask you a few more questions where it's a little quieter. Won't take long.

—not that much to tell, son, that's about it.

He's suspicious.

—would tomorrow afternoon be O.K.?

—never been one for talking.

—please, says Jane.

—really not my line of business.

—you were great, says Jane.

—maybe if it won't take long, got things to do on Sunday.

—it won't take long.

We have projected something like ten shooting days, I don't know what's going on.

It wasn't my idea.

Jane asks if he would like to be paid now or by cheque.

He says now would be all right with him, but it makes no difference one way or another; cheque in the mail would be all right.

Pretended indifference to money.

She pays him twenty-five dollars.

He stares at the money.

I get twenty-five dollars for answering those questions?

He is pleased, but finds it a bit too far from the ordinary, far enough to suggest that there'd been a mistake. Or that it was illegal.

—that's right.

—what's the catch?

—no catch.

—all right by me. He breaks out in smiles. Says he's in the wrong game.

He becomes uneasy when he has to sign the receipt-release. He makes a motion of reading the form.

He prints his name. Jane has to get him to sign.

He then does it quickly, illegibly, as if to get it out of his consciousness as fast as possible.

—where did you jokers say you were from—
TV
?

—no we're just film-makers.

—oh yeah, I see.

He doesn't see at all.

In the Station Sedan After Shooting

—I think he's going to be great, says Stewart.

—did you see his face when I gave him the twenty-five bucks? says Jane.

—yes! did you get that, Gary. Did you shoot that? Stewart asks.

Gary Camera says, yes, he got that.

All the ‘cuts' are phony. The real cuts are by prearranged signal. Most of the filming is done when the ‘subject' thinks we aren't.

‘I want all that stuff, I want all the stuff when he thinks he's not being filmed. How'd he look, Gary? How will he come up?

—he's got a great head, says Gary.

—fine, fine, says Stewart.

—he probably knows my Old Man if he comes from down around Milton, says Terri.

—we might be able to use that, says Stewart.

Day Two

Frederick Victor Turner is a bit drunk when we arrive.

He's a bit aggressive.

He's been ‘talking to a mate at work', and the mate at work says he should be getting paid a lot more and not to sign anything. He mentions a thousand dollars.

There we are at the doorstep, weighed down with gear.

There goes the signal. We're shooting.

But Jane explains (we decided that she would negotiate difficulties, after her earlier success). We are just learning the film business (not true—we are
all professionals), and we are just a little group of struggling beginners, we have only this tiny grant from the government.

—but you said you were from
TV
. He's truculent.

—no, no, it might get on
TV
, but it might not. We'll show it at the universities and so on.

—you university students then, he says, seizing on the category.

—well, no, we are just a group of independent film-makers.

—it's not going
TV
then, he says, disappointment and relief in one.

—maybe we'll sell it, but we are not from a
TV
station.

Jane then dangles Paul Hogan's name before his eyes.

—thought it was for
TV
, he says, letting us in, explaining his greed. We troop into his rooms.—I thought it was for
TV
, but anyhow you think we might still be in the big money? I'll give it a go.

If we do make any money, I don't see how he'll get any.

He sits in his arm chair, a big, oily, hair-stained arm chair.

We give him a can of beer.

—right, says Stewart, let's start from the beginning—where were you born and so on.

Slate Four, Aussie, I say, marking it.

—speed, says Gary.

—right, Frederick Victor, start talking.

—you mean, where I was born and so on?

—yes, the camera is rolling, says Stewart. Frederick clears his throat.

—I was born at a very early age.

We exchange agonised glances. How long has he been thinking that up.

—cut, says Stewart (a false cut). Now let's start again. Where and when, dates, and places, Frederick.

He begins again.

—I was born in Milton, on the South Coast.

‘I was born at the foot of the mountain, taught my first letters in sand.'

O Jesus.

—my father was a saddler. I worked around the Shoalhaven district, milking cows, cutting sleepers, bringing telegraph poles down the river; my father said I was a ne'er-do-well because I never learned a trade. Here's something I bet you never would guess, I sang in the Nowra Musical and Operatic Society once in
Chu Chin Chow.
I took quite a ribbing, I tell you, for singing in that operatic society. They said, though, I had a good voice and with a bit of training and coaching they said I could have gone on with singing. But I wasn't much of an actor.