Peter Weir on Being a Filmmaker_Marianne Gray

P E T E R

W E I R

Peter Weir

on being a film-maker Marianne Gray attended a master class by Peter Weir at the Taormina International Film Festival in June 2004. Weir gave an inti intimate mate self- portrait. portr ait. he painter Henri Matisse once said in an interview, 'An artist must never be a prisoner of himself, a prisoner of style, a prisoner of reputation, a prisoner of success etc.' I found myself, at an early point in my career, just such a prisoner, trapped and unable to go forward. It was at this point that I had a curious daydream. It was like a little story perfectly realised - and was set in Asia. I was to meet the guru of directors, the great master, the director of directors. He was so famous he had never made a film, like an architect who had never built a building. He did not need to; he was a genius. He lived on

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top of mountain and it was very difficult to reach him. As a pilgrim I went up the mountain, waited some days and was finally permitted to see him. I went forward and he sat with his back to me. You were only allowed one question so I waited. He did not look at me but finally he said, 'What is your question?' I answered, 'Master how must I be and go forward as a director?' He was silent for a while and then, again without turning his head, he said: 'You must care and not care, both at t he same same t ime.' That was w as it . I have thought about his answer ever since. I think what it means is that if you care

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too much it blocks the unconscious, and it is that part of the mind that is freed by not caring. I would like to talk a little bit about a script. Firstly, and more important than the script, is the idea. The idea is so important. It can can be fully full y formed; it can be be a notion; it can be an emot emotion. ion. I have had it in every every form. f orm. Of Of course, sometimes you read a book and you want to make a film of it but sometimes the strangest origin will provoke a story. For example, on holiday in Tunisia in the 1970s I found a little Roman head in a field, a sculpture, and what was curious about this was that as I had walked across the field I knew I was going to find something. It was foreknowledge. I began picking through pieces of marble and eventually saw three parallel lines which was a hand attached to a head and the movie The Last Wave  resulted from that experience. One thing leads to another, in this case, from the Roman head to a meeting with an Aborigine. When I told him about the the feeling I had before before I found the t he head, head, he felt there th ere wasnothing nothing strange about it i t . He believed believed that it was normal and he told me about pre-cognition and extra-sensory perception. Following your idea is a precious thing. Next, I would say, comes the talking. I find it best to work with someone - another writer - and such collaboration begins with talking, just talking. I think the best book I have read on the subject is Jean-Claude Carrière's The Secret Language of Film. At its heart is its most interesting point about working with Bunuel. I loved their ritual

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It's w hat you don't don't see that really matters

which would begin in the morning with telling each other their dreams. Then they would talk through the morning, have a little siesta in the afternoon and in the evening evening they would meet ffor or a drink and t ell each other a story, any story, truth or fiction, thus exercising the muscle of the storyteller. Working recently with a writer on a difficult adaptation - and by way of an exercise - I thought up the worst story I could for a movie: the story of a lost dog. Every day we would spend half an hour talking about this lost dog just to provide exerc exercise ise for our 'creati 'creativityvity- invention muscle'. muscle'. Carrière talks a great deal about the struggle between left and right brain, between the conscious and logical part of the mind and the uncontrollable unconscious, and allows each their place. I think t hink an even even better bett er way to start a script script is by writing a short story since this is a freer form than a screenplay. For example, you have a scene where a man arrives to meet a woman in i n a rest rest aurant. aurant . In the t he scree screenplay nplay you would writ w rite e interior int erior restaurant restaurant,, day day, the man crosses to the table. You would probably describe the clothes he is wearing and some basic facts about him. You would describe the woman too, her look, her clothes, and only then would you have the dialogue. In the short story, as he crosses the restaurant you can describe his memory of the first restaurant he went to as a child with his mother and father; the woman can watch him approach and dream about what might happen in the future. It is a legitimate form of writ wri t ing, the t he short short story. The scree screenplay nplay is a

Carrière talks a great deal about the struggle between left and right brain, between the conscious and logical part of the mind and the uncontrollable unconscious, and allows each their place.

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