Turning The Page: Peter Weir: A Creative Journey From Australia To Hollywood by Serena Formica

Trevor Hogg reviews Peter Weir: A Creative Journey From Australia To Hollywood by Serena Formica...

Even though Australian filmmaker Peter Weir has been the subject of previous academic studies, Serena Formica admirably attempts to provide a fresh perspective by exploring whether the artistic development and aspirations of Weir enabled him to easily adapt to the demands of Hollywood.

The first section titled Migrations and transnationalism in cinema examines the theory that the growing importance of international financing has resulted in moviemakers shifting from producing cultural stories to those with global appeal; in essence, Hollywood has gone beyond from being a physical place to become a cinematic style. In the following section, Perspectives on Peter Weir, the author casts a highly critical eye towards the analysis put forth by her predecessors. In order for her readers to better understand the environment Weir worked in before moving to Hollywood, Formica details the evolution of the Australian film industry in the appropriately named third section Australian production context in the 1970s and early 1980s. The centrepiece of the publication is the fourth section, Peter Weir’s four key steps from Australia to Hollywood, which chronicles the making of Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Witness (1985), and The Truman Show (1998).

Adding a humanistic element amidst the facts and analysis are insightful interviews with Peter Weir, and two of his collaborators, cinematographer Russell Boyd, and producer Philip Steuer. Weir offers a revealing response when discussing the financial collapse of what was to be his Hollywood directorial debut, The Mosquito Coast(1986). “I went back home and I was so ready to go and make a film in America that I called my agent and I said, ‘I want you to send me green lit projects.’ He sent me three and I said, ‘I would pick one. I will try and imagine it is the 1930s or 1940s and this is a studio assignment.’ I wanted to break my own way of making films with all this kind of artistic integrity. I wanted a job. I was so anxious to get out of Sydney.”

For those who have a keen interest in film analysis and are fan of the Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, they will find that Peter Weir: A Creative Journey From Australia To Hollywood offers an intriguing exploration of the man and his art.

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Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.