Architect Victoria Spring 2008
Australian Institute of Architects
Victorian chapter
“It’s a Kennedy”: Melbourne,
the Cinema and the work of Chris Kennedy.
Culture and place are intertwined in ways that don’t make them
easy to separate, especially in terms of our experience of them. If we look at
the cinema we see this subject constantly addressed. We’ll also see that there is a constant
exchange between our stories and those stories we see reflected on the screen.
Chris Kennedy is a production designer, who over the last twenty
years, has worked on many Australian films, including GHOSTS…OF THE CIVIL DEAD
(1988), DEATH IN BRUNSWICK (1989), SPOTSWOOD (1992), STIFF (2004) and THE BRUSH
OFF (2004), all of which were set in Melbourne.
In these films we see images of Melbourne that we are familiar with. The
representations of place connect us to the film and the films back to us. This
happens through the cityscapes, and also
in the rooms, pictured in these films, which show the way(s) we live. David
MacDougall in his book TRANSCULUTRAL CINEMA writes that, “tacit knowledge” is
that knowledge which,
“…we can not “tell” in the abstract;
it is knowledge we can only convey by showing – by expressing our relation to
it in a manner that allows others to enter into a similar relation to it”(29).
It may be that the descriptions of place contribute towards
defining place for us in that the choices made for locations and sets created -
the spaces and places created by the production designer, in some way distils
Melbourne for us. Perhaps they “pick
out” the quintessential bits of Sydney Road, (in STIFF) for example, that we
readily recognize as Sydney Road – and by doing this it defines what it is
about Sydney Road – that makes it Sydney Road
- and by us recognizing it, makes us (in some way) a part of it.
GHOSTS…OF THE CILVIL DEAD
is not for the most part set in Melbourne. The film is slow and
menacing. It’s set in a prison (out in
country). Nick Cave in an interview, on
the DVD for the film, says that the main character in the film is the prison
itself. The set that Chris Kennedy created in this film results in an
environment that is extremely oppressive: for the prisoners and the guards
alike. The film ends at Parliament
Station connecting it directly (and terrifyingly) back to us. (It’s our story
too.) This is one of the points the
creators of this film are making - you can’t lock people away in harsh
environments without involving the whole society. This closing scene is very effective use of
place in storytelling. The film makers suggest through the use of space (in
part at least), that the desperate nature within the prison is deliberately
created, by those in control, those who remain unseen: those who own the prison
and the government who legislates: the people responsible for the creation of
this, particular space.
“It’s a Kennedy” is a line from THE BRUSH OFF (filmed for the
most part in and around Melbourne’s - arts precinct). The “Kennedy” they are
referring to is – a work of art, a sculptural piece, in the gallery, with in
the film, (which is actually ACCA). It
is funny in part because, not only this piece but the whole film is a Kennedy. By
referring to the work in this way links what is going on in the film to the
world out side the film. It has the same effect that MacDougall discusses in
regard to the last shot, , in the film
THE 400 BLOWS which is a freeze frame of the main character. He writes,
“In calling attention to a reality outside the narrative, Truffaut [the
director] refers us from the character back to actor who plays his part” (32). In
calling our attention to the production designer it calls our attention also,
to the world out the film, in our case, Melbourne. Perhaps what these films and
other films like them do is to play a role in each of us “discovering” our own
“portraits” of Melbourne. In their book MELBOURNE: A PORTRAIT (1960), Mark
Strizic, photographer and David Saunders wrote,
Each [wo]man has in his[her] heart.
His[Her] own portrait of his[her] city;
To discover this portrait is revealing,
For his[her] city has made him[her] while [s]he made his[her]
city.
Works Cited
Clarke, John. Stiff,
2004.
Hillcoat, John. Ghosts…Of
the Civil Dead, 1988.
Joffe, Mark. Spotswood
1992.
MacDougall, David. Transcultural
Cinema. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998: 25 – 60.
Neill, Sam. The
Brush Off, 2004.
Ruane, John. Death
in Brunswick, 1991.
Strizic, Mark and Saunders, David. Melbourne A Portrait.
Melbourne: Georgian House, 1960.
LOUISE MACKENZIE_COPYRIGHT_2008
