Making Priscilla Read Online Free PDF Page A

characterisation which might elevate it to something with greater dramatic and comedic impact.’
 
 
 
3. ‘ Priscilla opens with a bang and rarely flags … reminiscent of City Slickers , in that the pacing and jokes are that rapid fire.’
 
‘The repetition of the same jokes over and over highlights the essential weakness of the script — its lack of dramatic action.’
 
 
 
4. ‘There is little preaching about accepting alternative sexuality. It’s an issue, but a secondary one dealt with swiftly.’
 
‘The script skates across the surface of more difficult issues, opting for a superficial comedic narrative.’
 
 
 
5. ‘The energy level Priscilla maintains is incredible. Every scene is a little gem, almost every joke laugh-out-loud.’
 
‘One feels he is taking the safest story options, taking the path of least resistance.’
 
 
 
6. ‘Not since La Cage Aux Folles has a humorous film about gay men been so accessible. Priscilla, however, should prove a much bigger hit.’
 
‘Fine as a fifteen-minute spot in a crowded gay bar after midnight, but a ninety-minute feature film?’
 
 
 
    As I conclude our application, I emphasise that, when we have completed a location survey, we will make the dialogue sharper, the outback detail more authentic, and some of the jokes more inventive, but what we cannot do is change the nature of the film, which is a piece of gaudy, mischievous entertainment about three people in collision with a sometimes hostile, always bewildering environment. The application is approved.
    I continue to interview crew members, but I feel that we arelosing momentum. Months after they have agreed to finance the film, PolyGram seem in no hurry to respond to the investment agreement, and my own impatience is augmented by that of their Australian co-financiers the FFC. There is no need for anything to take long or be complicated on a film like this, as PolyGram’s film president Michael Kuhn emphasised at the time of their initial offer letter. ‘If negotiations become too time consuming or bureaucratic,’ he wrote, ‘the whole thing is not worthwhile.’
    To accommodate the delays prompted by Stephan’s nervous exhaustion, by Paul Mercurio’s restricted ‘window’ of availability, by Michael Hutchence’s absence in Capri at an INXS summit conference about the group’s future, and by the fact that if we have not started shooting by late April we must wait until the end of August before the daylight hours become appreciably longer again, I draw up another revised schedule. There is no point in informing anyone of this until Stephan is back, Mercurio and Hutchence are signed and the financing contract is underway with PolyGram. News of postponement is a certain way of slowing down any process which requires acceleration.
    The director is having a crisis of confidence. The two prospective leading actors are having crises of career direction. One of the financiers is having a crisis of indecision. The producer wishes he could have a crisis of anything but feels that all the best crises are taken.
    Stephan returns, refreshed but not yet restored, and begins a regime of swimming, meditation, breathing exercises and general relaxation. These days we have so many methods of dealing with demons, so many incantations with which to keep rage, fear and loss at bay.
    Although the picture is finally ‘green lit’ — at least, sufficientlyto begin contract negotiations — we decide not to film at Sydney’s annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, an event which, among other things, has helped to redefine drag. This gives Stephan the opportunity of attending as a participant instead. Dressed as a dog, at some moment well into the night he meets one of the investors’ executives wearing a dress, so he drops down on all fours and starts barking at him.
    The crew begins to converge. We need people of broad skills and tireless energy, and we are finding them. Colin Gibson and another art