The Great Gatsby takes $7m in first few days

It’s annoying to see this described as an Australian release. Yes, it has an Australian director, writer and a few other HODs, but can we truly say this movie is indigenous to the Australian film industry? Would overseas audiences be able to recognise it as such? Its central theme is ‘the American dream’ for pete’s sake!

Yes, this film will be high-grossing, but it seems disingenuous to compare it with other Aussie films which would be made on 5-10% of TGG’s budget at best, and be released on a number of screens close to a similar fraction.

Perhaps a more useful comparison would be ROI?

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The film is Australian enough to be part-funded by the Australian Tax Office in the form of the Producer Offset, to the tune of anything up to $80m (depending on who you believe).

Excuse me while I open up this large can of worms that I’ve been keeping for just this occasion!

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I’d like to initiate a crowd-funded investigative report into exactly how big the Producer’s Offset payout was. FOI application anyone?

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There seems to be widespread confusion about what makes an Australian film, even within the industry, but certainly in the media – and consequently in the wider community. Internationally (at festivals etc), a film’s official status is determined by the nationality of the producer/production company. In Australia, for funding purposes, a film is deemed to be Australian if developed and produced by an Australian company, with several other criteria required including key department heads.

Creatively driven by the Bazmark team, The Great Gatsby is an Australian adaptation of a great American novel. The most recent Anna Karenina was an English adaptation (written by Tom Stoppard, directed by Joe Wright) of a great Russian novel (by Leo Tolstoy), produced by successful UK producer Tim Bevan.

The Last Emperor (1987) was another English adaptation of a great Chinese autobiography, produced by Jeremy Thomas and directed by Bernardo Bertelucci. And eminent UK producer David Puttnam produced The Killing Fields, a Cambodian story.

It’s neither the location of the shoot nor the subject matter nor the source of financing (eg The Piano was French money) that determines the ‘nationality’ of a film; the source of that is derived from the national culture of the filmmaker/s. Bruce Beresford didn’t make a Chinese film when he made Mao’s Last Dancer, did he?

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As for the Producer Offset, it is 40% of the eligible spend in the total budget; eligible being specifically defined to only refer to items spent in Australia on Australian products and services. This is not a capped amount each year, so every eligible production can claim it; it is not depleted by any one large claim. Just for the record.

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Andrew, thanks for taking your stick and giving my can of worms a big stir. Festivals will define what constitutes an Australian film any way they want. But the real question remains– why is this film, or any other, deserving of public subsidy? Supporters of subsidising the film industry in Australia argue variously that the subsidy generates economic activity, and that there’s a cultural benefit of telling Australian stories. But government subsidises would generate economic activity in any industry, whether it’s farming, car manufacturing or pole dancing. It’s hard to make the cultural case for subsidising Gatsby, but at least it’s finding an audience. The cultural case for subsidising other more obviously Australian stories tends to fall down, as they are mostly small, expensive films (relative to their production values) that fail to find an audience.

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Now you really are stirring PomsInCharge. This country has never quite worked out whether it wants a film industry or a film collective. An industry is very difficult to maintain in film production alone. Only Kennedy Miller Mitchell and Omnilab Media are the only functioning film-only production companies here and they mostly rely on major studios to help (as well as subsidies where relevant). Babe/s, Happy Feet/s, Tomorrow When The War Began …Your question goes to the heart of the debate we have to have: and if we really want an industry, we will help produce films that make money. See list above and perhaps The Great Gatsby. If we want to tell our own stories, we can have a collective making $2 or $3 million movies getting blasted out of cinemas and in reviews …

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Not to mention the sensational appearance from the up and coming Aussie actress, Adelaide Clemens….did anyone spot her?

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