Eric SamulskiVale Richard Franklin
July 27th 2007 04:02
A film with go-go
Sadly Australia has lost one of its great film-makers. Richard Franklin. A man who has inspired many guerilla film-makers not just here but around the world – love his work.
I’ll tell you the story that inspired me, not only to make films but to realise that you can achieve anything – all you need is a good idea and hard work.
After finishing their film, The True Story of Eskimo Nell in 1975, Franklin and producers Tony Ginnane and Leon Gorr were thrown into a rampaging villagers frenzy created by the book-burners – cos they wanted to know why porn was being funded by the government. Sure, they had some government funding but the film wasn’t porn. It was the way Aussie films were made before the cry-babies took over the industry.
Anyway, they needed cash to make their next film, Patrick and weren’t having any luck raising it. They decided to make a soft-core porn flick because they thought a movie like that would do well enough to fund the film they really wanted to make. They couldn’t get anyone here to act in it so they went to America, shot all the segments (including one with John Holmes) and came back to Australia to shoot the intros which created a narrative and stitched the segments together. It’s a great film. It’s so good in fact, Duke and I used to drag film-school cry-babies to screenings and tell them that’s the sort of film they should be making. Self-funded gutsy films that give the industry some go-go. We’re not aloud to do that anymore.
How’s that for a go-go Australian film industry story – there aren’t many.
Richard Franklin (1948-2007) sadly missed, RIP.
Until next time and happy film-making.
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