NOYCE, PHILLIP – HEATWAVE DVD
RISKING NOT WAVING
On the 25th anniversary of its cinema release, Phillip Noyce’s second feature,
Heatwave, may get a better reaction on DVD than it did at the time, with
audiences appreciating that it belongs to a different, riskier era in the
history of Australian cinema, as Noyce tells Andrew L. Urban.
“I’d have no doubt shot it differently … told the story differently, today,”
says Phillip Noyce. Maybe that’s because I’m more conservative. I might have
made the connections between the conspirators more certain, rather than implied.
Heatwave belongs to a different era in Australian cinema, a time when we took a
lot risks. I guess that comes with youth – the youth of the director [Noyce was
31 at the time] and the youth of that second new wave of filmmakers. It was a
time when there was a love affair between audiences and Australian cinema,
something which these days is rather on and off.”
"fate delivering hidden surprises"
It was a bit off for Heatwave, too, as it happens and its lack of commercial
success sent Noyce into directors’ purgatory: TV drama. If film funding was hard
to get in the wake of Heatwave (strange as it seems after looking at the film
even with today’s over-fed eyes), TV work wasn’t. For the next three years or
so, Noyce worked on some of the most groundbreaking mini series, produced by the
Kennedy Miller house for the then Murdoch-owned Ten Network, directing shows
such as The Dismissal and The Cowra Breakout, and writing Vietnam. It wasn’t
until after Dead Calm (1989) that Noyce was again bankable. In retrospect,
though, he is immensely proud of his TV work; a case of fate delivering hidden
surprises.
Perhaps, muses Noyce, Australian audiences were averse to the political nature
of the subject matter in Heatwave (see synopsis adjacent); “although you could
argue that Newsfront (1978) had also been political, albeit of a bygone era.”
While not a hot box office item in Australia, Heatwave did, however, appeal to
distributors around the around the world, many of whom saw its strengths. The
film was best received in Britain, less so in the US, but it played in many
other countries. The interest was partly driven by the presence of Judy Davis in
the cast, who had just made a splash with My Brilliant Career and Who Dares
Wins. “It was just the beginning of a star system here,” says Noyce.
“But we were young enough that we were making films to express ourselves …
seeing ourselves in the movies was a new phenomenon.”
Also in the cast are Bill Hunter and Chris Haywood; Hunter as Stephen’s boss and
Haywood as the developer Houseman come fresh from Noyce’s debut feature,
Newsfront, but in opposite role relationships. In Newsfront, Haywood plays
Hunter’s apprentice; in Heatwave, Hunter is Haywood’s client. “Yes, it was a
conscious decision, or at least we were aware of the irony … we all talked about
the roles and they chose the roles they wanted; in fact, Bill couldn’t have
played the cocky English developer anyway …”
"made on the smell of an oily rag"
And while Noyce may have shot it differently today, he says much of the
Australian filmmaking essentials remain the same. “We had to shoot it very fast
on our limited budget of around $1 million, and there was no studio to bail you
out if you went over. So it was made on the smell of an oily rag – just like
films made here today … as with Rabbit Proof Fence, say.”
Published July 12, 2007
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 Phillip Noyce
HEATWAVE
DVD Release: July 10, 2007
A planned housing development in Sydney’s Kings Cross in the mid 70s, designed
by architect Stephen West (Richard Moir) for upstart Cockney immigrant developer
Peter Houseman (Chris Haywood), becomes the centre of controversy as tenants and
squatters in the doomed, older houses refuse to move. Their most outspoken
member is Kate Dean (Judy Davis), who works with the publisher of a small but
vocal local paper, Mary Ford (Carole Skinner) – whose relentless rabble rousing
against the development is silenced only with her disappearance. Kate searches
for Mary and has her suspicions, while she and Stephen develop an uneasy
relationship. The union bans work on the site, but a well timed fire changes the
dynamics of the dispute – but leads to tragedy.
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