Interview: Phillip Noyce

Interview by Guy Davis

Interview with Phillip Noyce
Director of the film Catch A Fire.

Nobody likes to do another’s homework. Nobody likes to another’s washing. You’ll even be hard pressed finding someone that wants to walk your dog. For the past 15 years, Australian export Phillp Noyce has been making another man’s films – and though he’s been richly rewarded, his gut told him it was time to let someone else take over.

Catch A Fire is the third film in recent years that Noyce – the other two being The Quiet American, and more importantly, Rabbit Proof Fence – has made not without a Hollywood beancounter in mind, but himself, a talented Aussie filmmaker - who left Australia in 1989 after cracking it big with the locally made thriller Dead Calm for the bright lights, big city of Tinseltown - whose mission objective in his career has always been to first and foremost, tell good stories.

Though Noyce started off doing just that – being the man behind the megaphone on such sublime local pics as The Dismissal and Newsfront – the luxuries of working in Hollywood were just too much to resist.  He worked on the hits Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, but he’s also got a credit on such cinematic dogs as Sliver and The Saint.

“Those movies aren’t worse, they’re not better - they’re just more expensive,” he says of his Hollywood back catalogue. “And with the expense comes the huge responsibility of trying to deliver the movie that will make that money back. These smaller films, you have much more choice in terms of subject matter - even if they didn’t show this movie in cinemas, they could make their money back through the deals they make selling it to television and the like. With most movies costing upwards of $60 million, a $15 million movie with a star and an up-and-comer is a good bet. As a director, you have much more freedom, you don’t feel that burden."

“It’s also about what was becoming a job - a very well-paid job. It wasn’t what we started out with here in Australia. It was a real privilege and a new experience for us as filmmakers to be expressing ourselves in cinema. It was a new experience for audiences as well - people would go along to see an Aussie movie just for the uniqueness of the experience. After 12 years in Hollywood, the machine was so efficient - get blockbuster, attach superstar, spend money - that you could just sit there and watch the machine do its work. So coming back to do Rabbit-Proof Fence was a real invigoration. And just doing that took me back to the early days, when we were pioneers, and there was a thrill in that.”

Like the acclaimed Rabbit Proof Fence, Noyce’s latest film Catch a Fire is a welcome 180 degree turn from everything he has been doing in Burbank for the past decade – it’s not only smaller, it’s stronger. The film, set in South Africa, tells of a policeman (Robbins) and a young man (Luke) who carries out solo attacks against the regime.

“It’s never too early to tell an historical story, to be reminded of the past so it can guide us through the present and the future,” Noyce says of his motivation in making the movie, which takes place in the early 1980s. “It wouldn’t matter for me if it took place five years ago - if it’s a good story, it’s worth telling. I’ve always admired the way South Africa came through that conflict, a bitter racial divide that seemed incurable. This is a story of a man who’s a hero not because he takes up arms but because it’s much harder to make peace than make war. Like the country, he makes peace with his own past, and I think that’s something worth celebrating."

“I also think it was important to make a film at this moment that explored the psychology of a person that felt the only way to change the world around them was by taking up arms, by using terror tactics,” adds Noyce. “The advantage of this context is that the audience knows when it comes to the story of South Africa that the black South African is the good guy. If we told a story about a Muslim who’s doing the same thing now, people would go ‘No thanks, I don’t want to touch it’. It’s important that we understand why someone would feel motivated to do that because that is at the core of the present-day problem. We’re not going to solve it by killing every alleged terrorist and all of his relatives - it ain’t going to produce any result except our grandchildren will still be fighting this crusade. And it is a crusade - it’s like we’ve returned to the Middle Ages.”

Next up, Noyce is bringing Tim Winton’s novel Dirt Music to the big screen. It was set to star Oscar Nominee Heath Ledger. “He’s doing The Joker, instead”, Noyce says of Ledger’s decision to do The Dark Knight over Music.

Somehow we think Noyce will overcome the obstacle of having to recast.

CATCH A FIRE is now showing