Still focused

Two years after initially planned and twice delayed due to the pandemic, North Geelong’s Focal Point Gallery has managed to unveil its latest exhibition Stills Alive: still photography from Australian movies, chartering its rise, its fall and its renaissance from 1896-1985.

“A lot of people don’t realise in the early days of movies, Australia was leading the world, I’m really excited and proud to finally be able to bring this unique exhibition to Geelong,” gallery owner and photographer Craig Watson said of the more than 110 photographs in the show.

The Story of the Kelly Gang in 1906 was the first feature length narrative in the world, but during the first world war no one was making movies and then it was taken over by overseas interests, mainly Hollywood.

“We’ve got a small still from what is probably the second film made in Australia, which was Melbourne Cup,” Mr Watson said of the 10-minute film shot in 1896.

“The original reels were donated to the Australian Sound and Film Archives by French government in the 1960s… it was shot by Maurice Sestier, a French national who travelled to Australia in the late 1900s armed with a then relatively unknown moving image camera.

“It’s fascinating to watch back now as people didn’t even know about moving cameras so everyone just stood still… apparently he was waving his arms telling people to keep moving.”

The second image in the show is from Death of the Martyrs, a series by the Salvation Army which had the first registered film studio in Australia and was shot on the grounds of its Melbourne girls’ home in 1900.

“We’ve got four photos from Australia’s first talkie, a pretty unknown film called Showgirl’s Luck released in 1931 … some more well-known films, For The Term of His Natural Life, 1927, regarded as Australia’s first epic, big budget, big cast and big budget, it was directed by American Norman Dawn as part of the whole American takeover of the industry.

“Dawn invented the glass shot, where you would paint a scene on glass and shoot through it. He did this at Port Arthur putting a ceiling back on the settlement … we’ve got a shot of him doing that method on For the Term of His Natural Life.”

Other films featured include Sentimental Bloke from 1919, Forty Thousand Horsemen by Charles Schauvelle in 1940, “little bit of a propaganda film to get people behind the army and Chips Rafferty’s first film”, Mr Watson said.

There are a couple of shots from Jedda. Released in 1955, it was Australia’s first colour feature and the first feature made in Australia with Indigenous actors as the lead.

“Then we sort of move into the renaissance period so the ’70s and ’80s, The Cars that Ate Paris from 1974, Peter Weir’s directorial debut; Devil’s Playground from 1976; Getting of Wisdom in 1977; three shots from horror film Long Weekend in 1978 … a behind the scenes photograph of them setting up the camera for sweeping shot where John Hargreaves gets swooped by an eagle.”

The exhibition contains five photos dedicated to Mad Max, released in 1979, “because how could you not have Mad Max? If there’s one film that put Australia back on the international map, it was Mad Max”, Mr Watson said.

“It was a totally independent production. They raised the money for it from friends, broke all the rules on film making, George Miller’s first film.”

The last images in the show contain shots of The Man from Snowy River in 1982; Starstruck and We of the Never Never in 1983; Coolangatta Gold in 1984, an “iron man film about two brothers competing for the iron man trophy and respect of their father”; “a beautiful portrait of Wendy Hughes from Indecent Obsession in 1985, a really really nice portrait” and ends with Burke and Wills from 1985.

The collection of images has been shown once before, Craig Watson revealed, “Joyce Agee curated the show and first showed it the ’80s… it’s sat under her bed since then”.

“She’s literally held on to it hoping one day someone else would show it and I said ‘well I’ll show it’.

Accompanying Joyce Agee at the opening on Friday, February 4, was the celebrated Australian film making duo David Parker and Nadia Tass, who together have produced dozens of acclaimed international films, including Malcolm, The Big Steal, Rikky & Pete, Amy, Matching Jack, Pure Luck and the ABC/BBC mini-series Stark.

It’s the culmination of many years hard work for Craig Watson, who opened Focal Point in February 2019, “12 months before pandemic hit and turned everything to crap”.

“We were open and closed, open and closed, had shows but hardly had anyone in,” he said.

“My wife and I put what little savings we had into keeping the business going and after a few months got emergency government funding which pretty much paid rent and electricity, but it didn’t pay a wage or anything like that.

“But now that we’re open and hopefully no more lockdowns, we just have to get people in. Luckily it’s a big space so if people are concerned about being in close contact, that’s not an issue here.”

Stills Alive is open Wednesday to Friday until April 3, when it will be replaced by another show that is something of a coup for the gallery and Geelong, the Nikon-Walkley Press Photography Exhibition.

It will be the only Victorian gallery to display the images from 2021, many of which document the pandemic, and is the fourth year in a row the national touring exhibition will feature at the venue.

“It absolutely was a coup, I called them prior to us opening in 2019 and said what are the chances of getting the Walkleys down to Geelong and they said ‘we’ve never been to Geelong, so we can do that.’

“I mentioned it to a couple of people and they said you won’t get the Walkleys and I said I won’t if I don’t ask, I rang and I got it.”