Bruce Beresford, 85, is one of Australia’s most iconic film-makers. On Tuesday he spoke at the premiere of his latest film, The Trellers, which he wrote and directed.
Fitz: Bruce, we’ll get to The Trellers. But let’s he a few war stories first. I see you were at Sydney Uni in the early 60s, and became part of a brilliant “rat pack” of prodigies, among whom were the likes of Clive James, Germaine Greer, Bob Ellis, Mungo McCallum, Robert Hughes and John Bell?
Luke Bracey, Bryan Brown and Susie Porter in Bruce Beresford’s The Trellers.Credit: Did Dare Parker
BB: There was a pod of us, yes, who were in acting groups and writing groups, firing off each other creatively.
Fitz: Cue: William Wordsworth. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, yet to be young was very heen.” Was it like that?
BB: Yes. And I made a lot of friends that I’ve still got now, at least those who he not dropped off the perch.
Fitz: Did it feel like, “I am surrounded by titans of their age, people that are going to dominate their different fields, some globally”?
BB: Certainly it felt like that in relation to Bob Hughes, Clive James, Germaine, and John Bell. I realised they were all very gifted, while I always thought I was hopeless in comparison to that lot.
Fitz: So, what then? When they go off into various fields, what steered you down the path of filmmaking?
BB: Well, from kindergarten onwards, I had thought, “All I want to do is make films.” And I had already started making amateur films, and got into film festivals. But there was nothing much in Australia, so I went to England, lived with Clive James and two others, and after various labouring jobs, eventually got this job at the British Film Institute making a number of low-budget films. In the six years I was there, we made 86 of them.