BAD BOY BUBBY (1993)
Jon Dunlop: see also http://www.angelfire.com/wa/BadBoyBubby/
Director: Rolf De Heer
Writing Credits: Rolf De Heer
Producers: Giorgio Draskovic, David Lightfoot (associate), Domenico Procacci, and Rolf de Heer
Cinematographer: Ian Jones
Production Management: Paul Ammitzboll, Sharon Jackson, Gina Ploenges
Actors:
Nicholas Hope: Bubby Peter Monaghan: Steve
Claire Benito: Mam Natalie Carr: Cherie the Salvo
Ralph Cotterill: Pop Rachael Huddy: Rachael
Carmel Johnson: Angel Bridget Walters: Angel's mother
Syd Brisbane: Yobbo Ullie Birve: Robbed Woman
Nikki Price: Screaming Woman Audine Leith: Fondled Salvo
Norman Kaye: The Scientist Lucia Mastrantone: Pizza Waitress
Paul Philpot: Paul (Band Singer)
Release Dates:
Production Finish: 1993
Germany 27 October 1994 Finland 3 February 1995
Sweden 30 June 1995 Denmark 14 July 1995
France 1 November 1995
Box Office/Business Data:
Budget $750,000 (USA)
Interviews:
Interviews with directors, production company, and principal actors have been extremely difficult to find. There is not much information catalogued in Murdoch University libraries on any interviews with any parties involved with Bad Boy Bubby. Online presence regarding interviews is also bleak. Here is what was available:
1) Interview with Richard Flanagan: Author of the Sound of one Hand Clapping (featuring quote from producer Rolf De Heer)
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~waldrenm/flanagan.html
2) Bad Boy Bubby Review (featuring quote from Rolf De Heer)
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/9542/bubby.html
Online reviews and presence:
Reviews in newspapers and magazines are extremely difficult to find, given that the film was made in 1993. Online resources consist mainly of reviews
Venice film festival: Childish The Economist London Sep 18, 1993
Authors: Anonymous
Volume: 328
Issue: 7829
Start Page: 96
ISSN: 00130613
Subject Terms: Social psychology
Social issues
Motion picture industry
Children & youth perceptions
Motion picture festivals
Children & youth
Classification Codes: 9000: Short article
8307: Entertainment industry
1200: Social policy
Online reviews: A list of sites
http://www.powerup.com.au/~ezalba27/movies/arthouse/bbb.htm
http://www.film.com/film-review/1993/10394/109/default-review.html
http://www.afionline.org/fest/fest96/films/badbo.html
http://www.ausfilms.com/cf_tag_verity_detail.cfm?ID=Bad%20Boy%20Bubby%20%281993%29
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/9542/bubby.html
http://www.hollywood.com/videoguide/movies/bubby/index.html
http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/home/rurban/private/bad_boy_summary.html
http://us.imdb.com/Reviews/27/2789
http://us.imdb.com/Reviews/99/9934
http://us.imdb.com/Reviews/179/17986
http://subjective.freeservers.com/bubby.html
Given that, in my opinion, the online presence consists of only reviews and nothing major, I decided to create my own Internet Web Site dedicated to Bad Boy Bubby. It is consistently growing with the more information I find about Bad Boy Bubby and its relations.
URL: Bad Boy Bubby
http://www.angelfire.com/wa/BadBoyBubby
The site is lacking information at the moment, because I have found it extremely difficult to find information about Bad Boy Bubby. At its current status, the Bad Boy Bubby Web Site features a synopsis, links to online reviews, news on people involved with the project, Bad Boy Bubby trivia, links to webrings the site belongs to, and a guestbook for signatures for visitors.
Collecting Information
Collecting information for the following critical review was derived from the preceding online list of reviews, and a lot of it is from watching the film over and again and drawing conclusions from what Rolf De Heer has presented the viewer with. Searching at Murdoch University's library, it was found that the only item relating to Bad Boy Bubby in any databases was the actual film itself. However searching on a networked computer in the Murdoch University online homepage an article was found, similar to a review, entitled: Venice film festival: Childish
The Economist London Sep 18, 1993. So the information used in the critical review has been influenced by many different people's reviews.
Critical Review: Rolf De Heer's Bad Boy Bubby.
INTRODUCTION
Rolf De Heer's Bad Boy Bubby presents the viewer with a collage of mixed ideas that aim to evoke certain feelings when viewed. De Heer's employs cinematic techniques that enhance his implications through means of subtext. De Heer's work can be interpreted by analyzing his comments on such issues as society, religion, and family ethics. The filmmaker presents these issues and approaches them in his film in a way that will ignite controversy. The film is also comparable to the filmmaker's and actors' other works. Many people will find this film repulsive, and many people will find this film insightful. This essay will approach Bad Boy Bubby with all criticisms and opinions of the film's subject matter in mind.
Synopsis
Bad Boy Bubby offers the viewer an insight into the life of a 35 year old man who has been sexually abused and locked up in his apartment shared with his mother for all of his life. His mother, Flo, warns him that outside of the apartment he will die because there is no oxygen. However, due to the arrival of his long lost father "Pop", and his assumptions that the cats he torments must come from outside, Bubby slowly starts to get wise. Upon killing his mother and father with cling wrap, he ventures outside and here we are taken on a journey with Bubby as he struggles to come to terms with life outside his apartment. Bubby has a tendency to repeat what others have spoken to him, or what he has heard, and much of his dialogue is this. He then decides to go under the persona of "Pop", he joins a pub band, he orders cats pizzas, he learns to communicate with disabled people who cannot communicate as well as others, and then falls in love with the nurse who looks after them.
John Hartl, reviewing Bad Boy Bubby for film.com, had this to say:
"The filmmakers have no illusions about the nature of his innocence, and they create valid drama (and satire) rather than a soft-centered fable."
Bad Boy Bubby can be described as a modern fairy tale. Because of the lack of human conditioning that most people are brought up with, Bubby must learn to adapt to this life, and in doing so, he inserts himself in between being a protagonist and an antagonist. The theory that environmental influences your behaviour is brought into play here, as he learns solely from other people. The narrative can be interpreted into being a paranormal comedy, as his adventures prove to be quite humorous.
There are also many techniques that are used to enhance the plot cinematically. In representing Bubby's point of view, there is a scene in which De Heer illustrates a good technique in doing so. When his father returns home, De Heer illustrates Bubby's curiosity to him by showing his father's mouth at an extreme close-up, in order to show exactly what Bubby has focused his attention upon.
Bad Boy Bubby shows a perspective that degrades alcohol. One scene in which Bubby's parents arrive home, completely drunk, and beat upon him with violent actions and language, the camera spins around the room showing the chaos of the moment. Bubby sits on the couch rocking back and forth as his parents hit him and scream obscenities towards him, and their drunkenness is illustrated by the way the camera follows their jerky movements.
In the scene in which Bubby is thrown outside with a gas mask because he has misbehaved, the lighting is extremely dark to indicate unfamiliar territory for Bubby. Another interesting point about this scene which is not necessarily technical, is that Bubby has been conditioned for 35 years to believe that he will choke outside of the flat, so he involuntarily does for the first time.
Australian-ness and societal concerns in Bad Boy Bubby
How Australian is Bad Boy Bubby? It appears to be a film that is set in Australia, but centres itself around a plot which does not necessarily need to have an Australian theme.
"In most Australian films today, national identity is simply not an issue. That is to say, the current crop of Australian films (…Bad Boy Bubby…) do not make a point of explicitly and endlessly mulling over it." (http://home.mira.net/~lerowley/australi.htm)
Retrospectively looking back on the film, it has helped shape the Australian film industry to what it is in contemporary society. Bad Boy Bubby has opened the doors to new and provocative films that help shape an interesting look into the Australian ideology. Such films recently could include Head On, Body Melt and Welcome to Woop Woop. These films, like Bad Boy Bubby, present the audience with challenging subjects and most are not perceived well by many viewers.
So what are some of the key ideas discussed in Bad Boy Bubby? Strange ideas about Christianity are introduced, and the film's subject matter presents alcohol, sex, family relations and imprisonment with an air of cynicism.
Australian societal issues are prominent in this text. However, the way in which the filmmaker represents these issues can create critical concern.
Perhaps, at a glance, Rolf De Heer has created Australian societal concerns because he is against the ideas associated with contemporary society in the film's setting of South Australia. To expand on this further, I bring in the notion that society as a whole has not developed into a situation that can support and help educate a man like Bubby. For instance, every character Bubby meets with does not possess the intelligence to realize that Bubby possesses the qualities of someone that has led the life for 35 years that he had, and no one really leads him in the right direction, not even his wife. Some may argue that in partnering Bubby, she has lead him in the "right direction." However, it is not apparent to her the circumstances of his life before he left his mother's care. If these were perceptible to his wife, Angel, she might have a different approach to their relationship. But the fact still remains that no one really knew the full circumstances of his life before he ventured out into the world. However, everywhere Bubby went, there were usually people that helped him, and less often, hindered him.
To discuss society in general regarding Bad Boy Bubby, it is represented as an almost fairy tale like place. Extraordinary events occur for Bubby. He manages to hold up a service station with a dead cat, which indicates a highly improbable occurrence. He also joins a pub band, ranting and raving all the while about his mother and father, coarse language dealt to him from angry motorists and policemen, and crude re-enactments of cat torture he was so familiar with. However, on the other extreme, he is thrown in jail for literally talking to someone at a restaurant. In a crude manner, yes, but a far stint from murder and armed robbery. To support this claim, John Hartl writes: "Bubby's triumphs are almost accidental, and occasionally they're so farfetched the story becomes impossible to accept on a literal level."
Critical Uptake
Does the subject matter discourage critics, and the viewer from appreciating the stylistic elements of the film? Bad Boy Bubby still stands strongly as an emotionally powerful film into the following decade after it was made. Critically, it seems to have been received well. Critics have had much to say about this production, David Stratton argues:
"…Bubby gets his freedom. This allows (director Rolf) de Heer to unveil a devastating satire on contemporary life... On every level Bad Boy Bubby is a remarkable achievement. Be prepared for a confronting experience."
Here a critic introduces the idea that Bad Boy Bubby is a satire of contemporary Australian life, as it was filmed in South Australia.
Here Phil Herring nicely quotes:
"It must be said, though, that not everybody will enjoy this film. It's probably unconventional enough to discomfort most viewers, and the first forty minutes are set in a tiny, claustrophobic space, and are quite difficult to watch at times; plus the film directly addresses the matter of what is beautiful, and the way that women are used in movies." (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/9542/bubby.html)
Many reviewers have put forth the notion that Bad Boy Bubby will not please all viewers. Its lurid subject matter and the way it represents family relations, sexuality, and animal treatment will send some, more likely most viewers away.
As expected, when the film was introduced to the world, and more importantly film festivals where it would be judged seriously, there were two definite opinions of the film, as Katie Badham explains:
"Initially the OCIC jury was divided with one member declaring that the film was bestial and unethical and had complained to Festival management. Some judges were fascinated by its off-beat arresting themes but found it too ugly according to Peter
Malone, Australia's OCIC representative on the panel. Fortunately there were some judges who argued that the breaking of new ground in theme and cinematic style and the fact that we live in a world of evil needs to be seen in films that mirror this world, won through." http://us.imdb.com/Reviews/99/9934
So it would be reasonable to assume that there were much mixed views and opinions of Bad Boy Bubby in terms of critical attention.
BAD BOY BUBBY AND OTHER WORKS
Rolf De Heer, prior to making Bad Boy Bubby, had previously made Incident at Raven's Gate in 1988, and Dingo in 1992. Following Bad Boy Bubby, but not really making similar to its lurid subject matter, was Epsilon, Spank, Dance Me to My Song and The Old Man Who Read Love Stories. However, the greatest similarity is his second film after Bad Boy Bubby, which was The Quiet Room. This film involved a little girl who had difficulties in dealing with her parents' arguments, and decides to stop speaking, which she believes will cease all arguing. This is related to Bad Boy Bubby, which focuses on family and marital concerns.
Nicholas Hope debuted in Bad Boy Bubby, and has since completed much work. Most memorable includes his performance in Hal Hartley's Henry Fool, which he takes the role of a priest, ironically. However, when viewing him in other films, it is expected of him to take his Bubby persona on board, as he is very much typecast in Bad Boy Bubby.
Ian Jones' other works as cinematographer include Seeing Red in 1992, and unbelievably Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow in 1994. He has, however, worked as a camera operator on many Australian films like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Malcolm, Strictly Ballroom, Babe: Pig in the City, and Hotel Sorrento. He has also worked for Australian Hollywood Directors Philip Noyce and Fred Schepsi on Clear and Present Danger, and The Russia House respectively. It would appear he limits his work to Australian productions, or productions by Australians in Hollywood.
Conclusion
Bad Boy Bubby presents ideas that challenge the norms of Australian cinema. It has proven to be an instigator of contemporary cult films and provides the audience with a lurid subject matter that may deter people from viewing the film. This risky type of filmmaking has indeed paved roads for further Australian films to be made in this vein.
Rolf De Heer quipped: "A film about appearances...belief systems...spiritual, religious, scientific, interpersonal... it asks questions about the way we perceive the world."
References:
Anonymous (1993) "Childish" in The Economist London Sep 18, Vol. 328 Iss. 7829 pp. 96.
Badham, K Bad Boy Bubby Review Available Online URL: http://us.imdb.com/Reviews/99/9934
Hartl, J Abuse as Comedy available online URL: http://www.film.com/film-review/1993/10394/109/default-review.html
Harring, P Bad Boy Bubby Review Available Online URL: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/9542/bubby.html
The Internet Movie Database available online URL: http://us.imdb.com
Rowley, S (1998) Australian Cinema and National Identity available online URL: http://home.mira.net/~lerowley/australi.htm
Stratton, D Variety CRITIC'S CHOICE: JOHN POWERS, VOGUE MAGAZINE Available Online URL: http://www.afionline.org/fest/fest96/films/badbo.html
Filmography
Babe: Pig in the City (1998) dir. George Miller
Bodymelt (1993) dir. Philip Brophy
Clear and Present Danger (1994) dir. Philip Noyce
Dance Me to My Song (1998) dir. Rolf de Heer
Epsilon (1996) dir. Rolf de Heer
Head On (1998) dir. Ana Kokkinos
Henry Fool (1998) dir. Hal Hartley
Hotel Sorrento (1995) dir. Richard Franklin
Incident at Raven's Gate (1988) dir. Rolf de Heer
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1984) dir. George Miller
Malcolm (1986) dir. Nadia Tass
The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (2000) dir. Rolf de Heer
Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow (1994) dir. Alan Metter
The Quiet Room (1995) dir. Rolf de Heer
The Russia House (1990) dir. Fred Schepsi
Seeing Red (1992) dir. Virginia Rouse
Spank (1997) dir. Ernie Clark
Strictly Ballroom (1992) dir. Baz Lurhmann
Welcome to Woop Woop (1997) dir. Stephan Elliot