FILM INFORMATION
Title: Bliss
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Running Time: 112 minutes
Year of Production: 1985
Country: Primarily NSW, Australia
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Sound Mix: Mono
Classification: R (USA & Australia)
Released in Australia: September 19 1985
Distributor: New World Pictures (USA)
Production Companies: NSW Film Corporation; Window III Productions
Box Office Figures: $660 537 (US)
Credits
Director: Ray Lawrence
Producer: Anthony Buckley
Scriptwriters: Ray Lawrence and Peter Carey (Adapted from Carey's novel, Bliss)
Cinematographer: Paul Murphy
Editor: Wayne Le Clos
Principal Cast
Barry Otto………………………..Harry Joy
Lynette Curran…………………...Bettina Joy
Helen Jones………………………Honey Barbara
Gia Carides………………………Lucy Joy
Miles Buchanan………………….David Joy
Jeff Truman………………………Joel
Tim Robertson………………..…Alex Duval
Bryan Marshall………………….Adrian Clunes
Jon Ewing……………………….Aldo
Kerry Walker……………………Alice Dalton
Paul Chubb………………………Reverend Des
Sarah De Teliga…………………Harry's Mother
Saskia Post………………………Harry's Daughter
George Whaley………………….Vance
Robert Menzies………………….Damien
Awards
Won:
AFI 1985
- Best Director: Ray Lawrence
- Best Film: Anthony Buckley
- Best Screenplay (Adapted): Peter Carey
Nominated:
AFI 1985
- Best Achievement in Cinematography: Paul Murphy
- Best Achievement in Costume Design: Helen Hooper
- Best Achievement in Editing: Wayne Le Clos
- Best Achievement in Production Design: Wendy Dickson, Owen Paterson
- Best Achievement in Sound: Helen Brown, Peter Fenton, Dean Gawen, Phil Heywood, Ron Purvis, Gary Wilkins
- Best Actor in a Lead Role: Barry Otto
- Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Jon Ewing
- Best Actress in a Lead Role: Lynette Curran
- Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Kerry Walker
- Best Original Music Score: Peter Best
Cannes Film Festival 1985
- Golden Palm: Ray Lawrence
Bibliographical Details of Interviews
I found it difficult to find interviews with Ray Lawrence as he has only made two feature films in his career. However, I did find a few quotes from him about Bliss in David Stratton's The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry (1990) along with some quotes from Peter Carey, the co-scriptwriter and producer Anthony Buckley.
Due to its time of release there are not a lot of interviews found on the Internet and I could only find one site where there was a mention of Bliss from Ray Lawrence about why there was such a gap between it, and his latest film, Lantana (2001).
http://www.filmmonthly.com/Profiles/Articles/RLawrence/RLawrence.html
Bibliographical Details of Reviews
There were a few reviews (not necessarily by professional critics), that could be found on the Internet, several that could be found on the Internet Movie Database website:
http://us.imdb.com/CommentsIndex?88821
Another interesting review on Bliss was found on the Internet:
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/australian_cinema/5071
Books and articles that contributed to my findings included:
Stratton, D. (1990). The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry. (Pan Macmillan: Sydney). p172 – 176.
Murray, S. (1998). Australian Cinema. (Murdoch University: Perth). pp134, 232.
Stratton, D, 'A Matter of Life and Death: Bliss', Cinema Papers, November 1985, p65
On-line Presence
As the film was produced in 1985, when the World Wide Web was not popular yet, there is not a whole lot of information on the film. Most of the content is cast and film information, and some very brief reviews and synopsises, however there are no interactive film clips or detailed critical essays. However, here is a collection of some of the sites I found:
http://us.imdb.com/
http://www.suit101.com/article.cfm/australian_cinema/5071
http://www.lantanathemovie.com
www.filmmonthly.com
http://www.filmwritten.org/reviews/1985/bliss.htm
How I Collected Information
Firstly and foremost, I collected most of my information from the video cover itself, and of course from viewing the film several times.
Because Ray Lawrence has only directed two feature films, it was difficult to find information on this movie, especially from the Internet. However, search engines like Yahoo and LookSmart Australia were a starting point. I entered the film title at first but was not very successful as 'bliss' seems to be a word used in a lot of business names, so, I added the director's name, Ray Lawrence, and this returned me with much more success.
Links from Murdoch University's Australian Cinema website proved to be very helpful especially the Internet Movie Database.
I also searched the University's library and found one book that talked about Ray Lawrence and how he came about making Bliss, which was particularly useful.
CRITICAL REVIEW OF FILM AND ITS LITERATURE
Synopsis
Bliss is the story of an advertising executive, Harry Joy (Barry Otto) who thinks his life is blissful…that is until he dies of a heart attack and comes back to life again. Harry is confused as to whether he really is alive or not and keeps a notebook to write down the things he sees. The film touches on themes such as marital and family breakdown, capitalism, and greed.
Harry's wife Bettina (Lynette Curran) openly cheats on him with his business partner. His daughter turns to incestuous sexual favours to her brother for drugs and his main client's products cause cancer. To top things off, an elephant sits on his small car and nobody, including the police believe him, and even he doesn't seem to believe it at first either!
I thought that the film took a very creative approach to showing how these scenes occurred. Lawrence used subjective camera shots to show Harry's mental decline and the surreal ness gives the movie an art cinema feel, which made me appreciate the film greatly.
The story progresses on where Harry meets a prostitute, Honey Barbara (Helen Jones) and falls in love with her, but Harry's family send him to an asylum because they think he is not mentally stable. I think that one of the most surreal scenes in the film is when the cockroaches emerge from Harry's chest symbolising his psychosis at the time. After this, he is the blackmailed into going back to his wife. Honey becomes very hostile towards him because of this. Meanwhile, Bettina has discovered she has cancer and kills herself in front of her co-workers. After Harry is released from the asylum, he moves to the bush to search for Honey. It is interesting to see the change of lighting from the city to the bush. While they were in the city, it was always dark, harsh and would be raining, but when Harry is in the bush, it is much softer lighting.
Harry then writes a love letter to Honey Barbara, which takes 8 years to be sent, and when it does, they reunite and they are happy together until his death. This is not your average romance, however, it encapsulates the essence of what real love and happiness is, which I came to appreciate in the film.
On one level, the film is very deep and appears very serious. However, it can be taken as a black comedy and there are some very funny moments such as when the elephant sits on Harry's car and the midget explains it to him in fits of laughter.
Compared to most other Australian films produced in the 1980's, I think Bliss is a superb piece of work and definitely one of a kind the romance category. My only criticism would be from the first time I viewed the film, the ending seemed to have jumped greatly in time and this confused me.
The cinematography was particularly aesthetic to watch and one of my favourite scenes to watch technically is at the beginning where Harry dies, and the camera looks at him from a bird's-eye view and eventually pans back to reveal the family's reaction, which seems to be genuinely traumatised. The imagery in Bliss is particularly important in conveying the type of characters in the movie, rather than dialogue.
Critical Uptake of the Film
Bliss was received very poorly in Cannes, where it was first screened (a 135 minute cut was sent as an entry), apparently most people had walked out before the movie ended, although there were a few critics from New York and London who felt it was worthy of entering more Festivals. However, this might have been a good thing for Ray Lawrence because he ended up cutting the film to 112 minutes, making it much more refined, thus receiving a much better response in Australia and USA.
Circumstances of Production
Ray Lawrence met Peter Carey at a party and they immediately became friends. After their initial meeting, they came together to write ads and two screenplays. Meanwhile, Peter Carey had already released his novel, Bliss, with great success. Lawrence and Carey approached many companies to help them fund their screenplays, but nothing ever came about. However, Anthony Buckley, Bliss's producer, saw potential in Carey's novel and this is how it all began.
At the time, the 10BA tax incentives were in practice and money was raised through 360 investors. Bliss had a budget of $3.4 million and production began on October 1984 and lasted 11 weeks.
After poor reaction in Cannes, no distributor wanted to take the risk, however in the end New South Wales Film Corp took it on board. In the first week it took in $42 000 and its box office increased in the subsequent weeks.
Ray Lawrence
Lawrence was born in England and moved to Australia with his family when he was 11. At 15 he decided to leave school to begin a career in film, and moved to Sydney, but he was not very lucky. He wrote a story and sent it to Paramount in New York, and somehow managed to gather the funds to go, but when he got there, his contact had moved on.
After so many failed attempts, Lawrence decided to go to London and start fresh by working in advertisements, but he still wanted to work on film. All his offers fell through.
He moved back to Australia and started a production company with Glen Thomas going on to making very successful ads for companies such as IBM, Australia Post and Telecom.
Finally, Lawrence got his break when he teamed up with Peter Carey to make Bliss, and after lots of work, it finally paid off. Sadly, he did not use his film talents again until 16 years later where he made the highly acclaimed film, Lantana (2001). Lantana was very successful at the 2001 AFI awards and overseas. In between this time he directed many successful commercials. Lawrence is now established in the United States.
Peter Carey
Carey's career has consisted of screenwriting and writing novels, his most recent being The True History of the Kelly Gang (2001), and Oscar and Lucinda (1988) of which he won the 2001 Booker Prize for. Peter currently resides in New York with his wife and two sons.
Anthony Buckley
Anthony Buckley, born in 1937, has worked on a myriad of television and films as a producer, editor and cinematographer, his most recent being the television mini-series, The Potato Factory (2000).
Barry Otto
Barry Otto was born in 1941 and began his thespian career in the theatre. His first major role was in Bliss and since then he has been working in both theatre and film constantly, his most famous movies being Strictly Ballroom (1992), Cosi (1996), and Kiss or Kill (1997).
Gia Carides
One of the most successful actors to emerge from Bliss was Gia Carides. Although she had been acting since she was 12, Gia has been most successful in the past 10 years both in overseas roles (she is now based in US with husband Anthony LaPaglia) and Australian films. She has received AFI nominations for her work in Strictly Ballroom (1992) and Brilliant Lies (1996).
Australian Film and its Value
Bliss is an important film in Australian cinema history. It encompasses the values particularly of art cinema, and therefore is not like typical Hollywood films. It has a European influence to it. I found that it was obvious it was art cinema mostly because of its cinematography, and this made it a prestigious film.
The film was made on a fairly generous budget and is considered to be a 'quality' film rather than an 'ocker' film as it about a middle class suburban family. Its landscape is not typical of other Australian films as it is usually raining and in a city surrounding.
A Medium Sized English Language Cinema
During the 1980's, the 10BA tax incentives were introduced into Australian policy. It was lucky for Ray Lawrence that this took effect when it did, because he did not have much luck getting money earlier in his career.
Because of the Hollywood dominance in Australia, it was difficult for Australian audiences to grasp Bliss, particularly because it is an art-cinema film. It was also difficult to attract overseas audiences due to its bad reviews in Cannes, and the fact it competes against other English speaking movies, from the US and to a lesser extent, Britain.
Because the film does not use techniques drawn from Hollywood cinema, it was not as controlled or formulated as many of Australian films in the 1980's were. Unlike many Australian films, Bliss can be seen as a high culture film as it is a quality film, particularly reliant on imagery and poetic language to tell the story.
FILMOGRAPHY
Bliss, dir. Ray Lawrence. 1985
Lantana, dir. Ray Lawrence. 2001
The Potato Factory, dir. Robert Marchand. 2000
Strictly Ballroom, dir. Baz Luhrmann. 1992
Cosi, dir. Mark Joffe. 1996
Kiss or Kill, dir. Bill Bennett. 1997
Brilliant Lies, dir. Richard Franklin. 1996