It can be difficult to create an
all-encompassing documentary that looks at the history of cinema unless it’s on
one very specific topic. How can you possibly cover everything that’s worthy of
being covered? How can you convey what you want to convey when knowing you
can’t possibly include everything that should be included?
Mark Hartley’s 90-minute
documentary on Australian cinema, Not
Quite Hollywood, finds a way. Split into three main sections —
exploitation, horror, and action — Harley explores Australia’s movie making
beginnings and the country’s efforts to at least get their movies into American
theaters. Not Quite Hollywood excels
not just as a respectable examination of Australian films and filmmakers, but
also serves as a witness to the creation of the Australian aesthetic — a look
and feel that would soon become known as “Ozploitation,” and which would aid
filmmakers in transitioning from making films inspired by other people to
establishing their own identity.
In the beginning, when filmmakers
were focused on trashy sex pics, nearly soft-core porn, the influences of Roger
Corman are almost tangible. Same goes for the horror phase, with obvious odes
to Hitchcock, Spielberg, and H.G. Lewis. But once the doc transitions again to
the action and adventure phase, much of which is vehicular in relation, you see
filmmakers begin to step up and create their own works that would, in turn,
inspire American filmmakers. George Miller, perhaps one of the few Australian
directors to command the Hollywood box office (along with James Wan), most
recently with Mad Max: Fury Road, is
a notable exception of a director who, like John Carpenter or George Romero,
started small with low budget productions and eventually changed the landscape
of movie making.
Not Quite Hollywood is also often very funny, getting a lot of
mileage from frequently cutting back to Australian film critic and full-time
curmudgeon Bob Ellis for him to dryly voice his disapproval over certain
titles, certain directors, or certain entire cinematic movements. Hartley also
occasionally lets his camera linger on certain certain subjects whom other
interviewees have suggested as having, er…interesting or combative
personalities, in an effort to offer an inkling that maybe there was something
to those claims. Inversely, stories about the utter insanity that Dennis Hopper
engaged in during the shooting of Mad
Dog Morgan, when compared to the interview portions with Hopper (who
good-spiritedly appears) that present him as very calm, reflective, and
absolutely honest about his past behavior, are equally amusing.
It’s no surprise that Quentin
Tarantino turns up as a talking head, and probably gets more screen time than
some of the actual Australian filmmakers whose films are being discussed, but
the overly excited director helps to represent that next generation of
international directors who were clearly inspired by Australian cinema. James
Wan and Leigh Whannell also appear, with Whannell freely admitting that the
scene in Mad Max where Mel Gibson
offers a bad guy shackled to a flaming car a handsaw directly inspired one of
the main concepts of their then-hit horror film Saw. (Not Quite Hollywood
was produced in 2008.)
Even if you don’t have a
particular interest in Australian cinema, you’d be wise to embrace Not Quite Hollywood anyway. Though the
accents may be different and the environments more desert-ridden than
cityscaped, the spirit of low budget filmmaking — and all the trials and
tribulations that come with it — are universal.
