SAE Magazine 13-2

Index ed to shake my tightly held ucture, of cause and effect er creative freedom in the eenplay was beautiful, but moments tore themselves gest a film both raw and wever, did not manifest in he writer of literature had e story dictate itself, the ented such meanderings the genius of Carl Th. es). hand this draft over to our Warner. Chris had been nce he approached Rod- to a feature film a decade and screenwriter, Chris was now keen to rewrite the film himself – in consul- tation with Rodney and myself (though I was in no illusion as to whose opinion he most required). The genre he chose was the ‘courtroom mystery’. Chris served the characters and story well, but some- how the essence of the screenplay had become too much of genre, not enough of artistry. Chris felt somewhat defeated, not by the script, but by the controlling forbearance of his two bratty coun- terparts. Rodney and I were at this stage working very much as a team (albeit an antagonistic team to anyone working around us). Enter David Rapsey – the Film Victoria appointed script editor with a polished sense of story and defined approach to story form. It was from David that I learned the importance of obeying the story engine and ‘value’ of a narrative its own terms. Under David’s guid- ance – the script focused on the incestual interplay of the adult offspring of this Catholic family in pio- neer Australia and the tragedy of their dogma-im- posed repression – a repression leading to murder. ➤ Rodney’s love of this story was paramount and I had grown to love the story equally. David pared the narrative back to its constituent elements and the story of ‘taboo love’ came to the fore.

SAE Magazine 13-2

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