Aussies storming Hollywood at the NFSA

Posted on 10 July, 2022

From Mad Max to Moulin Rouge, the National Film and Sound Archive has crafted the ultimate exhibition tracking Aussie infiltration of Hollywood. And now it’s open throughout 2023.

Adorned with bullet shells, and featuring a steampunk-style scrap-metal skull at its centre, the wheel of Max Rockatansky’s 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT Coupe is emblematic of the way in which Mad Max supercharged Australian cinema straight into the star-studded streets of Hollywood.

Fittingly, the heavy metallic prop and one of three steering wheels has been lent by legendary Australian film director George Miller to a blockbuster exhibition that opened at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) in January.

Australians & Hollywood: a tale of craft, talent, and ambition is the NFSA’s first original exhibition in two decades, and exclusive to Canberra, where it will run throughout 2023.

It takes visitors on a journey through the pivotal moments in recent and contemporary Australian cinema, its embrace by the Hollywood machine, as well as the people and stories that brought our movies to life.

Mad Max’s steering wheel will trigger broader discussion on how Miller’s post­-apocalyptic film franchise spearheaded Australia’s New Wave of cinema, redefining dystopian storytelling across the world and catapulting the relatively unknown Aussie actor Mel Gibson into the A-List of leading men.

Steering wheel from Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015), George Miller personal collection © NFSA

It will be joined by other iconic artefacts, including Crocodile Dundee’s original Bowie knife and sheath created by film armourer John Bowring and lent from Paul Hogan’s personal collection. The knife is one of the most immediately recognisable props from a movie that remains the most commercially successful film ever created in Australia—”that’s not a knife, this is a knife!”.

Both items, alongside others which include the exquisite cancan costumes and red satin dress worn by Nicole Kidman as Satine from Moulin Rouge, Muriel’s Wedding ivory satin wedding gown, and the official programs for the Academy Awards ceremonies in which Australian actors such as Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett won Oscars, helps bring the exhibition to its full red-carpet potential.

Nicole Kidman © RGR Collection/Alamy Stock

But physical memorabilia and never-before-exhibited personal treasures are just part of the show. The exhibition will be an audio-visual feast of behind-the-scenes, on­screen and red-carpet moments, featuring rare footage and interviews from Australia’s top ranks of filmmakers, directors, producers and actors.

So while viewers can take in the physical presence of the heavy Mad Max steering wheel, they can also absorb photographs, film rushes, outtakes, day bills and posters from the film—creating an immersive experience that may take some viewers back to their younger years in a cinema circa 1979, when a future world order included a lack of oil and imminent societal collapse.

To say conceiving of and collating the exhibition has been a huge undertaking is an understatement.

Australians & Hollywood Curator Tara Marynowsky has worked intensively throughout 15 months, filtering meticulously through the NFSA’s internationally significant collections while reaching out to the Hollywood elite for their own contributions.

“We absolutely went all out on this one and it has been extremely resource-intensive, as it is the first time we have embarked on a show of this scale.

“It’s been a mammoth task to curate, but an appreciated opportunity to unveil treasured gems within NFSA’s collection and to prepare them for display so our audience can get up close to them,” she said.

NFSA’s Chief Curator Gayle Lake said the exhibition should spark pride and reflection on our country’s rich cinematic traditions.

“Our country has always had a rich tradition not just within feature film production, but with news reels and documentaries, which is also a legitimate way of crafting a story. Our talent permeates from different platforms and our talent has been recognised overseas almost from inception,” she said.

“If one was actually making grand statements about our screen history in relation to this exhibition, it is that this is about the distinctive Australian eye and the way we see things both through the camera lens and in our design work.”

“Our stories also talk about the identity of being Australian, and while it may not be alienation exactly, we do experience a sense of distance from the rest of the world. Our landscape has always played a very important character and we return to themes of self-reliance which seems to be part of the Australian psyche, as well as our larrikinism and take-it-or-leave-it mentality.”

Main Image: Chris Hemsworth in Extraction © Jasin Boland/Netflix