STACK #195 Jan 2021

FEATURE FILM

Is it more challenging to make a film based on a popular novel, in terms of the weight of expectation from readers and remaining faithful to the book? I suppose it is. You do feel a weight of responsibility to an extent on the source material and on the audience who read and loved the book and are fans of the author. But in other respects it’s kind of a blessing, because the author has done all the hard work for you and provided all the characters and original ideas and the storyline. Having the novel as a reference and a guide is incredibly helpful as well; there’s a lot to use. When you’re trying to tell an original story, you really are starting from scratch. Having to make the whole thing up yourself is liberating but comes with its own challenges as well. So the short answer is, it’s hard and it’s easy [laughs]. Why did you decide to cast international actors Kelly Macdonald and Garrett Hedlund in the lead roles? It was a case of finding the best actors we can, and they were right for the role in the respect that they were the right ages. It was also about having actors who really understood the essence of those characters and, in a way, had lived the lives of those characters in different respects. It would have been a bonus if we’d found two Australians for the roles, but nowadays it’s a pretty normal part of any actor’s craft to do some kind of accent or dialect that’s not their own, just like having to wear different clothes or a different haircut. TimWinton’s writing captures a very tangible sense of place, which is successfully translated to the screen in Dirt Music . TimWinton is famous for writing about his home state of Western Australia, and in particular certain communities there. He also has a very visceral relationship with the physical world, especially the ocean and the coast, the earth and arid environments. His descriptions of all these physical elements are captured so wonderfully in his books. Dirt Music , more than most of his books, really captures a sense of Western Australia because it travels – from a fishing village to Perth and all over on the road, and ends up in a very remote part of the Kimberley. It’s a really massive part of the world. We chose to shoot in Esperance, which is down south, then the islands off the Dampier Peninsula and the Buccaneer Archipelago, which is up north. When we measured the distance between the two, we realised it was the same distance from London to Moscow, which gives you a sense of how massive the place is.

STACK chats with Australian director Gregor Jordan ( Two Hands , Ned Kelly ) about the challenges in adapting TimWinton’s epic novel Dirt Music to the screen. Words Scott Hocking GO WEST

D irt Music is a romantic drama set against the magnificent backdrop of remote Western Australia. Georgie (Kelly Macdonald) begins an intense affair with handsome former musician Lu Fox (Garrett Hedlund), unaware that her partner Jim (David Wenham),

and because it’s not an obvious commercial property. He could never get the script and budget

working together, so he ended up giving up the option. Then producer Finola Dwyer picked it up and sent me the script asking if I was interested. I said I was, because I’m a massive fan of Tim Winton’s writing and I was curious to see how [Welsh/English writer] Jack Thorne had gone about adapting it. I was very impressed and moved when I first read the script and blown away by his skill as a screenwriter to somehow corral this massive novel, put it into a coherent form, and add some of his own invention as J o r d a n

D

i r

e

c t

o

r

r

G

o

r

g

e

the local lobster baron, has a history with the Fox family involving a tragic event…

Dirt Music has been described as a “long gestating project” – why has it taken so long to adapt to the screen, and how did it end up with you? I first read the book back in 2001 and remember being blown away by it, but I just

well. I instantly got in touch with Finola, lobbying to get the job as director, and I got the gig!

Dirt Music , more than most of Tim Winton's books, really captures a sense of Western Australia

couldn’t work out how to turn it into a movie. I found it very intimidating to be honest because it’s

such a big, sprawling epic; it had so many unusual ideas and abstract concepts and was definitely not a straightforward thing to adapt. Phillip Noyce tried to get it going, which was torturous because of where the story is set,

• Dirt Music is out on Jan 13

17