New Zealand Cinema

I

Introduction

New Zealand Cinema, historical development of cinema in New Zealand.

II

Early Film-Making in New Zealand

Until the mid-1970s, indigenous New Zealand cinema scarcely existed. The country’s first feature film, Hinemoa, based on a Maori legend, was made in 1914 by George Tarr, followed in 1916 by The Test, a comedy directed by Rawdon Blandford. In 1921 The New Zealand Moving Picture Company was set up at Otaki, but it survived only six months.

New Zealand’s chief film pioneer was Rudall Hayward, who made his first feature, My Lady of the Cave, in 1922. Over the next two decades he directed five more feature films, plus countless shorts, documentaries, and news features, in the face of overwhelming odds and public indifference. Hayward’s sixth film, a sound remake of his 1925 silent Rewi’s Last Stand, appeared in 1940; 32 years later he resurfaced with a seventh and final film, To Love a Maori (1972), two years before his death. Many of Hayward’s films took Maori subjects and treated them with a respect and dignity unusual for the period. A handful of other early film-makers worked alongside Hayward, but audiences preferred imported fare, mostly from Hollywood. Ambitious individuals like the gifted young animator Len Lye took off for Europe or the United States in order to further their careers. Many films were shot on location in New Zealand by visiting production companies from abroad, but the resulting footage was often presented simply as the “South Seas”.

With the outbreak of World War II, feature production in New Zealand ground to a halt. The government-backed National Film Unit, set up in 1941 on the advice of John Grierson, turned out documentaries and newsreels. In 1948 the country’s first substantial production company, Pacific Films, was set up, but it concentrated mostly on advertising work, making only the occasional feature. Up to 1975 the whole history of the New Zealand film industry could muster fewer than 20 features.

III

Modern New Zealand Cinema

Inspired by the recent upsurge of the Australian New Wave, New Zealand film-making suddenly took off in the mid 1970s. Two independent productions, Geoff Murphy’s slapstick comedy Wild Man and Roger Donaldson’s political satire Sleeping Dogs (both 1977) aroused great interest, and spurred the government into action. The New Zealand Film Commission was created in 1978 to aid film-makers, and since then production has averaged a steady five or six features a year. Murphy and Donaldson both followed up their initial hits. Murphy made Goodbye Pork Pie (1981), a hugely successful road movie and one of the first New Zealand films to gain widespread overseas distribution; Utu (1983), a historical drama that was shown at the Cannes Festival; and The Quiet Earth (1986), an offbeat science-fiction film. Donaldson directed a psychological drama, Smash Palace (1982), and the big-budget co-production The Bounty (1984, starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson). Other notable films were made by Sam Pillsbury (The Scarecrow, 1981; Starlight Hotel, 1988); Ian Mune (Came a Hot Friday, 1985; Bridge to Nowhere, 1986; The Grasscutter, 1989; The End of the Golden Weather, 1992); and Gaylene Preston (Mr Wrong, 1985; Ruby and Rata, 1990; Bread and Roses, 1993; War Stories, 1995).

A distinctly offbeat, disturbing vision, sometimes described as “Kiwi Gothic”, has come from such idiosyncratic directors as Vincent Ward (Vigil, 1984; The Navigator, 1988; Map of the Human Heart, 1993), Jane Campion (An Angel at my Table, 1990; and the internationally acclaimed period drama The Piano, 1993), Melanie Read (Trial Run, 1984), and Alison MacLean (Crush, 1992). Peter Jackson’s first three films—the deliberately emetic Bad Taste (1988), Meet the Feebles (1990), and Braindead (1993), present a comic-book version of this strain.

At the outset of the 21st century the New Zealand film industry remains highly active. However its future remains uncertain, under threat from two factors. One is the continual drain of talent, with actors and film-makers constantly tempted away by Hollywood. New Zealand-born actors, such as Anna Paquin and Russell Crowe, depart as soon as their careers start to thrive. Sam Neill, though open to New Zealand projects such as The Piano and the 1996 documentary Cinema of Unease, a retrospective of New Zealand cinema, only rarely works there. “I’d like to work in New Zealand more,” he says, “but no one has offered me any jobs.” Among directors, Roger Donaldson, Geoff Murphy, and Lee Tamahori have followed the path of emigration; their individuality soon vanished. Tamahori, after his applauded debut the powerful Maori drama Once Were Warriors (1994), left at once for the United States, and has now descended to the production-line anonymity of the James Bond film Die Another Day (2002).

Very few film-makers have bucked this trend. Sam Pillsbury returned home to direct Crooked Earth (2001), his first New Zealand film since Starlight Hotel. Only Peter Jackson, most staunchly home-based of New Zealand directors, has consistently affirmed his commitment to his native industry. Following the international success of Heavenly Creatures (1994), an imaginative treatment of a real-life murder case that launched Kate Winslet into stardom, and another horror movie, The Frighteners (1996), he embarked on his hugely ambitious project to film all three parts of the J. R. R. Tolkien epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings, with an international cast and backed by Hollywood finance but shot entirely in New Zealand largely with local resources. All three parts, The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of The King (2003), have scored huge critical and box-office success, amply justifying Jackson’s audacity.

Jackson’s inspiring use of the spectacular and unspoilt New Zealand landscape has attracted other film-makers to the country, especially television producers; much of the cult series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995-1999) and Xena Warrior Princess (1995-2001) have been shot there. Ironically, this very success has proved the other factor that threatens the native industry. Most New Zealand films—Jackson’s always excepted—operate on shoestring budgets; they can scarcely compete on salaries and resources with the incoming overseas productions. But without these productions the talent drain will continue. Sam Pillsbury succinctly sums up the dilemma currently facing the industry: “No overseas films, no sustainable industry; too many overseas films, no crews for low-budget New Zealand films.”