Australian director Bruce Beresford is famously deprecating about his own work but in his hilarious 2007 memoir, he did make a rare admission, about his 1991 film Black Robe: "I'll always be proud of this one".
Nominated for 10 AFI awards, Black Robe, the first feature film co-produced by Australia and Canada, has been restored by the National Film and Sound Archive. It will be shown at the archive in Canberra on Saturday, an event at which Beresford and producer Sue Milliken will also be in conversation.
Beresford, now 79 and as candid and engaging as ever with no plans to slow down, said he was still satisfied by Black Robe, set in 1634 in what would eventually become Quebec, telling the story of Jesuits trying to convert the Algonguin Indian community to Christianity.
"Mostly you finish films and think, 'Oh, God, I could have done a lot better'. But Black Robe, overall, was pretty good," Beresford said.
"It was really what I wanted to make. I wanted to do a film that was very authentic in feel. I wanted the audience to feel they were back there in the 17th century and I think it does have that quality. Because a lot of historical films, you see, the look, the dressing, is correct or more less correct, but the attitudes are basically 20th century or 21st century. And I thought this one didn't have that drawback."
Beresford did view the NFSA-restored print of Black Robe when it premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival last month.
"They've done a wonderful job," he said, adding that it was a rare occasion when he did revisit one of his own films because "all I see are faults".
Black Robe launched the career of Australian actor Aden Young, who Beresford said "could've been a big Hollywood star". "He has so many offers," he said. "I think he was a bit embarrassed by his good looks and he wanted to prove he was an actor, so he did all sorts of things where he looked unattractive. Mistake."
Beresford has directed hits such as Driving Miss Daisy, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1989, and Tender Mercies, starring Robert Duvall, who won an Oscar for his performance. His other films include Mao's Last Dancer, Evelyn, The Contract and the Australian film Ladies in Black, released last year.
His early work includes the iconic The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, Puberty Blues and Breaker Morant.
That 2007 memoir, Josh Hartnett definitely wants to do this...True stories from a life in the screen trade, was asmuch a hilarious insider's view of movie celebrity as a revelation of the mechanics of film-making, especially the financing. The book, a series of Beresford's diary entries, has one as far back as 2003 about trying to secure funding to make the Australian film Ladies in Black, which was only released last year.
The title of the book was a reference to the laborious process of trying to get a film made about the jazz trumpeter Chet Baker, and the possibility that American actor Josh Hartnett would star in it. But the actor turned out "to be a pain in the neck" who never committed to the film.
"Finally, I said, 'Look, Josh, we've got to stop meeting. You've either to say you'll do the film or say you won't. But I can't keep meeting like this. I haven't got the time and all we're talking about is how brilliant you are'," he said, with a laugh.
Beresford says, candidly again, that there will be no more memoirs or diaries, because nobody bought the book.
"They got good reviews but the sales were negligible," he said, in that little conspiratorial, slightly unhinged-sounding giggle he has.
Beresford, who turns 80 next year, says he always has three or four projects on the go, including a possible film version of the David Williamson play Nearer the Gods, about Isaac Newton. He intends to just "keep working".
"I can't believe I'm going to be 80, it's ridiculous," he said.
He has done TV work in the United States and agrees the quality of television has increased. Not that he watches. "Someone said to me the other day, 'Will you binge watch all weekend?'. I said, 'I can't do that, I want to go kayaking and hiking'. I can't sit down and watch TV the whole weekend."
Beresford says making films "is good fun" but "it's all pretty ephemeral. They'll all be forgotten".
And he's still sceptical about his films and how they will be remembered, especially after his daughter once told him she'd never heard of Gone With the Wind.
"I thought, 'Gosh, if that one's forgotten already, what chance have I got?'," he said, with characteristic good humour.
- Black Robe screening and Bruce Beresford and Sue Milliken in conversation 2pm on Saturday at the National Film and Sound Archive, McCoy Circuit, Acton. Tickets here.
