Garbo (film)

Garbo is a 1992 Australian comedy film directed by Ron Cobb. It was written by the Australian comedians Neill Gladwin and Steve Kearney with Patrick Cook from a story by Hugh Rule. Max Cullen, Moya O'Sullivan and Imogen Annesley also star. Filmed in Melbourne, the story focuses on two Australian garbagemen (garbos in Australian slang) who have to compete with a new corporate outfit which also has ambitions to redevelop parts of the suburb in which they work.[2] The film's engagement with the simpler pleasures of community life reflects the work of Jacques Tati, who both Gladwin and Kearney admired.[3]

Garbo By Stephen Green
Directed byRon Cobb
Produced byNeill Gladwin
Steve Kearney
Margot McDonald
Hugh Rule
Written byPatrick Cook
Neill Gladwin
Steve Kearney
StarringSteve Kearney
Neill Gladwin
Max Cullen
Music byAllan Zavod
CinematographyGeoff Burton
Edited byNeil Thumpston
Production
company
Eclectic Films
Distributed byHoyts
Beyond Films
Release date
  • 21 May 1992 (1992-05-21)
Running time
100 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Box officeA$1,250,000 (Australia)[1]

Cast

Music

The Celtic punk band The Pogues recorded a song, "In and Out," for the film's soundtrack.[4] Kate Ceberano and Yothu Yindi also contributed music for the film.[5] Ceberano and her band recorded a version of Wa Wa Nee's song "I Want You" and can be seen performing the song in a club scene.

Reception

The film was much anticipated, but poorly received. While recognising that Los Trios Ringbarkus were 'astonishingly successful' within the '"stumbling dills" school of comedy', Jim Schembri wrote of Garbo that:

The film is incredibly pretentious, which may be a ridiculous charge to level at a film as lame-brained as this, but something must be said when pseudo-radical Lefty cliches get bandied around. The film makes these Left-wing platitudes about the evils of big business and how technology encroaches on jobs for humans... Yet the role of Jane (Imogen Annesley), Neill's love interest, is insultingly sexist. Jane is supposed to be an intellectual, yet she has absolutely no emotional range or depth... Director Rob Cobb missed the boat with this. A designer of enormous talent, an artist and cartoonist of great wit and perception, he has misfired in a major way. Surely someone with great visual flair should have at least made the film look interesting. The only contribution Cobb appears to have made is in the design of a garbage truck.[6]

See also

References
  1. "Australian Films at the Australian Box Office", Film Victoria page 13 accessed 12 November 2012
  2. "Garbo". Archived from the original on 6 February 2016. New York Times Accessed 2016-1-23
  3. Anthony Clarke ‘Making an Impact, nervously’ Melbourne Age 8 April 1982 p. 10
  4. Moran, Fran (14 July 2001). "Singles, B Sides, Eclectica". The Parting Glass, An Annotated Pogues Lyrics Page. Retrieved 1 November 2012.
  5. Film cover from VHS release.
  6. Jim Schembri, ‘Garbo’ in Scott Murray, ed. Oxford Australian Film 1978-1994 Oxford University Press, Oxford 1995 p. 340
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.