Wake In Fright

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Overview

Outback was based on Kenneth Cook's novel Wake in Fright. Gary Bond plays a naive young Australian teacher who is tragically unprepared for his new position in the outback. The community he has been sent to is populated almost exclusively by amoral, primitive toughs, more interested in slaughtering kangaroos and sexual carousing than in such niceties as education or propriety. The methodical shattering of Bond's dearly held values plunge the young teacher deeper into degeneracy. Outback was so graphic in its ...
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Overview

Outback was based on Kenneth Cook's novel Wake in Fright. Gary Bond plays a naive young Australian teacher who is tragically unprepared for his new position in the outback. The community he has been sent to is populated almost exclusively by amoral, primitive toughs, more interested in slaughtering kangaroos and sexual carousing than in such niceties as education or propriety. The methodical shattering of Bond's dearly held values plunge the young teacher deeper into degeneracy. Outback was so graphic in its original Australian version that 15 minutes had to be cut before American distributor Group W would consider touching it.
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Special Features

Audio commentary with director Ted Kotcheff and editor Anthony Buckley; To the 'Yabba and back...: featurette by not quite Hollywood director Mark Hartley; Q&A with Kotcheff at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival; "ABC's 7:30 report" on the rediscovery and restoration of the film; Who needs art?: vintage segment on Wake In Fright; Chips Rafferty obituary; Theatrical trailers; 28-page booklet
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Editorial Reviews

All Movie Guide - Nathan Southern
In posterity, Ted Kotcheff's Wake in Fright may be remembered more vividly for the incredible events that saved the picture from extinction than for the strength of its content. For reasons that remain unknown, the movie nearly faded into oblivion -- as of the early '90s, only two prints existed, both in unsatisfactory condition, and the negatives appeared to have vanished from the face of the Earth. But in 2004, a small miracle transpired when a conservator discovered a crate in a Pittsburgh warehouse that had been earmarked for disposal, and found deteriorating negatives of Wake in Fright inside. Thanks to the efforts of Martin Scorsese, employees of the Australian National Film and Sound Archive, and others, a grueling restoration effort took place over the next several years, followed by festival screenings, a remastering, and ultimately, an international DVD release -- which not only rescued the film, but pushed back into the limelight one of the seminal, long-forgotten works of New Australian Cinema. The movie itself is both an incredible find and a real curiosity. The late Gary Bond stars as John Grant, an Australian man despondent over the sad state of his life. Although he harbors serious journalistic ambitions, he has become "a slave" to the Aussie educational system. This means biding out his time teaching primary schoolers in an arid, depressing backwater called Tiboonda, which consists of only a railroad and two buildings -- it's a mystery how anyone could actually manage to live in this desolate hellhole. Christmas vacation arrives at the height of the Australian summer, and en route to Sydney to see his girlfriend, Grant stops for the night in the nearby town of Bundanyabba. He promptly loses all of his money in an illegal gambling den, and then falls into the throes of a group of Aussie men who spend their days drinking, whoring, raising hell, and embarking on grisly, brutal hunting expeditions. The story itself is essentially a thinly veiled reworking of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, with Grant as the Marlow character who embarks on a journey into the blackness of his own capacity for evil, and by extension, the savagery of humankind itself. This film even has its own Kurtz equivalent, a renegade alcoholic physician named Doc Tydon Donald Pleasence, who serves as a kind of Charon to the schoolteacher, conducting this innocent through the depths of hell one miserable drunken evening that ends at the nadir of personal debasement. To the credit of Kotcheff, a first-rate cast, and screenwriter Evan Jones who adapted Kenneth Cook's novel, the drama succeeds at taking events that could seem banal or trite in lesser hands and making them feral, ferocious, and even repulsive. One of the keys to the persuasiveness of the central horror is the partiality of Grant's degeneration into savagery -- in lieu of deteriorating completely, he merely regresses enough to witness and recognize his own inexorable degradation -- and we feel it, organically, with him -- the ease, for example with which he wrestles a wounded baby kangaroo to the ground and slits its throat open, simply because the other men are goading him to do so. The other work that this drama recalls is Fred Schepisi's A Cry in the Dark 1988. Like that equally remarkable picture, this etches out one of the most damning, merciless profiles of Australian society in movie history. It makes the prototypical Aussie male seem scarcely more evolved than a carnivorous, lecherous beast of the wild -- and, by extension, Kotcheff and Jones bring the entire country's national character into question. It is difficult to imagine many Aussie viewers responding enthusiastically to this picture, but equally improbable that anyone could seriously challenge the movie's credibility, which one never doubts. The film's only flaw is a minor one: Some of the stylistic devices, such as the rapid-fire montages of vile and depraved images, have aged poorly. But that in no way detracts from the visceral power of the backslide into the abyss that we experience along with the central character.
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Product Details

  • Release Date: 1/1/2013
  • UPC: 014381821529
  • Original Release: 1971

    • Rating:

  • Source: Draft House Films
  • Region Code: 1
  • Time: 1:49:00
  • Format: DVD
  • Sales rank: 24,026

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits
Gary Bond John Grant
Donald Pleasence Doc Tydon
Chips Rafferty Jock Crawford
Sylvia Kay Janette Hynes
Jack Thompson Dick
Al Thomas Tim Hynes
Peter Whittle Joe
John Meillon Charlie
John Armstrong Atkins
Slim de Grey Jarvis
Maggie Dence Receptionist
Norman Erskine Joe the Cook
Buster Fiddess Charlie Jones
Tex Foote Stubbs
Nancy Knudsen Robyn
Dawn Lake Joyce
Harry Lawrence Higgins
Bob McDarra Pig Eyes
Owen Moase 1st Controller
John Dalleen 2nd Controller
Colin Hughes Stockman
Jacko Jackson Van Driver
Carlo Marchini Poker Player
Liam Reynolds Miner
John Scott Conductor
Technical Credits
Ted Kotcheff Director
Howard Barnes Executive Producer
Anthony Buckley Editor
Monica Dawkins Makeup
Dennis Gentle Art Director, Production Designer
Bill Harmon Executive Producer
Evan Jones Screenwriter
John McLean Camera Operator
Keith Palmer Sound Editor
Howard Rubie Asst. Director
John Scott Score Composer
Maurice Singer Associate Producer
Hugh Strain Sound Mixer
Tim Wellburn Sound Editor
Brian West Cinematographer
George W. Willoughby Producer
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Scene Index

Disc #1 -- Wake in Fright
1. Main Titles [6:18]
2. Only Staying the Night [6:40]
3. Paradise on Earth [14:17]
4. $200 on Tails [8:25]
5. Not a Buff [10:17]
6. Drink Up [10:14]
7. She'll Try Anything [12:04]
8. Kangaroo Hunt [6:21]
9. He's a Beauty [12:18]
10. Shower and Shave [8:46]
11. Straight Through [11:55]
12. End Credits [:58]
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Menu

Disc #1 -- Wake in Fright
   Play Movie
   Scene Selection
   Subtitles
      English SDH
      Subtitles: Off
   Special Features
      Audio Commentary with Director Ted Kotcheff and Editor Anthony Buckley
         Audio Commentary: On
         Audio Commentary: Off
      To "The Yabba" and Back
      Q&A with Ted Kotcheff at the 2009 TIFF
      Who Needs Art?
      Chips Rafferty Obituary
      TV Spot: ABC's 7:30 Report Rediscovery and Restoration of the Film
      Trailers
         Wake in Fright 2012 Trailer
         The Ambassador
         Bullhead
         Klown
         Miami Connection
         Drafthouse Alliance Stinger
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