BY MARK MAWSTON
Luc
Roeg is the son of seminal director Nicolas Roeg. He appeared in his father’s
last narrative film as a cinematographer, and first as a solo director, the
much-lauded Walkabout, which received
a newly-restored release through Second Sight recently. Nic Roeg began his
career as a camera operator on such titles as Cubby Broccoli’s pre-Bond production
The Trials of Oscar Wilde and the
infamous Dr. Blood’s Coffin before
becoming cinematographer on films such as Dr. Crippen and Nothing but
the Best. He was one of the many hands behind the camera on the unofficial
1967 Bond entry Casino Royale. (Then
again, who wasn’t?) Roeg senior also worked with such luminaries as François Truffaut (on the Ray Bradbury adaptation Fahrenheit 451), Richard Lester (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Petulia) and John Schlesinger (Far from the Madding Crowd). However, it
was his work on Rogers Corman’s The
Masque of the Red Death that really set the template for his otherworldly
visuals that would later be seen in such masterpieces as Performance (co-directed with Donald Cammell), Don’t Look Now and The Man
Who Fell to Earth. Walkabout was
held up while Performance was
completed (although that film was so unclassifiable that its distributor Warner Bros. let it sit on the shelf
for two years) so that by the time Walkabout
was filmed Roeg was seen as a veteran. It was also a family affair in the sense
that Roeg cast his son Lucien John in the key part of the White Boy, after the
delay had left Luc’s brother Nicolas too old for the part. This is where we
take it up with Luc.
MM:
Walkabout
is seen as one of, if not the, quintessential Australian New Wave films. Yet, when
it went to Cannes, it was as the UK rather than an Australian entry as they had
already chosen theirs. Do you
see it as a British or Australian film, or indeed a crossover of the two?
LR:
I’d have to say both. I know that’s sitting on the fence a bit but the reason I
say that is because Nic was very much a 100% British filmmaker. He lived a good
life here and never emigrated to Hollywood but he made a lot of his films on
location in foreign
countries. That may have made him less of a ‘British’ filmmaker but Walkabout wouldn’t have been Walkabout without Australia itself so,
although that sounds strange, to answer your question, it simply couldn’t be
anything else but British and Australian as it has the landscape,
culture and David [Gulpilil – the Aboriginal co-star of the film] that make it
what it is.
MM:
Yes, I agree and Australia is one of the key stars of the film, to be honest. I
lived in Australia for a short time and travelled to the territories where you
filmed it so it’s fascinating
for me to see this film again on this new transfer. The first time I saw this
film I was 12 years old and it was on a TV which my grandfather built a
magnified screen onto so the image doubled in size! It was magical then but
magical in a different way now as I’ve visited the landscape I fell in love with
on that ‘big’ screen.
LR:
That’s wonderful.
MM:
You probably had the greatest ever ‘take your kids to work day’ when your father
chose you to star in the film. I know the film was held up while your father
finished Performance which, although
it suited Jenny Agutter better in the fact that she was 16 rather than 14, it
meant your older brother Nico was a little too old to play the young boy’s part,
which went to you. Do you ever talk about how different things could have been,
even though I’m sure it was a lot of hard work?
LR:
I agree with you on the ‘bring your kids to work’ day (laughs). Regarding the
role, we don’t really talk about it. Walkabout
was very much a personal experience for all of us, for all the family. My
brother was there with us when we were making the film, as was my eldest
brother, so we were all together. I don’t think anyone felt like they were
missing out. If anything I kind of felt that I had to go to work while they had
a great time hanging out in the Australian
Outback and bunking off any tutorage
they were supposed to be having!
MM:
I can see that. Did the fact that the film was shot chronologically help at
such a young age, so it seemed more like a real journey? More of an adventure
than hard graft?
LR:
It did seem like an adventure at the time, although there was a work element to
it. It was scripted and there were lines to learn on top of the travelling and
moving around. It was all essential. You don’t have any expectations at that
age of how things should be or could be, they just happen. So to be in that
natural environment and to be surrounded by those that matter was important. It
was a small unit and a tiny cast as well obviously, just myself, David and
Jenny [Agutter] so the whole experience was very personal and shared between us,
so yes, I’d say adventure first and the hard work followed.
MM:
I’ve spoken to a lot of actors over the years and they said they found it very
difficult to be taken out of their home environment for months at a time to
make a movie but as you said, you were with your family which would have been a
very different experience than a lot of child actors would have had.
LR:
Yes and having Nic photograph it took another layer away from the camera and me,
and kept it very personal from that point of view. Jenny was a very young woman
and she had to leave home in order to make it, and although she too became part
of the family it would have been hard for her.
MM:
Yes. Over the years Jenny had some criticism
for her pragmatic approach to the role but that’s exactly how a ‘proper English
girl’ would act. Very matter of fact and stoic. I think she’s marvellous in the role, a very steady figure for
your character, and she was the right age, 16 rather than the 14 her character
was in the book. I did laugh when Jenny said she was very excited at the time
because originally Apple Films were set to produce it and she thought that she’d
get to meet The Beatles. Obviously that didn’t happen but did your father ever
say why?
LR:
I never really interrogated Nic about that when I was old enough to
understand that. I’m not sure of the specific reasons behind it and at the time
I just wasn’t aware of it, understandably.
MM:
One of the most memorable scenes was when David covers your back in wild boar’s
blood in order to soothe your sunburn. I understand this wasn’t scripted. Were
there many more situations like that, filmed on the spur of the moment?
LR:
Other than that moment I can’t really think of one. I know that everyone on the
set was very upset about the death of the wart hog which had been struck by one
of our vehicles as everyone, by that time, was very much in tune with the way
David thought and how he respected the wildlife. People got very upset and it
had coincided with this terrible sunburn I’d got but David showed, in his way,
that we could take some of the essence of the beast and use it for good. Bar
that I can’t really think of any scene that just came to pass. Other than that,
Nic had an eye. He could just capture things without making an effort to do so.
MM:
Although many will flinch at the animal killings in the film, it does show that
every piece of the cull is used and that nature takes everything back whereas
man’s presence in the film, such as abandoned buildings and machinery, is a
rash on the landscape, something that can’t simply rot or be taken back by
nature in the way an animal corpse can. Was this something your father was
saying, which was very prescient
back in 1970, about what we are were doing to the planet?
LR:
I don’t know if he was making a political point in that sense but he was a
great observer and I think he could see things through David’s eyes as well. He
always had the intention of making the actual world a character in the film but
I think David really brought that to the surface as well through his own
personal relationship, as we were all living in such close quarters to each
other. It was also the first time David had actually stepped outside of his own
culture and he taught us all so much in terms of his relationship with nature.
I think that the lack of appreciation from others comes out in the picture as
well.
MM:
Yes, your father has such an affinity
with both David and the culture itself. It’s as though he’d grown up there
himself.
LR:
I think that’s very true. My father saw things that others simply didn’t. I
think that’s what kept it so close to my heart and the Australians who have
adopted the film. It took an outsider to see what was in front of them. I had a
discussion of these kinds of snapshots in time just this morning regarding the
Black Lives Matter movement at the moment. I think that Walkabout stands up today in that respect is due to its treatment
of David’s character.
MM:
Yes, that’s also seen in the relationship between David and Jenny in the film.
It’s nothing to do with race but rather the sexual awakening of both
characters.
LR:
Yes, it’s not open to criticism in that way.
MM:
I was lucky enough to get to know John Barry and knew he loved the space this
film afforded him when it came to the soundtrack. It’s interesting that it’s
more of a romantic score, which falls in with what we were saying, not only for
the teens but also for the landscape itself, the literal virgin territory,
which it seems to be a love letter to. It could so easily have been more of an
Ennio Morricone-style western
soundtrack due to the vast spaces. I know your interest in music led to you becoming
involved in the industry.
LR:
Well that came about because one of my first jobs was working for Tim Bevan and
Sarah Radclyffe [later of Working Title] when they had a company together which
was a very early music video company and they represented some great directors
such as Derek Jarman [and] Bernard Rose who were making music videos for MTV. I
was lucky enough to be involved in some of those which led to me setting up my
own company with Jeremy Tomlinson and Chris Blackwell, who then owned Island
Records. Jeremy, Chris and myself then set up this video company which became
very successful very quickly. It was a brilliant time to be involved on that
side of things on MTV when music videos were really coming to the fore and
record companies were relying on videos to get their acts seen. The videos were
getting more and more ambitious and it was such a creative time. I then transferred
from this and into films.
MM:
Your father also worked with pop royalty. Did you ever get to meet David Bowie
when he directed him in The Man Who Fell to
Earth?
LR:
Sadly, I didn’t have the chance of being on set when they were making that film.
By then I was buried in school work. Nic and Bowie always kept a very
respectful and, whenever needed, close relationship so I can feel some sort of
distant attachment. Of course we were involved with [Bowie’s son] Duncan Jones’
first film Moon, which was great to
come together as a sort of second-generation thing.
MM:
Moon very much reminded me of a Nic
Roeg movie when I first saw it.
LR:
Well that’s nice to hear as it’s a big compliment.
We were super pleased and he did a great job.
MM:
We touched on it before but [in Walkabout]
there is an overriding sexuality, as there is in most of your father’s work,
but this time it’s a look, a glance or even at one point the white of a eucalyptus tree branch used in a shot which then
changes to Jenny Agutter’s thigh. This would have obviously bypassed you at the
time it was filmed, but have you become more aware of just how erotic the piece
is on later viewings?
LR:
Yes, it did, but that also shows what a broad spectrum the film can appeal to.
You can watch it as a younger person and appreciate it and enjoy it in all its
visual majesty but you can watch it as an adult, still seeing all that majesty
but also appreciating all the subtleties
and the more adult themes in the film. I think part of the magic of the film is
that it gives so much on such a wide spectrum for the audience that are
watching it. I’ve had so many people say, like you, that when they first saw it
at 11 or 12, then again twenty years later it had the same, yet different,
impact on them and I don’t think I’m any different in that.
MM:
In the extras on this new release, Danny Boyle calls your father the Picasso of
cinema. I can see why he says this as some of the images are so abstract yet
beautiful. The only other director who I thought achieved something similar was
Stanley Kubrick. There were shots in Walkabout,
such as the sun transforming into the moon in a dissolve, that could easily
have been in the opening of 2001: A Space
Odyssey, as the landscape looks lunar in parts. Do you have a favourite
scene or indeed film of your father’s works?
LR:
From a personal point of view it has to be Walkabout
due to its connection to my family and specifically my father. From a cinematic
point of view he was quite an eclectic filmmaker. [His films] are all so very different
but give you so much. But I really couldn’t say I had a favourite over Walkabout as I have so many familiar connections to it. I’m a fan of his
work as his son but I’m also a fan of his work as a fan not just because it’s
my father’s work.
MM:
Like all great artists we see something different every time we see their
works. Is there one scene from the film that takes you back to the exact moment
you filmed it above the others?
LR:
Yes, there is the time when I climb to the top of the landscape – it’s not a
mountain but it’s more than a hill – and look out onto the horizon, and the
horizon becomes a mirage and it looks like the sea. That line “There’s the sea.
It is the sea isn’t it, what’s its name?†was something that stuck with us throughout
my life with Nic, looking back at various moments. It was a difficult day’s
work and a hard thing to achieve, but I don’t know why it’s the one that stands
out over the many and stayed with us.
MM:
That’s wonderful, as your father says that’s his favourite line, and favourite
scene from the film too, on the interview that appears in the extras on this
release. It’s wonderful that you both have that shared moment. It’s a unique
bond between father and son, one that will stay forever as shared experiences
tend to do. It’s wonderful to have a moving image rather than a still
photograph to go back to in the family album.
LR:
It is indeed.
MM:
I hope this new transfer will gain the film a whole new audience who will see
it for the masterpiece it is.
LR:
Thank you for saying that, Mark. It means a lot and is really touching.