FINAL CUT
Australia, 1980, 80 minutes, Colour.
Lou Brown, David Clendinning, Jennifer Cluff, Narelle Johnson.
Directed by Ross Dimsey.
Final Cut is one of the poorest films of the Australian renaissance in film-making in the '70s and into the '80s. Terry Bourke's Plugg would be a contender for the worst film. Final Cut is also the first film sponsored by the Queensland Film Corporation. It was directed and co-written by Ross Dimsey, who had written some of the Fantasm films as well as the charming Blue Fire Lady. He then became a Victorian Film Commissioner. There was some potential in the plot - a sleazy atmosphere of a very wealthy entrepreneur experimenting in pornographic films as well as snuff movies and an ambitious young newsreel-maker and journalist, making a documentary. However, the sleaziness seems to prevail, there are many exploitive touches and the screenplay strains credibility in its presentation of characters, motivation and situations. However, the cast is quite competent and does its best with almost impossible dialogue and situations. The technical side of the film is very good but cannot redeem the basic poverty of plot and poor screenplay.
1. The place of this film within the Australian film industry? The first of a State Film Corporation's projects?
2. The appeal of the thriller? Its use of exploitive themes and treatment? How well integrated were these? The attack on Dominic as an exploiter and the film's doing something of what he himself did?
3. The interest of the plot: The film-maker and entrepreneur, the sleazy atmosphere, his amorality? The contrast with the young newsreel-maker and his wanting to make a scoop? The woman journalist and her hopes for her career? The point about film-making and editing - the interesting use that can be made of film when edited? How well was this theme integrated with the basic plot? The opening and the photography of Dominic on his arrival at the airport (and its seeming like an assassination set-up)? Chris and his studio, Sarah and her magazine? The tactics used for getting the interviews?
4. Chris as a type - young, his work, skills, invasion of privacy, sensationalism, his relentlessness and ruthlessness, curiosity and exploitation? His presence on the yacht, the drinking, the puzzle about the wounded girl on the beach? His liaison with Sarah? The drugs, the weekend? Yvette and her presence in the penthouse? The set-up for Chris to shoot the prostitute? Dominic's fake death? Chris' own sudden death? How good a character portrayal?
5. The comparison with Sarah - strong woman, journalistic skills, casual liaison with Chris, the lesbian sequences with Yvette, the confrontation with Dominic at the end, her survival? Her decision to survive and exploit Mike? A credible character?
6. Dominic as the wealthy entrepreneur, his arrival and interview, his parties and his casual attitude towards them, his agreement to make the film, his own films, playing games, the set-ups, wanting to recover Chris' film, his use of Chris and Sarah, use of Yvette, his pretending to die? His own death? The ugly exploitive motives - realistic, credible?
7. Yvette and her presence, past, sexuality, sensuality? Her death?
8. The theme of shooting film and editing it, truth and falsehood? Tricks?
9. The minor characters ~ the people at the party, Mike and his subservience to Dominic and his killing Dominic at the end? The girl injured? The conventions of the thriller plot?
10. The stances and values of the screenplay? Realism, expose, exploitation?
