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Bliss (1985 film)
Encyclopedia
Bliss is a 1985 Australian film directed by Ray Lawrence, co-adapted by Lawrence and Peter Carey, author of the original novel Bliss
from which it is adapted.
It starred Barry Otto
who, at the time, was best known in Sydney for his theatre work, and Lynette Curran
, a veteran star of Australian stage, TV and film and a former co-star of the popular ABC
soap opera Bellbird
. Notable among the supporting roles is an early film appearance by Gia Carides
and an early cameo role by John Doyle
.
After a rocky start –400 of the 2000-strong audience walked out during its first screening at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival
– the film went on to receive multiple awards at the AFI awards
.
Harry tries to reform and steer a morally correct path, abandoning most of the trappings of his previous affluent life, to the dismay and disruption of everyone around him. He is also seemingly 'tested' by a series of bizarre and frightening events including being 'sectioned
' to a psychiatric hospital. In one memorable sequence, Harry is dragged through a bizarre and blackly humorous chain of events, in which he smokes marijuana
for the first time with a terminally ill waiter friend, then has his car crushed by an elephant and is finally arrested. The extended version of this sequence was cut from the original theatrical release after its premiere at Cannes, but the full length scene featuring a tour-de-force monologue by Barry Otto (captured in a single unedited take) was restored for the film's re-issue in the 1990s.
Fighting for his sanity, Harry flees his home and takes up residence in a hotel, where meets a young hippie
country girl, Honey Barbara, who prostitutes herself and helps a friend sell marijuana on trips to the city to bring money back to their forest commune. Harry decides that Barbara is his true love but he is soon drawn back into his old ways, and she with him. She eventually rejects Harry's lapse back to materialism and flees to the commune, refusing to see him. Harry pursues her patiently over many years, living alone near her commune, and eventually winning her heart with a 'gift' of plantings of the type of tree that provides Barbara's favourite honey (the Yellow Box Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus melliodora
).
theatrette with 130 seats. Positive reviews and word of mouth helped it to find an audience and become a cult hit. It won three AFI Awards for Best Picture
, Best Direction
and Best Adapted Screenplay for 1985 and played for six months.
Bliss has since acquired a significantly higher critical reputation. Former Sydney Morning Herald
film critic and Sydney Film Festival
director Paul Byrnes describes it as:
Despite the film's eventual success, director Ray Lawrence did not direct a second film until Lantana
(2001), and in the intervening period he chiefly earned his living as a director of television commercials, several of which won industry awards. His third film, Jindabyne
, was released in 2006.
in 1985. It was also nominated for the Palme d'Or
(Golden Palm) at the Cannes Film Festival
in the same year.
Bliss (novel)
Bliss is a novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. Published in 1981, the book won that year's Miles Franklin Award.-Plot:Written as a dark, comic fable, the story concerns an advertising executive, Harry Joy, who briefly 'dies' of a heart attack. On being resuscitated, he realizes that the life he...
from which it is adapted.
It starred Barry Otto
Barry Otto
Barry Otto is an Australian actor with a long list of memorable roles on stage and in film. Otto received an AFI Award for Best Supporting Actor in Strictly Ballroom as well as being nominated for Bliss, Cosi and The More Things Change......
who, at the time, was best known in Sydney for his theatre work, and Lynette Curran
Lynette Curran
Lynette Curran is an Australian actress best known for her roles in Australian television series and films. Between 1967 and 1974 she was a regular in soap opera Bellbird. She also acted in the film version of the serial, Country Town ....
, a veteran star of Australian stage, TV and film and a former co-star of the popular ABC
ABC Television
ABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public broadcasting broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas....
soap opera Bellbird
Bellbird (TV series)
Bellbird was an Australian soap opera set in a small Victorian rural township. The series was produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation at its Ripponlea TV studios in Elsternwick, Melbourne, Victoria. The series was produced between 28 August 1967 and December 1977...
. Notable among the supporting roles is an early film appearance by Gia Carides
Gia Carides
Gia Carides is an Australian actress. She is best known for her portrayals of Liz Holt in Strictly Ballroom, Susy Connor in Brilliant Lies, and Cousin Nikki in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.-Early life:...
and an early cameo role by John Doyle
John Doyle (comedian)
John Partick Doyle AM is an award-winning Australian actor, writer, radio presenter and comedian.-Early life:Doyle was born in Lithgow, New South Wales in 1953 into a music-loving, Catholic household with three sisters and a brother. His mother was a business woman and father a railway fettler...
.
After a rocky start –400 of the 2000-strong audience walked out during its first screening at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival
1985 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Miloš Forman *Claude Imbert *Edwin Zbonek *Francis Veber *Jorge Amado *Mauro Bolognini *Michel Perez *Mo Rothmann *Néstor Almendros *Sarah Miles...
– the film went on to receive multiple awards at the AFI awards
Australian Film Institute Awards
The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award, known as the AACTA Award , is an accolade presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts . The awards recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry and television industry, including directors,...
.
Plot
Harry Joy, an advertising executive in an unnamed Australian city who is known for his ability to tell stories, has a terrifying near-death experience after suffering a massive heart attack, brought on by his dissolute lifestyle. Upon recovering, he believes himself to be either in a hellish version of the world he knew, or with his eyes opened to an altogether different view of that world. He eventually discovers that his wife is unfaithful, his dissolute daughter trades sex for hard drugs with his deviant son, and his latest client is a carcinogenic polluter.Harry tries to reform and steer a morally correct path, abandoning most of the trappings of his previous affluent life, to the dismay and disruption of everyone around him. He is also seemingly 'tested' by a series of bizarre and frightening events including being 'sectioned
Involuntary commitment
Involuntary commitment or civil commitment is a legal process through which an individual with symptoms of severe mental illness is court-ordered into treatment in a hospital or in the community ....
' to a psychiatric hospital. In one memorable sequence, Harry is dragged through a bizarre and blackly humorous chain of events, in which he smokes marijuana
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
for the first time with a terminally ill waiter friend, then has his car crushed by an elephant and is finally arrested. The extended version of this sequence was cut from the original theatrical release after its premiere at Cannes, but the full length scene featuring a tour-de-force monologue by Barry Otto (captured in a single unedited take) was restored for the film's re-issue in the 1990s.
Fighting for his sanity, Harry flees his home and takes up residence in a hotel, where meets a young hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
country girl, Honey Barbara, who prostitutes herself and helps a friend sell marijuana on trips to the city to bring money back to their forest commune. Harry decides that Barbara is his true love but he is soon drawn back into his old ways, and she with him. She eventually rejects Harry's lapse back to materialism and flees to the commune, refusing to see him. Harry pursues her patiently over many years, living alone near her commune, and eventually winning her heart with a 'gift' of plantings of the type of tree that provides Barbara's favourite honey (the Yellow Box Eucalyptus, Eucalyptus melliodora
Eucalyptus melliodora
Eucalyptus melliodora, commonly known as Yellow Box, is a medium sized to occasionally tall eucalypt. The bark is variable ranging from smooth with an irregular, short stocking, to covering most of the trunk, fibrous, dense or loosely held, grey, yellow or red-brown, occasionally very coarse,...
).
Selected cast
- Barry OttoBarry OttoBarry Otto is an Australian actor with a long list of memorable roles on stage and in film. Otto received an AFI Award for Best Supporting Actor in Strictly Ballroom as well as being nominated for Bliss, Cosi and The More Things Change......
as Harry Joy - Lynette CurranLynette CurranLynette Curran is an Australian actress best known for her roles in Australian television series and films. Between 1967 and 1974 she was a regular in soap opera Bellbird. She also acted in the film version of the serial, Country Town ....
as Bettina Joy - Helen Jones as Honey Barbara
- Miles Buchanan as David Joy
- Gia CaridesGia CaridesGia Carides is an Australian actress. She is best known for her portrayals of Liz Holt in Strictly Ballroom, Susy Connor in Brilliant Lies, and Cousin Nikki in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.-Early life:...
as Lucy Joy
Commercial and critical reception
Early responses to Bliss were mixed, as the Cannes walkouts attest. Its initial Australian release was killed after the Office of Film and Literature Classification classified it as Restricted 18+ because of the incest scene between Harry’s children, and as a result, no Australian distributor would handle it. The classification was eventually overturned on appeal and the film opened at the State Theatrette in Sydney, a tiny former newsreelNewsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
theatrette with 130 seats. Positive reviews and word of mouth helped it to find an audience and become a cult hit. It won three AFI Awards for Best Picture
Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film
This page lists the winners and nominees for the AACTA Award for Best Film since its institution in 1958. The award is presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts , an organisation which promotes the Australian film industry. Since the 1958 Australian Film Awards the...
, Best Direction
Australian Film Institute Award for Best Direction
The Australian Film Institute Award for Best Direction is an award in the annual Australian Film Institute Awards.-Previous winners:*1971 – Homesdale *1972 – Stork...
and Best Adapted Screenplay for 1985 and played for six months.
Bliss has since acquired a significantly higher critical reputation. Former Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
film critic and Sydney Film Festival
Sydney Film Festival
The Sydney Film Festival is an annual film festival held in the Australian city of Sydney and is held over 12 days in June. The competitive film festival draws international and local attention, with films being showcased in several venues across the city centre and includes features,...
director Paul Byrnes describes it as:
- "... a key film in the story of Australian movies. It represents a kind of liberation point – a leap away from naturalism and the historical realism of the 'new wave’ of the 1970s, towards the modernism of the 1990s. To say it was ahead of its time is an understatement – the boldness of its metaphors and the sharpness of its satire were too much for many people in 1985."
Despite the film's eventual success, director Ray Lawrence did not direct a second film until Lantana
Lantana (film)
Lantana is a 2001 Australian film, directed by Ray Lawrence and featuring Anthony LaPaglia, Kerry Armstrong, Geoffrey Rush and Barbara Hershey. It is based on the play Speaking In Tongues by Andrew Bovell, which premiered at Sydney's Griffin Theatre Company...
(2001), and in the intervening period he chiefly earned his living as a director of television commercials, several of which won industry awards. His third film, Jindabyne
Jindabyne (film)
Jindabyne is a 2006 Australian drama film by director Ray Lawrence and starring an ensemble cast including Gabriel Byrne, Laura Linney, Deborra-Lee Furness and John Howard. Jindabyne was filmed entirely on location in and around the town of the same name: Jindabyne, New South Wales, situated next...
, was released in 2006.
Awards
The film won the Best Film, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Awards and was nominated for 10 more awards of the Australian Film InstituteAustralian Film Institute
The Australian Film Institute was founded in 1958 as a non-profit organisation devoted to developing an active film culture in Australia and fostering engagement between the general public and the Australian film industry...
in 1985. It was also nominated for the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
(Golden Palm) at the Cannes Film Festival
1985 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Miloš Forman *Claude Imbert *Edwin Zbonek *Francis Veber *Jorge Amado *Mauro Bolognini *Michel Perez *Mo Rothmann *Néstor Almendros *Sarah Miles...
in the same year.
External links
- Bliss at the National Film and Sound ArchiveNational Film and Sound ArchiveThe National Film and Sound Archive is Australia’s audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national collection of audiovisual materials and related items...