By Travis Johnson
Bruce Beresford, director of Australia’s greatest film, Breaker Morant, along with Puberty Blues, Mao’s Last dancer, and a host of other classic films, has signed on to direct The Women in Black.
Adapted from Madeleine St John’s 1993 novel of the same name, The Women in Black is “set in Sydney in the summer of 1959, against the backdrop of Australia’s cultural awakening, breakdown of class structures, and liberation of women. It tells the coming-of-age story of suburban schoolgirl Lisa, who while waiting for her final high school exam results with dreams of going to the University of Sydney, takes a summer job at a large department store. Here she works side-by-side with a group of saleswomen who open her eyes to a world beyond her sheltered existence, and foster her metamorphosis.”
Sydney culture vultures may recall that Tim Finn’s musical adaptation, Ladies in Black, played as part of the Sydney Festival earlier this year.
Said Beresford, “I’ve been obsessed with making a film of Madeleine St John’s The Women in Black since I first read the novel about 15 years ago, after being told about it by Clive James, who had also been at Sydney University with Madeleine and myself. I was attracted by Madeleine’s wit, her light touch, her deft characterisations and her portrayal of a Sydney I knew so well – the Sydney of the 1950s and ‘60s – a time when the whole of Australia began to change because of the influx of European migrants (most of them escaping a depressed war-ruined Europe), who brought a whole range of talents (and invariably delicious cuisine) that created the successful multi-cultural society of the Australia we live in today.”
Beresford has penned the screenplay with his frequent collaborator, Sue Milliken. Ladies in Black will shoot in New South Wales later this year.
