By Erin Free
Though born in New York in 1960, John Curran made his name in Australia. And while he has a host of fascinating, skillfully made films to his credit, Curran has never really received the substantial credit that he truly deserves, perhaps due to the trickiness in the disparity of his birth country, and the country where he has made so many of his films.
After studying at Syracuse University and working in the US as a graphic designer and production designer, Curran moved to Australia in 1986, where he worked consistently in the commercials business, as well as making a fistful of music videos (for the mighty likes of You Am I and The Cruel Sea) and the short film Down Rusty Down. For his 1998 debut feature film, this American-born director delivered a quintessentially Australian story with the sexually explosive Praise, which was adapted from Andrew McGahan’s acclaimed novel, and tracked the fiery relationship of two young burnouts, Gordon and Cynthia, played with stunning, bravura force by then-newcomers, Sacha Horler and Peter Fenton.
“I’d spoken with a few other directors, and most of them wanted to give the film a grungy, dirty aesthetic, which didn’t give access to the heart in Praise,” the film’s producer, Martha Coleman, told FilmInk of Curran’s involvement with the film. “It was shining a torch on the obvious ugliness while obscuring the more subtle emotions that were there. Even though we were friends and had been working together on commercials for five years, it was while we were making Down Rusty Down that I saw John for the first time as a filmmaker, and not just as a commercials director. I saw real emotion in John’s approach to directing, and a beautiful aesthetic sense. John didn’t jump on the grunge aspects of Praise, but focused on the love story between Gordon and Cynthia. He saw the beauty amid the pain. I expected some resistance from the funding bodies because John was a left field choice, but he’s ‘good in a room’, as they say, and they were easily won over. People became very excited about him, and rightly so.”
Though disturbingly under-discussed these John Curran’s Praise is a truly affecting work: poetic in its visuals, daring and note-perfect in its casting, uncompromising in its look at male-female relationships, and truly, utterly Australian in every way. It marked an incredibly assured debut for Curran, who didn’t deliver a follow-up until 2004 in the shape of the intense and keenly intelligent We Don’t Live Here Anymore. “I’ve always got stuff in development,” Curran replied when asked by FilmInk about the gap between projects. “I had a biker film that I was developing for a while there. There was concurrently stuff happening in the states and Australia, and it was one of those projects that just didn’t really gel ultimately. Praise came out in 1999, and I lived in Sydney from 1985 to 2000, so after Praise I decided it was time to get back to the states. So I moved back and got involved in a number of projects – you know, one takes precedence and falls apart, and then you’re onto something else.”
Curran responded immediately to We Don’t Live Here Anymore, an adaptation of a pair of stories by seventies author Andre Dubus. The film charts two marriages – Jack (Mark Ruffalo) and Terry (Laura Dern), and Hank (Peter Krause) and Edith (Naomi Watts) – and the way they intersect, with ultimately dire consequences. Like Praise, the film is also lit by dangerous, flickering sex. “Sex is inherent to all relationships,” Curran told FilmInk upon the film’s release. “It’s a barometer of the state of the relationship. This film is probably more about dysfunctional relationships as a unifying thing, and I guess it’s the callous humour in me, but I liked the way I could present sex in a way that wasn’t erotic – it was either convenient, tragic or depressing, but never erotic.”
Two years later, Curran mounted the world’s first major Chinese/Western co-production with his 2006 adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil, the wide-canvas story of a 1920s London couple woefully out of tune with one another’s hearts. Edward Norton and Curran’s We Don’t Live Here Anymore alumnus Naomi Watts play bacteriologist Dr. Walter Fane and socialite Kitty, whose troubled, tragic romance leads them to the black heart of cholera-ravaged China. The film was backed by The China Film Board, opening up a host of luminous, mist-painted locales never before seen on screen, as well as rural towns inaccessible by road.
“I didn’t spend the time on The Painted Veil that Edward did,” Curran explained to FilmInk in 2006 of his leading man. “I was the guy who just said the easy word: ‘Yes.’” Edward Norton – now a close friend of Curran’s – had spent years championing the project, and was on the hunt for a like-minded director in the early 2000s. But why did Curran appeal to Norton as the right man for this sweeping Eastern symphony? “He’d settled on Naomi as the dream casting choice for Kitty, and Ed knew that I had experience working with her. I’m the first to admit that I’m not a stylist – I’m more of an actor’s director. The wider expanse of this film is just a matter of stepping into a bigger budget. He was drawn to me because I think he sensed that I would not tip it into pretty melodrama. We bonded together to ward off the forces trying to squeeze the film into becoming mediocre. It’s no secret that China keeps a pretty heavy hand on how it’s presented on film. Fortunately, it’s not like I was making a doco about the rise of communism!”
After the tough, expertly executed, but little seen 2010 crime drama Stone (which saw Curran reunite with Edward Norton, alongside Robert De Niro and Milla Jovovich), Curran finally returned to Australia for another film. “My influences were those distinct, inspiring voices from that golden period of Australian film in the seventies,” Curran told FilmInk. “I’ve identified more as an Australian than an American at times. But what I won’t do is come back and just make an American film using Australia as a studio and warehouse. What the hell is the point in that?”
The project that drew Curran back was indeed distinctly Australian, with the director taking the helm on the 2013 adaptation of Robyn Davidson’s famous memoir Tracks. In 1977, Davidson set off from Alice Springs with the intention of trekking across 1,700 miles of harsh terrain to the Western Australian coast, accompanied only by four camels, and her beloved pet dog, Diggity. Craving isolation and a connection to the environment, Davidson’s journey was defined by danger and almost foolhardy risk, but it was also an act of quiet defiance and self-determination. With Mia Wasikowska superb in the lead role, Curran’s adaptation was quietly powerful in its depiction of a woman in crisis, and utterly stunning in its incredible visuals.
“At the time I was getting the rights to the book, I was talking to John Curran,” Tracks producer Emile Sherman told FilmInk in 2013. “He was a director that I thought of from day one. He’s a wonderful, international, Australian director who is great with female characters. He can do commercial quality movies, and he’s incredible visually as well as with actors. I’ve been trying to entice him back to Australia to make a movie, and this was the subject matter that got him back. John knew the story, and we really started working on it from day one together. There wasn’t a day that I was doing Tracks that John wasn’t involved.”
Curran shifted gears and returned to the US for 2017’s Chappaquiddick, a cogent, thoughtful meditation on politician Ted Kennedy’s involvement in the fatal 1969 car accident that took the life of his young campaign strategist, Mary Jo Kopechne. Boasting a fine central performance from Australian actor Jason Clarke, Chappaquiddick marked another impressive, though under-celebrated, entry on Curran’s career list. After that film failed to make the impact it deserved, Curran returned to Australia to work on two top-tier TV productions in 2019’s Bloom and 2021’s Eden, before heading back to the big screen with the upcoming Mercy Road, which makes intriguing use of modern filmmaking techniques. Also written by Curran, and starring Luke Bracey, Mercy Road follows a man pushed to the limits of his sanity to protect his son. The psychological thriller will see Curran employ bleeding-edge technology to realise his vision. Teaming up with visionary Australian filmmaker Alex Proyas’ (The Crow, Dark City) virtual film production company, Heretic Foundation, Curran utilised LED screens and Unreal Engine assets to create real-time in-camera compositing on a virtual set. “The film is a man’s reckoning in the final hour of his life, and Luke is phenomenal as a man on the edge of sanity,” Curran has said of the film.
A terrific director as adept with performance and storytelling as he is with striking visuals and technological trickery, the name John Curran should be mentioned a lot more consistently when talk turns to talented filmmakers in this country.
With additional reporting by Julian Shaw.
For more on John Curran, check out our in-depth features on the making of his films Praise and Tracks.
If you liked this story, check out our features on other unsung auteurs Jesse Peretz, Anthony Hayes, Stuart Blumberg, Stewart Copeland, Harriet Frank Jr & Irving Ravetch, Angelo Pizzo, John & Joyce Corrington, Robert Dillon, Irene Kamp, Albert Maltz, Nancy Dowd, Barry Michael Cooper, Gladys Hill, Walon Green, Eleanor Bergstein, William W. Norton, Helen Childress, Bill Lancaster, Lucinda Coxon, Ernest Tidyman, Shauna Cross, Troy Kennedy Martin, Kelly Marcel, Alan Sharp, Leslie Dixon, Jeremy Podeswa, Ferd & Beverly Sebastian, Anthony Page, Julie Gavras, Ted Post, Sarah Jacobson, Anton Corbijn, Gillian Robespierre, Brandon Cronenberg, Laszlo Nemes, Ayelat Menahemi, Ivan Tors, Amanda King & Fabio Cavadini, Cathy Henkel, Colin Higgins, Paul McGuigan, Rose Bosch, Dan Gilroy, Tanya Wexler, Clio Barnard, Robert Aldrich, Maya Forbes, Steven Kastrissios, Talya Lavie, Michael Rowe, Rebecca Cremona, Stephen Hopkins, Tony Bill, Sarah Gavron, Martin Davidson, Fran Rubel Kuzui, Elliot Silverstein, Liz Garbus, Victor Fleming, Barbara Peeters, Robert Benton, Lynn Shelton, Tom Gries, Randa Haines, Leslie H. Martinson, Nancy Kelly, Paul Newman, Brett Haley, Lynne Ramsay, Vernon Zimmerman, Lisa Cholodenko, Robert Greenwald, Phyllida Lloyd, Milton Katselas, Karyn Kusama, Seijun Suzuki, Albert Pyun, Cherie Nowlan, Steve Binder, Jack Cardiff, Anne Fletcher ,Bobcat Goldthwait, Donna Deitch, Frank Pierson, Ann Turner, Jerry Schatzberg, Antonia Bird, Jack Smight, Marielle Heller, James Glickenhaus, Euzhan Palcy, Bill L. Norton, Larysa Kondracki, Mel Stuart, Nanette Burstein, George Armitage, Mary Lambert, James Foley, Lewis John Carlino, Debra Granik, Taylor Sheridan, Laurie Collyer, Jay Roach, Barbara Kopple, John D. Hancock, Sara Colangelo, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Joyce Chopra, Mike Newell, Gina Prince-Bythewood, John Lee Hancock, Allison Anders, Daniel Petrie Sr., Katt Shea, Frank Perry, Amy Holden Jones, Stuart Rosenberg, Penelope Spheeris, Charles B. Pierce, Tamra Davis, Norman Taurog, Jennifer Lee, Paul Wendkos, Marisa Silver, John Mackenzie, Ida Lupino, John V. Soto, Martha Coolidge, Peter Hyams, Tim Hunter, Stephanie Rothman, Betty Thomas, John Flynn, Lizzie Borden, Lionel Jeffries, Lexi Alexander, Alkinos Tsilimidos, Stewart Raffill, Lamont Johnson, Maggie Greenwald and Tamara Jenkins.
