By Erin Free
FilmInk salutes the work of creatives who have never truly received the credit that they deserve. In this installment: Australia director Richard Gray, who has helmed Summer Coda, Blinder, Robert The Bruce, Murder At Yellowstone City and The Unholy Trinity.
The mainstream Australian media loves nothing more than an overseas success story, particularly in the arts industry. For some sections of the media, true cache doesn’t really come until an actor or filmmaker has made an impression in the US or the UK. Sure, we love our stars when they’re on Home And Away or Neighbours, but our hearts don’t really swell until they get cast in the latest Marvel blockbuster or nab a role in the new film by Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan. There are, however, many Australians doing strong work overseas without receiving even the faintest level of appropriate local celebration. In amongst this group is Australian director and occasional writer Richard Gray, who has been quietly establishing himself as a highly accomplished creator of westerns and adventure films in the US.
Richard Gray was born in 1980 in Melbourne, and began making short films at the age of just fifteen, while also working in cinemas through his teens and early adulthood, eventually moving up to the position of projectionist. He earned a bachelor’s degree in film from The University of Melbourne’s Victorian College of the Arts School of Film and Television in 2003. Gray then worked behind the scenes in unscripted television while working on his own first script, which would take an unlikely path to the big screen. Gray’s Summer Coda was the runner-up on the 2005 Aussie version of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s screenwriting reality TV competition, Project Greenlight, which gave the film an undeniable leg-up. “I want to bring some excitement to Australian films,” Richard Gray memorably replied on the show when asked by judge Sam Worthington what he wanted to bring to the local industry. “I’d like people to say, ‘Oh man, let’s go see Richard Gray’s new film.’”
Loosely based on Gray’s own parents’ romantic history, Summer Coda was eventually released in 2010. A visual wonder set in Mildura’s orange country, Summer Coda is about two people – both burdened by justifiably heavy pieces of emotional baggage – who meet and connect by chance. Rachael Taylor plays Heidi, a young woman who returns to her Victorian childhood home to attend her estranged father’s funeral. Alex Dimitriades is Michael, a second-generation orange-grower living with his own private pain. He gives Heidi a lift as she hitchhikes on the final leg of her journey to farewell her dad, and a relationship blossoms.
Summer Coda is a gorgeous looking film, and Gray really established himself as a visual talent, while also showing a flair for heartfelt, naturalistic storytelling and a talent for getting the best out of his actors. Though shot on a typically Aussie-level low budget, Summer Coda has a richness that makes it feel much, much bigger. “You can put the same craft into the film no matter what sort of money you have,” Gray told FilmInk upon the film’s local release. “I’m not a big fan of hand-held cameras or gritty images; a film like this needed to be classically shot to make it feel and look more like a European film than what we can expect in an Australian film. I hope that we’ve achieved that.”
After the little seen 2012 horror thriller Mine Games, Gray returned to more personalised filmmaking with the distinctly Australian 2013 drama Blinder. Developed by Gray and his wife Michele Davis-Gray, from an original screenplay by Scott Didier, Blinder tells the story of Tom (Oliver Ackland), a young grassroots AFL footy player from real life team the Torquay Tigers who, as a consequence of his lifestyle, gets dropped from the team before the grand final. Tom makes a Rocky-style comeback, only to leave for America when a scandal tears the team, and his friendships, apart.
Tough and authentic, Blinder delivered once again in the story and visuals department, just as Summer Coda had. “An Australian film doesn’t have to look like shit,” Gray told FilmInk during the shooting of the film, which was once again shot by gifted DOP Greg De Marigny. “It doesn’t have to be average in terms of cinematography, either. As long as I have a copy of Boogie Nights, Heat, Goodfellas or Magnolia, that’s all we ever need. We watch those films, we get inspired, and we try and go out and get what we need, keeping the craft of those sorts of films in mind.”
Richard Gray’s obvious love of American cinema was fully explored in his next film, which saw the local-director-on-the-rise decamp for the states, where he has remained creatively ever since, marking something of a loss for Australian cinema, but also a big gain for international genre films. The film that marked the move was 2014’s The Lookalike, a New Orleans-shot crime-thriller. “It’s got a True Romance-type feel to it,” Gray said just before production. “It’s the work of my talented wife Michele Gray, who’s also producing. This one’s a long time coming and we can’t wait to get shooting!”
Boasting in impressive cast of cult faves in Justin Long, Jerry O’Connell, Gillian Jacobs, Scottie Thompson, John Corbett, Gina Gershon, Steven Bauer, John Savage, and Luis Guzmán, this tale of a former basketball player caught up with a drug kingpin and a variety of other baroque characters saw Richard Gray move in a completely new direction than the one he’d been taking in his thoughtful, winningly low-key Australian films. He followed this through with his next films, which included 2016’s Sugar Mountain (a wilderness adventure thriller which ironically had been planned for Australia but ultimately moved to Alaska) and 2017’s horror thriller Broken Ghost.
Gray went considerably bigger in scale with his next film, an ersatz, kinda sorta sequel to Mel Gibson’s smash hit Braveheart. The connection comes with the title character of 2019’s Robert The Bruce, who is impressively played in both films by actor Angus Macfadyen. “I was fifteen when Braveheart came out,” Gray told LRM Online. “I had just started making short films at that time. In Australia at the time, Mel Gibson was like a God, so it certainly had a massive effect on me. But it was how much different this film was to Braveheart that made it exciting for us. We got to tell the story of Scots versus Scots, and the fact that this king was so low down that he wasn’t expected to live. He was seen as the ‘Loser King’ after losing battle after battle, which is where Braveheart finished off. It was unique and exciting to tell this story.” Though obviously lacking the budget of its Oscar winning predecessor, Robert The Bruce feels big in scope, and showcased Gray’s wide-canvas filmmaking skills.
Not too many Australian directors have made the cinematic journey into The Wild West, outside of the likes of Simon Wincer (Lonesome Dove) and Fred Schepisi (Barbarosa), but Richard Gray joined that small cinematic posse in 2022 with Murder At Yellowstone City, a moody character piece effectively rolled together with a compelling mystery and a thrilling guns-drawn confrontation piece. In 1880s Montana, the tiny, sadly creaking town of Yellowstone City is on a downward slide after its mine closed and its denizens gave up the ghost when it came to striking gold. But when a dynamite charge from wildman prospector Robert Dunnigan (Zach McGowan) unearths a rich new seam, things are looking up for Yellowstone City. The next day, however, Dunnigan has a bullet in his back, and the town is sent into a bloodletting frenzy. Suspicions instantly land on African-American newcomer Cicero (Isaiah Mustafa), who comes under the protection of the town’s preacher (Thomas Jane) and his wife (Anne Camp). Sheriff Ambrose (Gabriel Byrne), meanwhile, wants to make sure that justice is seen to be done so he can restore order – and hope – to Yellowstone City.
Almost playing out – in a cannily ironic flourish – like a classic “locked room mystery” on the open range, Murder At Yellowstone City effectively throws out red herrings galore and keeps audiences guessing, but not at the expense of its gritty, barren setting and dark sense of moodiness. Excellently performed across the board, and with a bevy of rich female characters to boot, Murder At Yellowstone City is a thoughtful exploration of the western genre from a keenly intelligent Australian director.
In a very nice touch, Gray remained on the range for his equally impressive next film, 2024’s The Unholy Trinity. When his father is hanged for a crime he claims he didn’t commit, Henry Broadway (Brandon Lessard) returns to his home town of Trinity in Montana to reclaim his family legacy. But with lies, buried gold, deceit and a disparate collection of curiously connected characters involved – upstanding Irish sheriff Gabriel Dove (Pierce Brosnan); his hardy wife (Veronica Ferres) Sarah; outsider Native American Running Cub (Q’orianka Kilcher); impassioned agitator Gideon (Gianni Capaldi); duplicitous preacher Father Jacob (David Arquette); and the sinister St. Christopher (Samuel L. Jackson) – Henry’s mission will not be that simple.
A winning mix of genre tropes and interpersonal relationships, The Unholy Trinity sees director Richard Gray and fellow Aussie screenwriter Lee Zachariah paying respect to the western genre without being beholden to it. This is certainly no revisionist assault, but the Aussie duo put just as much emphasis on what’s happening between their characters as they do on gun battles…though there are certainly plenty of those too, and they are incredibly well staged and calibrated for maximum emotional effect. Boasting superb and wholly committed performances from all concerned, a fine sense of economic pacing, plentiful scenes of horses charging across the stunning Montana landscape, and a narrative that grips effortlessly through its inventive twists and turns, The Unholy Trinity is a stellar example of how good the contemporary western genre can be.
“You need to do three Westerns to call yourself a Western director,” Quentin Tarantino once famously said. “Any less, you are just dabbling in the genre.” Let’s hope that Richard Gray saddles up again soon for another horse opera. It would be fitting and wholly satisfying to be able to officially label this gifted and under-celebrated Australian filmmaker a “western director.”
If you liked this story, check out our features on other unsung auteurs Giuseppe Andrews, Gus Trikonis, Greydon Clark, Frances Doel, Gordon Douglas, Billy Fine, Craig R. Baxley, Harvey Bernhard, Bert I. Gordon, James Fargo, Jeremy Kagan, Robby Benson, Robert Hiltzik, John Carl Buechler, Rick Carter, Paul Dehn, Bob Kelljan, Kevin Connor, Ralph Nelson, William A. Graham, Judith Rascoe, Michael Pressman, Peter Carter, Leo V. Gordon, Dalene Young, Gary Nelson, Fred Walton, James Frawley, Pete Docter, Max Baer Jr., James Clavell, Ronald F. Maxwell, Frank D. Gilroy, John Hough, Dick Richards, William Girdler, Rayland Jensen, Richard T. Heffron, Christopher Jones, Earl Owensby, James Bridges, Jeff Kanew, Robert Butler, Leigh Chapman, Joe Camp, John Patrick Shanley, William Peter Blatty, Peter Clifton, Peter R. Hunt, Shaun Grant, James B. Harris, Gerald Wilson, Patricia Birch, Buzz Kulik, Kris Kristofferson, Rick Rosenthal, Kirsten Smith & Karen McCullah, Jerrold Freeman, William Dear, Anthony Harvey, Douglas Hickox, Karen Arthur, Larry Peerce, Tony Goldwyn, Brian G. Hutton, Shelley Duvall, Robert Towne, David Giler, William D. Wittliff, Tom DeSimone, Ulu Grosbard, Denis Sanders, Daryl Duke, Jack McCoy, James William Guercio, James Goldstone, Daniel Nettheim, Goran Stolevski, Jared & Jerusha Hess, William Richert, Michael Jenkins, Robert M. Young, Robert Thom, Graeme Clifford, Frank Howson, Oliver Hermanus, Jennings Lang, Matthew Saville, Sophie Hyde, John Curran, 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.
