First the talk was dead quiet on the romantic Outback epic, “Australia,” and now it’s a buzzing roar of controversy thanks to the news that director Baz Luhrmann changed the ending from sad, negative one to a happy, uplifting one at the urging of 20th Century Fox.
To combat that negative press — although Oprah came to the rescue on Monday a little bit with a gushing endorsement of the film — Luhrmann is talking and the L.A. Times’ Envelope blog, got the exclusive.
Addressing the controversy, Luhrmann spoke at length and note, the release date is fourteen days away (November 26), but the director still has “seven hours left in the [sound mixing] of the film.” Cutting down tot he wire. On the changed ending, Luhrman says he wrote six different endings and ended up shooting three of them.
“I ended up concluding the film in a way in which I — probably more than anyone — least expected. And there is a death in the ending of the film, by the way — it’s a bit of a twist and I won’t give it away… And, incidentally, the two endings, by the way, tested completely the same essentially, you know? They really did in the numbers. But I came up with a third ending, and the ending that I’ve created about the film came from a place of a response, actually, to the thing that I wanted the movie to be — the important, big idea of the movie — how to amplify that big idea. And, essentially, that’s, as the little boy says, “The rain will fall. The grass grows green. And life begins again.” And that idea — that in a world that is so full of fear, and things are falling down, and people are somewhat concerned — Sending a movie out there that can leave people with a sense that, despite it all, you can go back to Faraway Downs, or that you can go on, and a sense of hope, is something I really felt personally I wanted the movie to give out… But I think the big story is how the actual ending I came up with, which is quite unusual — it’s not easy to say it’s ‘the happy one’ or ‘the death one’ — it’s something quite surprising. And it found itself, really.”
Not the concrete answer anyone is looking for, but a rather characteristic one for the ups and downs that are the creative process which usually contains a lot of self-discovery.
As for the running time, once rumored to be 3 hours, Lurhmann says when he’s done cutting (he’s not done yet??), the film will be 2 and a half hours in the end.
“The length is the length that I want it to be. It’s the length that I think is the right length to be as inclusive as possible. I mean, my rough-cut, by the way, wasn’t that long; it was only about three hours. I mean, for an epic, it was quite nothing. And the running length of it was always between two hours-forty and three. ‘Epic’ doesn’t just mean long, you know? It means big in its scale and its ideas, you know?”
Will the film succeed? Even Luhrmann isn’t quite sure, but he is sure about delivering a feast.
“I cannot guarantee [it will succeed]. But is there a hunger for a movie like this? Yes. I mean, I am inviting all of America to “Australia” for Thanksgiving, and we’re gonna serve a cinematic banquet.”