James R. Elkins
"The Last Wave"
(1977)
When asked about his films, director Peter Weir told interviewers he liked to think about them as "a kind of quest." [Peter Weir: Towards the Centre, Interview by Tom Ryan and Peter McFarlaine, 1981] In what sense is David Burton (Richard Chamberlain), the lawyer in "The Last Wave," engaged in a quest? In what sense is your legal education a quest?
In the 1981 interview, Weir told Ryan & McFarlaine he had tried to "unlearn" his training in "analytical thinking." "It is a tool that I have found I didn't want to use or live with." It might be interesting to note that Weir studied both arts and law at the University of Sydney before he dropped out of school and headed off to London.
Why would anyone want to try to unlearn "analytical thinking" (given that most of us go to such great lengths to learn how to do it well)?
On deciding what films to make, Weir related to his 1981 interviewers how "the connection with a story is important for me; a feeling that it is somehow a part of me — that I am part of the process of the film."
Should we try to have a similar connection with the clients we represent as lawyers?
How would each of the film lawyers we have studied be evaluated on Weir's criteria, that is, on their connection to the story represented by their client, that the client's story becomes part of the lawyer, and that the resolution of the client's problem is the lawyer's problem as well as the client's?
The ending of "The Last Wave" troubles some viewers. Weir said in the 1981 interview that "[t]he ending is still a problem for me."
I have to be honest and say that I didn't find the solution to the problem of how to end the film. There is no ending and I was painted into a corner. I have seen it happen with other filmmakers. . . . You can't end it. You can try to be clever, and I tried a couple of other endings . . . but they were just too neat. The ending just plagued me, and it was an extremely unhappy period. Part way through the film we broke over Easter. I remember a terrible few days wrestling with this ending and pretending I had found a solution to it. But I certainly had no plan I failed to execute.
Asked, if looking back at the film he had an idea how he might end it, Weir replies: "No. It's just the last chapter is missing. I just have to leave it; don't look back."
Do lawyers, like filmmakers, sometimes have trouble with endings, or are we, by virtue of law's finality spared the problem of troubled, inconclusive endings?
Weir admitted to Ryan & McFairlaine he had a "sometimes" interest in myth.
I think they are an essential part of civilisation and it's given us particular problems as displaced Europeans [people living in Australia] who chose, for some extraordinary reasons, to leave our myths behind. I think our films in this period are, at times, an attempt to rediscover them or to reinvigorate them or even to create them, as the Americans have done.
How is the myth of law and of lawyers rediscovered, reinvigorated (created?) by way of lawyer films?
Film Basics
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Notes:
<1> Peter Weir wrote the filmscript for "The Last Wave."
<2> Peter Weir studied both art and law at Sydney University before taking on minor TV work in the early 1970s. [See: Biography for Peter Weir]
<3> For those of you who expressed an interest in Peter Weir, the director of "The Last Wave" the following web resources will be of interest: [A Peter Weir Interview, 1979, in connection with the U.S. opening of " The Last Wave"] [Weir'd Tales: An interview with Peter Weir] ["Are You a Fish? Are You a Snake?" Lecture & Notes on "The Last Wave"] [Crazy Dave's Peter Weir Cave] [Review] [A Law Professor's Brief comments on "The Last Wave"]
<4> I highly recommend two additional Weir films, "The Plumber," which appeared in 1979, and "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982). Many of you will have seen Weir's "Green Card" (1990); "Dead Poet's Society" (1989); "The Truman Show" (1998). If you've not seen Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock" (1975), then it too is an essential film for Weir fans.
<5> If you find Peter Weir's "The Last Wave" interesting, you'll also want to see, Nicholas Roeg's "Walkabout" (1970)(described by Justine Kelly in sense of cinema as "a haunting film, set in a fading but spectacular world—ancient Australia.)
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Walkabout, by Justine Kelly |
<6> Viewer's of "The Last Wave" interested in an interesting literary treatment of the Aboriginie will find Bruce Chatwin's Songlines (1987) of interest.
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On songlines"—Wikipedia |
<7> Finally, a Richard Chamberline photo montague from "The Last Wave" [youTube] — "Who Are You?" [youTube clip: 5 min. 47 secs.] — [youTube: clips from the film]
