Hollywood’s in an Australian State of Mind

When Hollywood hosts the Academy Awards on Sunday, few countries will feel as much pride of homeland as Australia, which has produced seven of this year’s Oscar nominees.

They include Cate Blanchett for best actress in “Elizabeth,” Geoffrey Rush for best supporting actor in “Shakespeare in Love,” Rachel Griffiths for best supporting actress in “Hilary and Jackie,” Peter Weir for best director of “The Truman Show” and David Hirschfelder for best original score for “Elizabeth.”

Other Aussies include Grant Hill, one of the producers of best picture nominee “The Thin Red Line,” and Paul Brincat, one of the film’s nominees for best sound.

And, if one wants to include Randy Newman’s original song “That’ll Do” from the Australian film “Babe: Pig in the City,” it’s eight nominations--OK, 7 1/2.

“Per capita, I think we have more Oscar nominees than any other country,” said Blanchett, a resident of Sydney, who complains that too often outsiders consign Australia to the cultural fringe and patronizingly refer to the country as the land “down under.”

“As Australians, we pit ourselves against the world in a big way,” Blanchett said. “It makes us very outward looking and it instilled in me a curiosity of how other cultures work.

“The small population and enormous land mass does something weird with your brain,” Blanchett added. “I think of Australia more as a state of mind than a label.”

Queensland-born Rush, who won the 1996 Oscar for best actor in “Shine,” said this year’s nominations reveal the scope of Australian film talent.

“I think what is special this year about the Oscars is that we are nominated across a number of departments,” Rush said.

When he won the Oscar for “Shine” two years ago, Rush recalled, “it was pretty much the first time I can remember a theater actor being front-page news in [an Australian] newspaper. That was sort of special for me.”

Rush said a friend told him that had he returned to Australia right after he won his Oscar, “they would have given me a ticker-tape parade--and they usually do that for cricket players.”

Rush believes the Australian theater should be credited with part of his country’s rise to prominence in the film world.

For instance, he and Blanchett worked together in the exploratory theater company at Sydney’s Belvoir Theater. No one dreamed then that both would one day be up for the Oscar in the same year.

“I certainly know that in the kind of film work I am doing today, the nourishment for that came from the bold leap that that theater company allowed me to take in my stage work,” Rush said.

Hirschfelder said he believes Australia’s remote geography often makes its people feel “disconnected from the Earth.”

“To fly to any of the larger communities requires a minimum of 12 hours by plane,” the composer said.

“If you wanted to work on an international film, you had to travel if you lived in Australia,” he added. “No question, there were less opportunities here then than there are in the States. The quality of the work and the amount of work available was much higher in the States.”

The Aussie presence at this year’s Oscars is not unique.

“It’s fantastic, but it’s not the first time it has happened,” said Diana Berman, director of marketing for the Australian Film Commission. “We have been getting Academy Award nominations consistently.”

The commission has tabulated Australia’s Oscar nominations and victories dating back to 1942, when the Academy Award for best documentary feature went to “Kokoda Front Line.” There has been a steady number of Australians nominated ever since.

Between 1950 and 1962, for example, designer Orry-Kelly was nominated four times for best costume design, winning three times.

In 1993, Jane Campion’s “The Piano” received eight nominations, and won Campion a best original screenplay Oscar.

Two years later, Mel Gibson (who was born in the U.S. but grew up as an Aussie) won Oscars for best picture and best director for “Braveheart” while the livestock fantasy “Babe” garnered seven nominations, winning for visual effects.

In 1996, a total of 10 Oscar nominations went either to Australians or for work on Australian films, and seven of the 10 were for “Shine,” including a best director nomination for Scott Hicks.

Actress Judy Davis was nominated for best actress in 1984 for “A Passage to India” and in 1992 for best supporting actress in “Husbands and Wives.”

Weir has been nominated three times in the directing category for “Witness,” “Dead Poets Society” and now “The Truman Show,” and also received a nomination for best original screenplay for “Green Card” in 1990. Bruce Beresford was nominated for best director in 1983 for “Tender Mercies.”

Paul Hogan, Ken Shadie and John Cornell were nominated for best original screenplay in 1986 for “ ‘Crocodile’ Dundee.”

And the list goes on and on.

Berman said not only are Australian filmmakers known internationally, but Hollywood studios are setting their sights on Australia.

She noted that 20th Century Fox now has a production site in Sydney, Warner Bros. has a studio in Queensland and Paramount Pictures is building a studio in Melbourne.

Hirschfelder said Australian history may have prompted his peers in the film industry to find success on a global level, pointing out that Australia was “founded as a prison colony in the 1700s.”

“Maybe we’re finally shrugging off our ball and chain,” he said.