The Arts - Sydney - page 483

CINEMA
Since Fox Studios opened in Moore Park in 1998, Sydney has starred in various big-budget
blockbusters such as The Matrix trilogy (featuring numerous Sydney skyscrapers), Mission
Impossible 2 (Elizabeth Bay and Sydney Harbour) and X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Cocka-
too Island). Sydneysider Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge , Australia and The Great Gatsby
were made here, as were numerous other films set everywhere from Antarctica ( Happy
Feet II ) to a galaxy far, far away (the Star Wars prequels).
Yet more emblematic of the soul of Sydney cinema is the decidedly low budget Tropfest
( CLICK HERE ), where thousands of locals shake out their blankets in the Domain to watch
entries in the largest short-film festival in the world.
One of the most successful early Australian films was The Sentimental Bloke (1919),
which included scenes filmed in Manly, the Royal Botanic Gardens and Woolloomooloo.
The cavalry epic Forty Thousand Horsemen (1940), in which Cronulla's sand dunes stood
in for the Sinai, was a highlight of the locally produced films of the 1930s to the 1950s,
many of which were based on Australian history or literature.
Government intervention reshaped the future of the country's film industry through the
1970s. This took the form of both state and federal subsidies, tax breaks and the creation of
the Australian Film Commission (AFC) in 1975. Sydneysiders who benefited from the sub-
sequent renaissance in the Australian industry included Oscar-nominated director Peter
Weir (who made such films as Gallipoli , Dead Poets Society , The Truman Show and
Master and Commander ) and Oscar-winners Mel Gibson and Nicole Kidman.
FILM
Australia saw some of the world's earliest attempts at cinematography. In 1896, just one year
after the Lumière brothers opened the world's first cinema in Paris, one of their photograph-
ers, Maurice Sestier, came to Sydney where he made the country's first films and opened its
first cinema.
The 1990s saw films that cemented Australia's reputation as a producer of quirky com-
edies about local misfits: Strictly Ballroom (with locations in Pyrmont and Marrickville),
Muriel's Wedding (Parramatta, Darlinghurst, Darling Point and Ryde) and The Adventures
of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Erskineville). Sydney actors who got their cinematic start
around this time include Hugo Weaving, David Wenham, NZ-born Russell Crowe, Cate
Blanchett, Heath Ledger and Toni Collette ( CLICK HERE ).