So I went to see Starstruck with my mother
and one of my umpteen sisters, the oldest one, at ACMI. 1982 was actually not a
very good year for me (what years I wonder would I typify as very good years?)
but it was at least the year Starstruck came out. I am not sure what I made of
it at the time but all evidence points to me actually having seen it (apart
from anything else I loved the Swingers and the Swingers are all over it). The
screening was attended by Gillian Armstrong and David Elphick who participated
in a Q&A at the end of the film which now, 16 hours later in my memory is
just woman after woman saying ‘I saw Starstruck when I was 12, and it made me
decide I would dedicate my life to the arts’ etc, etc. A number of things stood
out for me re: Starstruck, probably on 4th or 5th
viewing. One is that everyone remembers Jo Kennedy being ‘topless’ on the
tightrope as a stunt to get noticed by the media, except of course she just has
a ‘topless’ top on. Fine. But who remembers that she is, in fact, topless about
ten minutes into the film? Extraordinary. And also the amount of tobacco and
pot smoking (partix the putatively 14-year-old Angus) is remarkable really.
Best bits = the music actually, which I
gather has been remastered (they said ‘remixed’ but I doubt that, tbh) and some
of the random dialogue/jokes, none of which I can presently remember. Another
thing that really impressed me was the randomness of the setting. Yeah, the
main characters all live in a pub under the harbor bridge – of course they do –
and that’s a hoot (did Strictly Ballroom harness this notion a few years later
or am I projecting) and (as Gillian Armstrong mentioned herself) the bridge
appears again and again as an image in the film – on the walls of the pub, for
instance. But there are no sweeping helicopter establishing shots or any shit
like that, which is fabulous. Ditto the Opera house, which is a key location,
but once again no dazzling panoramas. It’s just not that kind of film. Or
rather, it is the kind of film it is,
all too rare, and brilliant because of it.
In a manner of speaking the film came out
of Go-Set (Steven Maclean the scriptwriter, and David Elphick, and Molly
Meldrum who had impact on the movie and for that matter is partially the
inspiration for a character, all worked there). I remember Pip Proud was very
upset about the way that David Elphick responded to him when he tried to (or
did?) meet the Small Faces and the Who in I guess 68. I am about ready to
forgive him for that though.
In the hours after, I had the weird
experience of talking to someone who knew someone who met Jo Kennedy, got along
with her and then found out she had been the main character in Starstruck and
thereafter could not even talk to her she was so, ok it’s obvious, starstruck.
Then shortly after that someone who briefly knew Ross Donovan (Angus). What a
world.
