© John Logie Baird Centre 2005. All rights reserved
Comedy and Eros: Powell's Australian films They're a Weird Mob and Age of Consent
Head of Cinema Studies in the School of Art History, Cinema, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Melbourne. She works in the fields of colonial and postcolonial cinema and art of Australia and the Pacific
Michael Powell's Australian films They're A Weird Mob and Age of Consent came late in his career but powerfully combine the director's famous wit and biting critique with a strong portrayal of outsiders. Whether they are at arms length from their own culture or, as in the case of Weird Mob, in the midst of strange and bizarre Australians, Powell creates, through contrasts, a portrait of a loveable, alienated hero. Helen Mirren as Cora in Age of Consent makes her film debut revealing her remarkable talent against the late-career James Mason. Walter Chiari, famed member of Rome's La Dolce Vita and star of countless Italian comedies, starred as the hapless Italian immigrant Nino and is now deeply etched in the Australian psyche. Both films prefigure the late twentieth-century Australian quirky comedy, but are in their own right jewels of the cinema and confirm Powell's reputation as one of the great directors of the cinema.