Outback Ethnography Revisiting Fred Zinnemann’s The Sundowners

Appearing at a moment in time when Australian national cinema had practically ground to a halt, Hollywood filmmaker Fred Zinnemann’s 1960 adaptation of a Jon Cleary novel about the physical and romantic travails of itinerant sheepshearers presaged key works in the Australian film revival of the following decade. Drawing on interviews conducted with Zinnemann and Cleary, Neil Sinyard examines the film’s origins, themes and place in its director’s oeuvre.

Were we to shoot in America, it would emerge as a half-assed Western, with bars instead of pubs, cowboys instead of sheep drovers – they move differently, walk and react differently. Unlike in the Old West, no one carried guns in the outback. How could we reproduce the Aussie outlook on American locations? — Fred Zinnemann1 When the renowned Hollywood director Fred Zinnemann came to Australia to make The Sundowners (1960), it was no part of his intention to stimulate the then-moribund state of the Australian film industry. His film was an Anglo-American production for Warner Bros.; it featured Hollywood stars (Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum) in the leading roles; and its technical team was mainly British, headed by top cameraman Jack Hildyard, who had recently won an Oscar for…

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Metro (Digital) - 1 Issue, No. 208

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