Peter Weir | |
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 Weir in 2011 | |
| Born | Peter Lindsay Weir (1944-08-21)21 August 1944 (age 80) Sydney, Australia |
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| Years active | 1967–2010 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
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Peter Lindsay WeirAM (/wɪər/WEER; born 21 August 1944) is an Australian retired film director. He is known for directing films crossing various genres over forty years with films such asPicnic at Hanging Rock (1975),Gallipoli (1981),The Year of Living Dangerously (1982),Witness (1985),Dead Poets Society (1989),Fearless (1993),The Truman Show (1998),Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), andThe Way Back (2010). He has received sixAcademy Award nominations. In 2022, he was awarded theAcademy Honorary Award for his lifetime achievement career.[1] In 2024, he received an honorary life-time achievement award at theVenice Film Festival (Golden Lion).[2]
Early in his career as a director, Weir was a leading figure in theAustralian New Wave cinema movement (1970–1990). Weir made his feature film debut withHomesdale (1971), and continued with the mystery dramaPicnic at Hanging Rock (1975), the supernatural thrillerThe Last Wave (1977) and the historical dramaGallipoli (1981). Weir gained tremendous success with the multinational productionThe Year of Living Dangerously (1982).
After the success ofThe Year of Living Dangerously, Weir directed a diverse group of American and international films covering most genres–many of them major box office hits–includingAcademy Award-nominated films such as the thrillerWitness (1985), the dramaDead Poets Society (1989), the romantic comedyGreen Card (1990), the social science fiction comedy-dramaThe Truman Show (1998) and the epic historical dramaMaster and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003). His final feature before his retirement was the well-receivedThe Way Back (2010).
Peter Lindsay Weir was born in Sydney, in 1944, the son of Peggy (née Barnsley Sutton) and Lindsay Weir, a real estate agent.[3] Weir attendedThe Scots College andVaucluse Boys High School before studying arts and law at theUniversity of Sydney. His interest in film was sparked by him meeting fellow students, includingPhillip Noyce and the future members of the Sydney filmmaking collectiveUbu Films.[4]
After leaving university in the mid-1960s, he joined Sydney television stationATN-7, where he worked as a production assistant on the groundbreaking satirical comedy programThe Mavis Bramston Show. During this period, using station facilities, Weir made his first two experimental short films,Count Vim's Last Exercise andThe Life and Flight of Reverend Buck Shotte.[4]
In 1969, the founders ofProducers Authors Composers and Talent (now PACT Centre for Emerging Artists) attended aSydney University Architecture Revue, with sets byGeoffrey Atherden andGrahame Bond. They invited Bond, Atherden, Weir, and Weir's friend, composerPeter Best, a chance to do a show at theNational Art School. SirRobert Helpmann saw the show and took it to theAdelaide Festival. Soon afterward Weir and Best were commissioned to write a Christmas special TV show forABC Television titledMan on a Green Bike.[5]
Weir took a position with theCommonwealth Film Unit (later renamedFilm Australia),[6] for which he made several documentaries, as well as one fiction film, a section of the three-part, three-director feature film3 to Go (1970), which won anAFI award.[7][4] Another notable film in this period was the short rock music performance filmThree Directions in Australian Pop Music (1972), which featured in-concert colour footage of three of the most significantMelbourne rock acts of the period,Spectrum,The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band, andWendy Saddington. Weir's last major work for the CFU concerned an underprivileged outer Sydney suburb,Whatever Happened to Green Valley (1973); here, residents were invited to make their own film segments.[4]
Weir made his first major independent film, the short featureHomesdale (1971), an offbeatblack comedy. It co-starred rising young actressKate Fitzpatrick and musician and comedianGrahame Bond, who came to fame in 1972 as the star ofThe Aunty Jack Show; Weir also played a small role, but this was to be his last significant screen appearance.[4]
Weir's first full-length feature film was the underground cult classic,The Cars That Ate Paris (1974), a low-budget black comedy about the inhabitants of a small country town who deliberately cause fatal car crashes and live off the proceeds. It was a minor success in cinemas but proved very popular on the then-thrivingdrive-in circuit.[4] The plot had been inspired by a press report Weir had read about two young English women who had vanished while on a driving holiday in France. With this film, along with the earlierHomesdale, Weir set the basic thematic pattern which has persisted throughout his career: nearly all his feature films deal with people who face some form of crisis after finding themselves isolated from society in some way – either physically (Witness,The Mosquito Coast,The Truman Show,Master and Commander), socially/culturally (Picnic at Hanging Rock,The Last Wave,Dead Poets Society,Green Card), or psychologically (Fearless).[8]
Weir's major breakthrough in Australia and internationally was the lush, atmospheric period mysteryPicnic at Hanging Rock (1975), made with substantial backing from the state-fundedSouth Australian Film Corporation and filmed on location in South Australia and rural Victoria. Based on the novel byJoan Lindsay and set at the turn of the 20th century, the film relates the purportedly "true" story of a group of students from an exclusive girls' school who mysteriously vanish from a school picnic on Valentine's Day 1900. Widely credited as a key work in the "Australian film renaissance" of the mid-1970s,Picnic was the first Australian film of its era to gain both critical praise and be given substantial international theatrical releases. It also helped launch the career of internationally renowned Australian cinematographerRussell Boyd. It was widely acclaimed by critics, many of whom praised it as a welcome antidote to the so-called"ocker film" genre, typified byThe Adventures of Barry McKenzie andAlvin Purple.[citation needed]
Weir's next film,The Last Wave (1977), was a supernatural thriller about a man who begins to experience terrifying visions of an impending natural disaster. It starred American actorRichard Chamberlain, who was well known to Australian and world audiences as the eponymous physician in the popularDr. Kildare TV series. He later starred in the major seriesThe Thorn Birds, set in Australia.The Last Wave was a pensive, ambivalent work that expanded on themes fromPicnic, exploring the interactions between the nativeAboriginal and European cultures. It co-starred the Aboriginal actorDavid Gulpilil, whose performance won the Golden Ibex (Oscar equivalent) at theTehran International Festival in 1977, but it was only a moderate commercial success at the time.[9]
BetweenThe Last Wave and his next feature, Weir wrote and directed the offbeat low-budget telemovieThe Plumber (1979).[10] It starred Australian actorsJudy Morris andIvar Kants and was filmed in three weeks.[11] Inspired by an account told to him by friends, it is a black comedy about a woman whose life is disrupted by a subtly menacing plumber.
Weir scored a major Australian hit and further international praise with his next film, the historical adventure-dramaGallipoli (1981). Scripted by the Australian playwrightDavid Williamson, it is regarded as classicAustralian cinema.Gallipoli was instrumental in makingMel Gibson (Mad Max) into a major star, although his co-starMark Lee, who also received high praise for his role, has made relatively few screen appearances since.[citation needed]
The climax of Weir's early career was the $6 million multi-national productionThe Year of Living Dangerously (1982), again starring Gibson, playing opposite top Hollywood female leadSigourney Weaver in a story about journalistic loyalty, idealism, love and ambition in the turmoil ofSukarno'sIndonesia of 1965. It was an adaptation of the novel byChristopher Koch, which was based in part on the experiences of Koch's journalist brother Philip, theABC's Jakarta correspondent and one of the few western journalists in the city during the 1965 attempted coup. The film also wonLinda Hunt (who played a man in the film) an Oscar forBest Actress in a Supporting Role. The film was again produced byHal and Jim McElroy, who had also produced Weir's first three films,The Cars That Ate Paris,Picnic at Hanging Rock andThe Last Wave.[citation needed]
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Weir's firstAmerican film was the successful thrillerWitness (1985), the first of two films he made withHarrison Ford, about a boy who sees the murder of an undercover police officer by corrupt coworkers and has to be hidden in hisAmish community to protect him. Weir directed Ford in his only performance to receive anAcademy Award nomination, while child starLukas Haas also received wide praise for his debut film performance.Witness also earned Weir his first Academy Award nomination asBest Director, and was his first of several films to be nominated for anAcademy Award for Best Picture, it later won 2 forBest Film Editing &Best Original Screenplay.[12]
It was followed by the darker, less commercialThe Mosquito Coast (1986),Paul Schrader's adaptation ofPaul Theroux's novel. Ford played a man obsessively pursuing his dream to start a new life in the Central American jungle with his family. These dramatic parts provided Harrison Ford with important opportunities to break the typecasting of his career-making roles in theStar Wars andIndiana Jones series. Both films showed off his ability to play more subtle and substantial characters and he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his work inWitness, the only Academy Awards recognition in his career.[13]The Mosquito Coast is also notable for a performance by the youngRiver Phoenix.
Weir's next film,Dead Poets Society, was a major international success, with Weir again receiving credit for expanding the acting range of its Hollywood star.Robin Williams was mainly known for his anarchic stand-up comedy and his popular TV role as the wisecracking alien inMork & Mindy; in this film he played an inspirational teacher in a dramatic story about conformity and rebellion at an exclusive New Englandprep school in the 1950s. The film was nominated for four Oscars, includingBest Picture andBest Director for Weir. It wonBest Original Screenplay and launched the acting careers of young actorsEthan Hawke andRobert Sean Leonard. It became a major box-office hit and is one of Weir's best-known films to mainstream audiences.[citation needed]
Weir's first romantic comedyGreen Card (1990) was another casting risk. Weir chose French screen iconGérard Depardieu in the lead—Depardieu's first English-language role—and paired him with American actressAndie MacDowell.Green Card was a box-office hit but was regarded as less of a critical success, although it helped Depardieu's path to international fame. Weir received an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay.[14]
Fearless (1993) returned to darker themes and starredJeff Bridges as a man who believes he has become invincible after surviving a catastrophic air crash. Though well reviewed, particularly the performances of Bridges andRosie Perez—who received an Oscar nomination forBest Supporting Actress—the film was less commercially successful than Weir's two preceding films. It was entered into the44th Berlin International Film Festival.[15]
After five years, Weir returned to direct his biggest success to date,The Truman Show (1998), a fantasy-satire of the media's control of life starringJim Carrey.The Truman Show was both a box office and a critical success, receiving positive reviews and numerous awards, including three Academy Award nominations:Andrew Niccol forBest Original Screenplay,Ed Harris forBest Actor in a Supporting Role, and Weir himself forBest Director.[16] In addition to the Academy Award nominations, the film won the1999 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.[17]
In 2003, Weir returned to period dramas withMaster and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starringRussell Crowe. A screen adaptation from various episodes inPatrick O'Brian's blockbuster adventure series set during theNapoleonic Wars,[18] the film was well received by critics, but only mildly successful with mainstream audiences.[19][20] Despite another nomination forBest Picture andwinning two Oscars—for frequent collaboratorRussell Boyd's cinematography and for sound effects editing—the film's box office success was moderate ($93 million at the North American box office).[21] The film grossed slightly better overseas, gleaning an additional $114 million.
Weir had developed several other projects in the 2000s that never came to fruition, including an adaptation ofThe War Magician with actorTom Cruise, an adaptation ofRobert Kurson's novelShadow Divers, early development of a proposedShantaram film starringJohnny Depp, and an adaptation ofWilliam Gibson'ssci-fi novelPattern Recognition.[22]
In 2010, Weir resurfaced with the historical epicThe Way Back,[23] about escapees from a Sovietgulag. The film, while generally well-received critically, was not a financial success.[24][25]
In 2012, it was reported that Weir would direct his own adapted script ofJennifer Egan's gothic thrillerThe Keep the following year and shoot in Europe. Weir described the project as, "Basically, ... a studio-shoot movie."[26][27] As the years passed, however, without an official announcement, he started to be described as "retired".
Speaking in July 2022, speculating about Weir's unannounced retirement, Ethan Hawke said, "I think [Weir] lost interest in movies. He really enjoyed that work when he didn't have actors giving him a hard time. Russell Crowe and Johnny Depp broke him."[28]
In November 2022, Weir received anAcademy Honorary Award from theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[29]
On the occasion of this award, he also gave his first interview in many years, toThe Sydney Morning Herald. In the interview, he said Hawke's quote "must have been taken out of context. I find it puzzling." However, Weir confirmed his retirement, saying that "for film directors, like volcanoes, there are three major stages: active, dormant and extinct. I think I've reached the latter! Another generation is out there calling "action" and "cut" and good luck to them." He stated that he has enjoyed visiting ancient ruins and battlefields and diving on the WWII shipwrecks of theTruk Lagoon during his retirement.[30]
On 14 June 1982, Weir was appointed a Member of theOrder of Australia (AM) for his service to the film industry.[31]
| Year | Title | Distributor |
|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Homesdale | |
| 1974 | The Cars That Ate Paris | British Empire Films |
| 1975 | Picnic at Hanging Rock | |
| 1977 | The Last Wave | United Artists |
| 1979 | The Plumber | |
| 1981 | Gallipoli | Village Roadshow /Paramount Pictures |
| 1982 | The Year of Living Dangerously | United International Pictures /MGM/UA Entertainment Company |
| 1985 | Witness | Paramount Pictures |
| 1986 | The Mosquito Coast | Warner Bros. |
| 1989 | Dead Poets Society | Buena Vista Pictures |
| 1990 | Green Card | |
| 1993 | Fearless | Warner Bros. |
| 1998 | The Truman Show | Paramount Pictures |
| 2003 | Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World | 20th Century Fox |
| 2010 | The Way Back | Newmarket Films / Exclusive Film Distribution / Meteor Pictures |
| Year | Title | Academy Awards | BAFTA Awards | Golden Globe Awards | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | Nominations | Wins | ||
| 1975 | Picnic at Hanging Rock | 3 | 1 | ||||
| 1981 | Gallipoli | 1 | |||||
| 1982 | The Year of Living Dangerously | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| 1985 | Witness | 8 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 6 | |
| 1986 | The Mosquito Coast | 2 | |||||
| 1989 | Dead Poets Society | 4 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 4 | |
| 1990 | Green Card | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | ||
| 1993 | Fearless | 1 | 1 | ||||
| 1998 | The Truman Show | 3 | 7 | 3 | 6 | 3 | |
| 2003 | Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World | 10 | 2 | 8 | 4 | 3 | |
| 2010 | The Way Back | 1 | |||||
| Total | 29 | 6 | 32 | 11 | 27 | 5 | |
Directed Academy Award Performances
...born August 8 (some sources cite June 21), 1944...
| Awards and achievements | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | BAFTA Award for Best Direction 1998 forThe Truman Show | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | BAFTA Award for Best Direction 2003 forMaster and Commander: The Far Side of the World | Succeeded by |
