LB: Men’s Group is essentially about a bunch of blokes talking, and the title of the film exemplifies the simplistic premise on which it is based. Where did the idea come from to make Men’s Group and how did the project originate?
MJ: John and I were working on another project and we were really looking at the men in that story. We found that much of the ‘trouble’ stemmed from their difficulties in communicating in a healthy way. At the same time, I was feeling pretty depressed and went along to a men’s group one night on the advice of a telephone counsellor and found the entire evening fascinating. Here was a bunch of about five blokes sitting around a cramped lounge room and each one was grappling with a completely different situation. Some of these guys had been going to this group for several years and were still looking at their lives from the outside. I was struck by the immense pain and conflict that was alive in the room, in the thick air of that room, as well as the sense of caring and safety in which that could be expressed. The experience sort of shook me, and it inspired me. The following morning John and I were talking and we realized that here was a story that not only we felt we needed to tell, but that it was also feasible for us to do so with very little money. We began making the film pretty much that day.
JS: Michael and I were working on our feature 11 Months, which raised a lot of men’s issues, and as part of our exploration we discussed men’s groups. We wanted to work together on a smaller scale film, and Michael suggested that a men’s group would make a great subject for a film. I agreed.
LB: The structure of the film places a lot of emphasis on dialogue. Crucially, the conversations feel totally genuine. Did either of you observe or sit in with a real group of this kind for preparation, and if not, what did you do to research /prepare for writing the film.
MJ: After that first startling session that I mentioned before, we did was quite a bit research into groups. We had many conversations with some key academics in the area, and dedicated others who run these groups or are working with men in some way, including Grant Dodwell, who plays Alex. There was also a lot of conversation with blokes we knew or had just met, each one with their own concerns, and much of this raw material from life made it in some form or other into the final film. Alongside this quite careful research, I was conducting one-on-one sessions with each actor, once or sometimes twice a week. The sessions started out with a list of words; from this, we formed sentences which eventually became insights – symbols from the subconscious, if you like - into the backgrounds of the not-yet-formed characters. It was, in a loose, lateral, creative way, a sort of ‘session’, in that we were seeking to find what was already there, already known in some way, and to look at it from various perspectives and build upon that. After each session John and I talked through the things that had come up for each actor, and began to filter our list of stories and scene or character ideas into each of the developing characters. Within about six weeks, each actor knew the name of their character, where and when they were born, who their parents were and where they met, etc. I then started observed improvisation sessions with each actor, and they would run for up to a couple of hours. Writing notes and videotaping the sessions, these observations would form the basis of scenes - many of which are in the film - and at the same time they were informing the actors of the deeper workings of their characters.
By the time the actors were placed in the Men’s Group scenes with each other, for real, there was a structured script with loose and essential dialogue that was either crucial for the scene or the character. The actors did not see this script, though, at any stage of filming. We did not want them to speak the lines of dialogue, verbatim from the script. The objective was different. They were so well-seated in their characters that they could work emotionally and intuitively and truthfully from the core with all the unexpected twists and turns and nuances, and this is where something new could be born – not necessarily in the form of dialogue, but also in tone, tension, relief, expression, silence. This magic known/unknown is what we were courting.
Before each scene, I spent anything from five to forty five minutes talking to the actors quietly and individually about what was going on in their lives at that time ,and priming them for any specific things I needed them to talk about. If, during a scene, there was something that needed to be mentioned and the actor was not getting to it, I could call ‘time out.’ They would sort of tread water, staying in character in that atmosphere and moment, while I whispered to the actor concerned and then the scene continued. In this way the dramatic tension wound up or down depending on what was required.
Each of these scenes could run for anything up to an hour, hence the decision to shoot on the JVC proHDV format. From there, with editor Stuart Morley, we engaged in kind of reverse script editing process, crafting the scene to bring every moment to the finer point that the story required. Stuart brought an incredible sensibility and great sensitivity to the process, shaping and reshaping and tightening volumes of material to best realize the ‘truth’ of a scene and of the film. It is no coincidence that he is also a sculptor.
LB: The actors give really heartrending performances. Men’s Group is one of those rare movies during which I could barely imagine any other actors playing these characters. How did you go about selecting your cast? What was the audition process like?
MJ: There was no audition process. John and I called the actors we wanted to work with and met with them. We talked about the story and then the process. I think for all of us it very quickly became something we had to do.
JS: There was no audition. We discussed who we wanted and invited them into the project, and luckily they said yes!
LB: John, your last film was The Jammed, which features a bunch of awesome female performances. Men’s Group film features a bunch of awesome male performances. Was this gender-hopping purely coincidental? Could you imagine what sort of dynamic you’d get if you combined the cast of The Jammed with the cast of Men’s Group?
JS: Hmm, I don’t really believe in coincidence. Both films address different aspects of male behaviour from very different perspectives. And yes - the combined performances would be mind blowing!
LB: Michael, David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz describe the camera work in Men’s Group as ‘irritating’ but I think it adds an important element. Certainly it was unconventionally shot, but the handheld elements help viewers seep into the fabric of the film, and helps build a kind of fly-on-the-wall appeal. Was this the intention?
MJ: As a cinematographer myself, I’ve shot a lot ‘pretty’. There are supposedly many rules about how things ought to be composed for the screen. But we live in an age in which audiences are far more screen and convention literate than they are given credit for, and, in a way, anything goes. Have a look at YouTube and see how many ways in which people are experimenting with form and composition and format.
This film is raw in every sense. The intention was to allow an audience to look in on real people. At several early screenings we had some members of the audience berate us for getting involved in these men’s lives and not following through, when clearly they needed our help. We had to point out that this was drama and not documentary, that all of the men are in fact actors. So this particular kind of realism is a combination of the character development process and the way the approach to filming was operating outside of the usual filmmaking conventions.
We filmed in a real house, which allowed the men to arrive on a street at a real gate and enter through the front door and walk into the lounge room for real. The lounge room itself was about 4.5 metres by 3 metres so with six actors, three camera operators, two boom swingers and furniture, it was pretty close in there. DOP Geoffrey Wharton and I wanted to be able to let the actors work freely so we ran three cameras with no rehearsals, the idea being that we – the camera operators – like the actors and characters, would get to know the space and each other and settle down as the sessions progressed. Which is exactly what happened. The entire film, except a few smaller scenes, was shot in sequence, which is crucial when working in this way, so we could never go back and redo a scene. We could not recreate a moment several times just to find another angle. We did not know what to expect, and this goes for the cameras as well. What makes the film so engaging is that every moment is truthful to that point in time, and the truth, with all its grit, is not sacrificed in the name of traditional technical perfection and control. That said, I have been approached by directors and directors of photography at AFI screenings who have said how beautiful the film looks, and how well the visual style suits the story and performances.
For me, the film’s integrity is due to the sum of all its parts.
LB: How long did it take to shoot Men’s Group? How intricate were the rehearsals?
JS: Pre-workshop was two months, the shoot was fourteen days and post production was eleven months.
MJ: The entire shoot was fourteen days and these were pretty relaxed 10 hour days; sometimes longer but only a couple of times. I did not use continuity as I felt it would have slowed us down and required more coverage than was absolutely necessary. There was a five-day rehearsal in a room the same size as the actual one where the actors all got to feel what the room would be like and just to have a little taste of the sessions. There were rules around this, the main one being that they were not allowed to reveal very much about their character so it became this dance around the room where each actor was trying things but not letting anyone else into their character or his issues. I guess you also have to consider that the eight or more weeks of character work was a form of rehearsal.
The day before filming we brought the actors and crew together to the dressed, lit location. We did a small run though, although not in character, so both crew and actors could how the space was going to work. It was a surprise for the actors, who suddenly realized that the cameras were going to be right in their faces - literally centimeters away in some cases.
LB: The Australian film industry is in a state in which even exceptionally well made films rarely draw any sort of significant audience to the cinema. How discouraging is this, and which is more difficult: making a good film or getting people to see it?
MJ: Both are very hard to do.
JS: The most significant challenge facing Australian filmmakers is reaching an audience. Making a great film is very difficult, but if you do the audience will come if you maintain faith. One of the problems is some filmmakers give up just when they should be out there banging the drum. As a parent I could never give away my babies, and films are the same. I’ve spent the best part of 2008 working twelve hour days getting Men’s Group positioned so that it didn’t fall between the cracks. It’s not magic – it’s just persistence, faith and hard work!
LB: Critics may like to think they are hardened and intellectual viewers, but every once in a while everybody can get powerfully affected by a film. There are scenes in Men’s Group that really got to me emotionally; a couple of the scenes I felt uncomfortable watching as I could feel them relating to me in personal ways – like my family and my relationship with my father. Was any of the dialogue inspired by personal issues in your lives? How have people reacted to the film?
MJ: There are many personal moments in the film drawn directly or indirectly from some of the filmmakers involved, including observations from conversation with wives and partners and children and parents and friends and family. Alex’s axolotyl issue, for instance, is a mistake that I myself made a number of years ago. We have put ourselves into the film in all sorts of ways, but, I guess, in ways that were intended to service the film, ultimately. We worked in the end with what seemed to touch on commonalities across all that was shared with us during the process and what we knew of ourselves and others at the time. We worked with our feelings about our fathers, and with their feelings about their fathers, and so on. We were struck by the return to certain key themes, actually. We learned a lot making this film.
One of the biggest responses to the film is people saying that they see themselves in each of the characters in one way or another. I remember when we screened the film in a rough stage at the Dungog film festival in 2007. Sitting in front of me were these two 40-ish year old blokes. On several occasions during the screening, one of them would stand up and go to leave, and then take a step and sit back down again. At the end of the screening we were out on the street and I saw the two blokes. I went up to them and asked them how they found the film. One of the blokes put his arm around the other and said, ‘this guy here saved my life… if it wasn’t for him… I love him and that’s what this film reminds me of.’
JS: People are very touched by the film, and I receive emails everyday from both men and women. It really affects them emotionally. The best response we get is when someone says ”I rang my dad the next morning…” Wow, that’s powerful stuff, and if a film can make people have more empathy, the hard work and blind faith has all been worth it.LB: The stereotypical Aussie male is gruff and reticent. How important do you think it is for men to talk about their problems?
MJ: Very. It’s something we’re not so equipped to do. It doesn’t haven’t to stay that way.
JS: Sadly, not talking hasn’t worked for too many of our brothers. It is so crucial that the government has put it on the national agenda. It’s now a matter of survival.
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