Proof (1991)

PROOF
New Line Cinema, 1991 - Rated R [for sensuality, some nudity & language]

“Before love comes trust. Before love comes proof.”

Jocelyn Moorhouse, Director and Writer

Born 1960 in Melbourne, Australia, Jocelyn Moorhouse dreamed first of becoming a novelist or playwright; but shifted her aspirations to filmmaking in 1976, after seeing Nicholas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth and Fred Schepisi’s The Devil’s Playground. In the 1970s, a home-grown film industry began to flourish with the support of the Australian government, which allocated funding for a film and television school, and start-up money for film productions through a national development corporation (see Ellis and Wexman). Directors like Roeg, Schepisi, Phillip Noyce, and Peter Weir were leaders of the new Australian cinema, and many of their films—including Weir’s The Last Wave (1977), Gallipoli (1981), and The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)--earned international success. Australia’s emergent film industry also nurtured talented women like Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career, 1979; Mrs. Soffel, 1984) and Jane Campion.

Moorhouse drew inspiration and benefit from this exhilarating creative environment. While a student of the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School, she wrote and directed her first short film Pavane in 1983. This portrait of a homeless girl who unintentionally stabs a real estate agent, revealed Moorhouse’s talent for dark comedy. After graduation, Moorhouse worked for Australian TV as a script editor and writer; and in 1986, wrote and directed another short film The Siege of Barton’s Bathroom, which became the basis of a book and television series (Hollywood.com).

With Proof, Jocelyn Moorhouse made her brilliant feature-filmmaking debut in 1991. Moorhouse’s inventive, precisely written and witty script; her proficient craft and elegantly minimalist style in film direction, realized by a gifted trio of lead performers, won Proof critical acclaim and special jury mention in the Camera d’Or (Best First Feature Film) category at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. More accolades soon followed when Proof garnered six major awards from the Australian Film Institute (AFI), including Best Director and Best Screenplay for Moorhouse. When Proof opened the Museum of Modern Art’s prestigious New Directions/New Film series on 20 March 1992, respected New York film critic David Denby welcomed Australian writer-director Moorhouse as a “striking and self-assured new talent” on “the international film scene,” and praised Proof for displaying “the intensity and perceptiveness of a beautifully wrought novella,” distinguished by its “highly cinematic” “barbed erotic atmosphere” (60).

“High intelligence like Moorhouse’s appears in our current cinema
the force of pure oxygen rushing through a sealed vacuum” (Denby 61).

Despite impressive critical accolades, Proof was accorded only a limited art-house run in the U.S. during 1992. In 1994, Moorhouse co-produced Muriel’s Wedding [the 23 May 2003 offering in COCC Cinema Down Under film series], directed by Moorhouse’s Australian husband P. J. Hogan, whom she met in film school. The film’s popular and critical international success was further testimony that Australia’s vibrant and original film industry was a force to be reckoned with in contemporary world cinema. Like other promising Australian filmmakers of the 1980s and 1990s, Moorhouse was courted by Hollywood, but her promising directoral talents did not survive the U.S.A. transplant well. How to Make an American Quilt (1995) and A Thousand Acres (1997) met with mixed reviews and disappointing box office. Since 1997, Moorhouse has not directed another feature film, although she continues to work in the film industry. Currently Moorhouse is executive producer of Peter Pan (U.S.A., filming in 2003, per Internet Movie Database), collaborating once again with her director husband P.J. Hogan.

Tonight's Film: “Photographs don’t lie; people do”

As David Ansen observes, Proof is probably “the least sentimental movie ever made about a blind man. The hero of Jocelyn Moorhouse’s intelligent, edgy first feature has been blind since birth and is so well defended against pity—his own and anyone else’s—that he wears his pride as a porcupine wears quills. Martin (Hugo Weaving) is an amateur photographer. No matter that he can’t see his own photographs—they exist as proof, confirmations of a reality he can’t perceive. And being a supremely untrusting soul, he uses them to test whether people lie to him” (Ansen). Martin’s “lack of trust,” “runs so deep it has defined his entire life and personality” (Ebert). The adult Martin, fiercely independent, grudgingly relies upon his 30-year-old housekeeper Celia (Geneviève Picot). Celia wants Martin, but Martin relishes denying himself to her. Thus he--who hates being the object of others’ pity—gains power to pity someone else. A tense triangle develops when unwitting Andy (young Russell Crowe) happens into Martin’s life, is enlisted to describe his photographs, and Celia sets about undermining Martin’s friendship with Andy. Moorhouse injects surprising moments of humor and maintains a skillful balance between the perverse and the humane, as the plot twists its way through sexual gamesmanship and betrayal to emotional revelation. James Berardinelli names the secret of Proof’s success as “complex character interaction between well-developed, unique individuals”: “This film is about people, the forces that draw them together, and the barriers that keep them apart.” For Ansen, Proof is “about a man who holds the world to inhuman standards, cutting himself off from his own humanity in the process. It’s about learning to trust. Martin’s blindness implicates us all.”

Proof ’s Unforgettable Triangle of Lead Actors

Hugo Weaving (Martin) was born in Nigeria, 1960; and spent his childhood in South Africa and England, before he and his traveling family finally settled in Australia in 1976. After graduating Australia’s NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) in 1981, Weaving compiled an impressive resume on Australian stage and screen, then earned his first AFI award as Best lead Actor in Proof (1991). His lead actor work in Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) earned him another nomination for this AFI prize. In 1998, Weaving won a second AFI Lead Actor award for The Interview, and was voted Australian star of the year. Today, Weaving is best known to American filmgoers as the favorite villain Agent Smith of the Matrix film series, and as Lord Elrond in the unfolding epic Lord of the Rings, directed by New Zealander Peter Jackson and adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien’s beloved classic.

Geneviève Picot (Celia) was born in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, 1956. Her performance in Proof earned her a 1991 AFI nomination for Best Actress in a Lead Role. She has maintained an active career in Australian and New Zealand TV and film since 1976.

Russell Crowe (Andy) was born in Wellington, New Zealand, 1964; but his movie-caterer parents made Australia home in Crowe's early childhood. Crowe made his acting debut at age 6 in an episode of Australian TV series Spyforce. Under the stage name Rus Le Roc, the teenager enjoyed some success as a singer. Proof, his third feature film, earned Crowe the AFI award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (1991). Crowe's breakthrough roles in Romper Stomper (1992) and The Sum of Us (1994) paved the way to international stardom. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Upcoming Features: Cinema Down Under– Spring 2003 COCC Film Series

May 23, Fri., 7:00 pm: Muriel's Wedding (1994)
May 30, Fri., 7:00 pm: Once Were Warriors (1994) [not for children]

Bibliography

Ansen, David. "Wars Domestic and Military: Three Striking Independent Films - Irish, American and Australian - Enliven the Scene." [Includes review of Proof.] Newsweek 11 May 1992: 77. Rpt. EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite, 2003; Article No. 920511375.

Berardinelli, James. Rev. of Proof. 1998. Reelviews: Berardinelli Sees Film, 1996-2003
URL: http:/movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/p/proof.html

Denby, David. "Movies: Mr. Vice Guy." [". . . Edward James Olmos's American Me is a mess, but Proof's Jocelyn Moorhouse is a striking new talent on the scene . . . ."] New York Magazine 23 March 1992: 60-61.

Ebert, Roger. Rev. of Proof. Chicago Sun-Times 15 May 1992. suntimes.com, Digital Chicago Inc., 2003. URL: http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1992/05/756483.html

Ellis, Jack C., and Virginia Wright Wexman. "Recent National Movements, 1959 - : Australia." A History of Film. 5th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2002. 417-422.

Hollywood.com. "Jocelyn Moorhouse." Hollywood.com, Inc., 1999-2003.
URL: http://www.hollywood.com/celebs/bio/celeb/1672604

Howe, Desson. Rev. of Proof (R). Washington Post 5 June 1992. washingtonpost.com - The Washington Post Company, 1996 - 2003.
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/proofrhowe_a0aed7.htm

Internet Movie Database. Proof (1991). Internet Movie Database - Amazon.com, 1990-2003.
URL: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0102721
[See also embedded links to related topics on this page.]

Kempley, Rita. Rev. of Proof (R). Washington Post 6 June 1992. washingtonpost.com - The Washington Post Company, 1996 - 2003.
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/proofrkempley_a0a2bd.htm

Mitchell, Elvis. "Bitter Cycle of Love and Loathing Interrupted." [Rev. of Proof, being shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, 3 Jan. 2001.] The New York Times 3 Jan. 2001: E1. Rpt. EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite, 2003; Article No. 3927238.

Smith, Neil. Rev. of Muriel's Wedding. BBC - Films - Reviews: 26 Jan. 2001. BBCi [British Broadcasting Company - International], 2003.
URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2001/01/26/muriels_wedding_1994_review.shtml

Turan, Kenneth. "Movie Review: Muriel's Wedding." Los Angeles Times 10 March 1995. CalendarLive on latimes.com, 2003.
URL: http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-movie960406-259.story

Weiss, Philip. "Hollywood at a Fever Pitch." [Includes Interview with Jocelyn Moorhouse.] New York Times Magazine 26 Dec. 1993: 20 (12 pp). Rpt. EBSCOHost Academic Search Elite, 2003; Article No. 9403231003.

Handout prepared by Cora Agatucci, 16 May 2003
for the Spring 2003 Cinema Down Under Film Series

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Last updated: 16 May 2003
Cora Agatucci ~ E-Mail: cagatucci@cocc.edu
Copyright © 2002-2003, Greg Lyons and Cora Agatucci,
Humanities Department, Central Oregon Community College