Overview

“I was playing with colour, and its emotional effect...green for hope, red for violence, blue for a bit of mystique—a very dark purplish orange blue...but very basic. For instance, the only way I could think to convey jealousy, on film, was by shooting through a blob of yellow. Of course I knew all about Eisenstein’s dialectical montage. I intercut my own footage with old 8mm stuff. I kicked off with an innocent image...just white, then a stuffed toy dog. Later a red colour then an image of a warship coming into Sydney harbour...a primitive metaphor for war. This was some of my first film in a more abstract style, and it was greatly discouraged at the time...everyone was heavily under the influence of British documentary filmmaking. People said, ‘this isn’t really how films ought to be made.’” (Paul Winkler)