Richard Franklin has died., A thoughtful director, and a gentleman.

[Anthony Thorne]

Australian director Richard Franklin died Wednesday last week following a long illness. He had directed PATRICK, ROAD GAMES, PSYCHO 2, CLOAK AND DAGGER, LINK, and more recently among others HOTEL SORRENTO and VISITORS. He was a genre enthusiast, a longtime Hitchcock fan, taught recently at a Melbourne University, and was a kind, thoughtful and generous person to know.

Richard had a mixed relationship to the funding bodies down here and had onetime written a lengthy article for the Australian magazine Cinema Papers detailing the studio interference he experienced whilst making LINK. He experienced more of this whilst making VISITORS in recent years and spoke openly of the troubles he had with the Australian Film Finance bodies, who (from what he described) had little of his own commonsense about filmmaking but liked to dictate, contrary to any reasonable logic, what they thought an artist should do.

Two years ago I found myself writing a lengthy post on a discussion board run by Melbourne Hitchcock scholar Ken Mogg. Getting carried away I found myself bemoaning the local funding bodies and picking Richard Franklin as an example, suggesting that it was a palpable shame that an accomplished genre specialist such as himself should be unable to get work, whilst the FFC threw money away on projects with little film sense and little audience appeal. Within the week I had the pleasant surprise of finding an email from Richard in my inbox, thanking me for my comments. We exchanged emails a few times and eventually accepted a mutual invitation to catch up over coffee, which we did at a cafe near his Port Melbourne home. The coffee lasted for an hour, I spoke for 5 minutes and he spoke for 55, pouring out his frustration and disappointment at the experiences he had undergone making VISITORS, where the clueless government film body had advised him that they had 'learnt a lesson' from wielding the editorial scissors on his movie, and that future local government funded projects would have a contractual mandate entered allowing film office department heads to have more editorial control over local movies, not less. Richard shrugged and laughed at this, noting to me how he was saddened to see what seemed to be the gradual collapse of the local Melbourne filmmaking scene - long time crew members such as grips were selling their trucks of gear, and funding was becoming harder to find.

Richard expressed admiration for Kevin Spacey's recent biopic BEYOND THE SEA, and noted how he had acquired the rights to a local book (or play), had written a script, and that (longtime Melbourne resident) Geoffrey Rush had mentioned to him how he was interested in taking the lead role in a feature version of it if he directed it. Even with this interest, Franklin noted, the film funding bodies were skittish about making the movie. It was a cold day and Richard noted that in my t-shirt I would probably be freezing when I walked to the tram stop. I’ll give you a jumper, he suggested, and went back to his home to grab a woolen top for me to wear. Just post it back to me, he said, which I later did. Richard walked me to the tram and was still relating an anecdote to me through the window detailing the stubborn foolishness of the local film funding bodies when the tram pulled away with a clang and he was left waving from the side of the road.

Richard had appeared in a number of Hitchcock related featurettes in recent years (some for recent Warner DVD’s) and was pleased when people mentioned these to him. Local filmmaker Mark Hartley, preparing a feature length documentary on Australian 70’s genre films (with a lengthy Tarantino interview already recorded early last year), hoped to get Richard to talk about PATRICK and ROADGAMES. Richard had been very ill in recent weeks, but agreed to the idea, and just over three weeks ago, sitting in a wheelchair in his home, recorded a long interview talking about his movies. He seemed happy to talk, and could have kept it up for longer until his wife understandably begged off the interview dragging on too much longer. On the day of the shoot Mark noted that Richard had been watching, or rewatching, some of his library of Hitchcock DVD’s - something he did quite a bit of in his final weeks - and he spoke with excitement about the recent DVD re-release of TO CATCH A THIEF. On a table sat a script, a copy of an unproduced Ernest Lehman script written for Hitchcock back in the day. Ahh, said Mark, admiring it, this ones pretty legendary, an unreleased script…. Please take it, said Richard, giving it to him.

Richard is survived by his wife and family. He was a lovely guy, had offered frequent support and mentorship to other Melbourne filmmakers including Mark Savage and Jamie Blanks, and will be sorely missed.



This post has been edited by Anthony Thorne on Jul 15 2007, 06:43 AM

[Bob Cashill]

What a lovely post. You hear so much about the bad behavior and egotism in the film industry; the good news about more generous personalities goes unreported. A terrific tribute, Anthony, thanks.

[Mark Savage]

Great tribute to Richard, Anthony.

In an industry full of people who will not give less experienced people the time of day, Richard was an exception. He was very generous and encouraging with me, and was always keen to discuss his favorite films and his love of Hitchcock.

His non-genre films such as BRILLIANT LIES and HOTEL SORRENTO were very solid dramas, too.

Richard was also one of Australia's proudest genre directors in a period when genre films were treated as disrespectfully as porn.

That he has died at 58 is a terrible thing.

RIP, Richard.