Fresh score to the fore of a cult classic
The 1971 Australian film classic Wake in Fright is being given new life with a score by Surprise Chef, who will perform it live at screenings for the Melbourne International Film Festival.
It’s hard to forget the mangled kangaroo corpses and a drunk and dehydrated Gary Bond, who descends into chaos in the outback, in the cult Australian film Wake in Fright (1971).
But as part of Melbourne International Film Festival 2024, the film is coming to audiences in a new and unlikely way.
In an event curated and created by Hear My Eyes, Wake in Fright will be screened at Hamer Hall this week with a new score played live by Melbourne band Surprise Chef.
The film, directed by Canadian Ted Kotcheff and adapted from Kenneth Cook’s 1961 novel of the same name, follows a young schoolteacher, John Grant (Bond), as he sets out from his outback schoolhouse to return to Sydney.
But as he stops overnight in a town called Bundanyabba, he loses all he owns in a night of two-up and drunkenness. It’s a film that presents audiences with a scathing critique of Australian culture, one that many believe remains prevalent.
According to Hear My Eyes artistic director Haydn Green, the unconventional cinematic format is somewhere between a film screening and a live concert.
“This movie was made in 1971 but it is so timely,” Green says.
“Hopefully it can act as a mirror and we can sit there and watch it and say, ‘All right, that’s a representation of our culture from over 50 years ago but what’s changed? Has anything changed? What have we moved the needle on? What’s exactly the same and what does that mean?’ With a live score, it basically ends up meaning that the film comes to life in a way that it can’t otherwise. It alters the space.
“It makes you more aware of your surroundings and the people you’re sitting next to. It’s a communal experience.”
It is no small undertaking for Green and the band involved. First, Green says, the film rights needed to be secured and the original score removed. The next step was choosing the band that would create an entirely new score for the film, tailored to the exact timing of the movie, and then performed live twice in the same night.
In past screenings, rock bands such as King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Tropical F..k Storm and the Murlocs have been tasked with creating scores for films such as Suspira, No Country for Old Men and Two Hands, respectively.
For this film, the choice of Surprise Chef, which takes inspiration from film scores of the early and mid-1970s, was a no-brainer for Green and an exciting challenge for the band.
The band’s approach to music aims to push the boundaries of instrumental soul and funk and is a combination of many hours spent in the studio, studying the masters, and their distance from the instrumental jazz-soul-funk scene in places such as California – where Surprise Chef performed as part of Desert Daze in 2022.
The band – Lachlan Stuckey on guitar, Jethro Curtin on keyboards, Carl Lindeberg on bass, Andrew Congues on drums, and Hudson Whitlock, who moves from percussion to composing to producing, and everything between – was signed to Big Crown Records in 2017, amassing a diehard fan base.
“While we have considered ourselves very influenced by film music and scores, we found it a completely different task trying to actually apply the music to a visual medium,” lead singer Stuckey says.
“Once we’d actually written everything, we then had to learn how to execute it and play it live.
“And it’s not like playing a regular set with tunes that we’re familiar with and that we can perform on our own terms. We have to play a two-hour performance and internalise the cues while the film plays live.
“We knew that was going to be a really exciting challenge. And it’s certainly proved to be.”
Green says there are plenty more performances in the works and perhaps even an expansion into international film festivals in places such as Los Angeles and London.
“Next year we’ve been doing it for 10 years,” Green says. “It keeps getting bigger and bigger. We have some exciting things around the corner.”
Wake in Fright screens with live accompaniment by Surprise Chef at Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne, on Friday as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival. More: miff.com.au
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