The Big Picture

Baz Luhrmann didn’t expect to revisit his film Australia, but he saw an opportunity to create an extended version with new footage that also allowed him to delve deeper into character development and enrich the story’s tragic beats, creating a more immersive experience. Luhrmann shot two different endings for Australia due to the economic situation at the time, and the alternate ending in Faraway Downs adds depth to the characters’ relationship. Luhrmann’s experience with Faraway Downs has opened up the possibility of exploring similar extended versions for future projects, such as an epic version of Elvis.

With Faraway Downs, available to stream at Hulu, filmmaker Baz Luhrmann was afforded the very unique opportunity of looking back on his 2008 film Australia and re-editing, reshaping, and recontextualizing it into six chapters. English aristocrat Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) and the drover (Hugh Jackman) on her million-acre cattle ranch in the Australian Outback are still at the center of the story, drawn into a love affair as they join forces to protect the property. But now, the additional footage expands the story of Nullah (Brandon Walters), a biracial Indigenous Australian child who is part of the Stolen Generations, and allows for a different ending, making this film in chapters feel like a companion piece.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Luhrmann talked about whether he would have been content with Australia, if he’d never gotten to do Faraway Downs, the epic amount of footage he had to work with, wanting to expand the Indigenous presence throughout the project, and what he learned from revisiting the original film in this unique way. He also talked about whether he’ll be thinking of other previous and future projects in this way, which of his films he doesn’t believe this approach would work for, and that it’s certainly possible that he could do a more epic version of Elvis, as well.

Faraway Downs Release Date November 26, 2023 Cast Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Bryan Brown, Ben Mendelsohn Main Genre Drama Writers Stuart Beattie, Ronald Harwood, Baz Luhrmann, Richard Flanagan Streaming Service(s) Hulu Directors Baz Luhrmann

Collider: I so appreciated getting to revisit this. I did the junket for Australia and saw the movie when it came out, so this was a very interesting experience that I never would have expected.

BAZ LUHRMANN: Well, you know what? I didn’t expect it either.

Image via Hulu

Was Luhrmann Happy With Australia, As It Was Released?
When you originally made Australia, were you fully happy with the film that was released? If this had never been possible, would you have been content with the film that Australia is?

LUHRMANN: It’s like with all my films, I know when they’re working, but I don’t think any of them are perfect. If you didn’t take them away from me, I’d probably still work on them and probably ruin them, really. It’s a bit like a parent who over-parents. But having said that, when I was shooting it, I shot 2.5 million feet of footage, which is a crazy record of footage. I shot it thinking, in the back of my head, “It’s gotta be epic and I’ve gotta do an epic version of it, so I’ve gotta make sure I’ve got epic footage,” which I did get. Now, it’s not even what I think about Australia, but it was a fraught landing. It’s certainly my least successful movie in the U.S., but it’s also my number one film, still, in Europe. There are a lot of people who have a relationship to Australia. So, I didn’t set out to go, “Oh, it’s an improved version of Australia.”

It doesn’t actually have the same exact plot, in some areas. It allowed me to take the big idea, which was take a Gone with the Wind melodrama, flip it, tell it from a First Nation child’s point of view, and also lean in to that big theme, which sees Lady Sarah comes in like she’s gonna be able to control everything and be the big savior, but in the end, as Drover says, you can’t really own land, or define yourself by land or child or relationship, in the end. All you’ve got is your story, which means you gotta be okay with yourself. That’s the big message, and I was able to really lean into that. And then, there’s the whole fun bit of working with young Indigenous pop stars and making new music and taking it back to the community that we worked with. When we showed it to them, they clap for land. When they were watching it, different parts of the landscape would come up and they’d clap for land. It was very cool.

You shot two different endings to the film during production, which I think is so interesting, and now, Faraway Downs has that other ending. What made you decide to do that, at the time? How did you even get the money people to agree to let you shoot two endings for a movie, when they knew you could only use one of them?

LUHRMANN: It was the time of the economic meltdown and people were in such a desperate and distraught place. This is a melodrama and there’s a lot of tragedy in it, that almost happens on beat. Now, in a two-hour-and-40-minute or two-hour-and-45-minute movie, or whatever the length was, it’s a lot of loss of months. By the time we got to the end, it was really a lot. And we were exploring, “Well, what happens, if it wasn’t as difficult at the end?” When you revisit it and it’s episodic, it’s some four hours. The first episode is double the length it takes to get to the same plot point. You might think, “Well, isn’t that boring?” But actually, what it allows you to do is to enrich characters, spend more time, and have a rhythm, so that when those tragic beats happen, they’re meted out. So, from the moment I thought of doing this, I thought, “No, that’s gotta be the ending.” I was so shocked when I really looked at the footage, I’d forgotten what happens in that ending. I’m trying not to spoil it for everyone, but it’s more than just loss. There’s a revelation that’s made, that you don’t know in Australia.

Image via Hulu

Will This Experiment Lead to More?
Storytellers get to revisit a story when they do a sequel. Stories get revisited when another storyteller will remake something previously done. But it’s very rare that a filmmaker gets to return to the story that they’ve told, use footage that they’ve shot, and revisit it in the way you’ve done here. Even just re-watching the performances again and reshaping them, what most surprised you about this whole experience? What did you learn that you weren’t expecting?

LUHRMANN: A lot. And by the way, you’re right, there’s no precedent for it. It’s an experiment, and if it works, I think other filmmakers might look at it like, “Oh, I’m gonna do the theatrical piece, and then I’m gonna allow it to breathe in a different way.” They shouldn’t destroy each other. Australia is not Faraway Downs, and Faraway Downs is not Australia, but they are drawn from the same work. I was surprised by so many things. Because of the compression, we have a sequence where Nicole [Kidman] comes out, tragedy happens, and the bad guy is like, “Hey, just go home.” In the movie, she goes to sleep, she wakes up, and she goes. But we were able to return a different construct, which is that he goes, “Leave today,” and she goes to leave today, but Hugh Jackman is waiting out there because he brought her there for his cattle to get his money. She’s like, “Hey, where are you going?” And he goes, “You’ve gotta stay one night because tomorrow the horses come, and then I get my money.” And the bad guy goes, “No, she’s gotta leave right now. She’s a woman and there’s a dangerous Indigenous warrior out there.” Nicole blanches at that, but she sees it and goes, “I get it.” And he goes, “You’re a woman, you probably wanna wait.” And she says, “Okay, I’ll stay.” That scene, which is played wonderfully by them, sets up the stakes of their relationship. It’s a really good example where I went, ‘Wow, we really had to kick through some of the richer character scenes.” That was a real thrill.

Obviously, it feels like Elvis would lend itself perfectly to doing something like this. What are the chances we’ll get to see a film in chapters for Elvis? Is that something you’ll think about and consider for every project you do, from here on out? Having gone into Elvis with this experience in your mind, did you approach shooting it any differently? Were you thinking about that possibility?

LUHRMANN: I have to be really careful, but what I can tell you is that there are films, like Moulin Rouge or Romeo + Juliet, that are very tight. There is epic storytelling, and with Elvis, it’s almost impossible to believe how big a life he lived in such a short period of time, for someone who died very early into his 40s. When I shot it, I absolutely shot quite the epic version of it, and it’s on record, me saying that there’s a four-hour cut. So, while the version that’s out there in the cinema played very, very well, not this year and maybe not next year, and maybe I won’t do it, but I do know that there’s a long-play version of that story that would definitely go down the same road as I did on this. That’s why it’s such an interesting experiment. It’s really amazing how much interest there is in it, from press and from people. People are so interested in what the difference between Australia and Faraway Downs is and what I’ve done. So, I don’t know, but there’s an energy around it, for sure.

Will We See An Even More Epic Elvis?
I would imagine that now that you’ve done it, it would be hard not to at least consider it for every project that you do in the future.

LUHRMANN: Yeah, I think you’re right. My guess is that there are some pieces that are just not epic by nature. Moulin Rouge is not epic by nature. Moulin Rouge is truly contained. But the life of Elvis is epic by nature. With Faraway Downs, I set out to make an epic piece. When you think about Dickens, he wrote his epic books episodically. He released Oliver Twist episodically. Fitzgerald’s Gatsby is a very slender, tight novella. It’s tiny and it really suits a one-sitting movie. There’s no epic version of Gatsby. But Elvis, I certainly wouldn’t deny the consideration of that. It certainly is possible.

Faraway Downs is available to stream at Hulu.

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