Bad Boy Bubby
Bad Boy Bubby | |
---|---|
Blue Underground DVD cover | |
Directed by | Rolf de Heer |
Produced by |
Rolf de Heer Giorgio Draskovic Domenico Procacci |
Written by | Rolf de Heer |
Starring |
Nicholas Hope Claire Benito Ralph Cotterill Carmel Johnson |
Music by | Graham Tardif |
Cinematography | Ian Jones |
Edited by | Suresh Ayyar |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Roadshow Entertainment |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 114 minutes[1] |
Country |
Australia Italy |
Language |
English German |
Budget | USD$750,000 |
Box office | A$808,789[2] |
Bad Boy Bubby is a 1993 Australian-Italian black comedy/drama film written and directed by Rolf de Heer. It stars Nicholas Hope and Carmel Johnson.
Plot
Bubby is a 35-year-old man who has never set foot outside his mother's dingy apartment in the back of a printing press in an industrial area of Adelaide. In addition to beating and sexually abusing him, she confines him to the apartment, telling him that the air outside is poisonous and telling him he will die if he tries to leave. Bubby eventually escapes, joins up with a rock band, and embarks on a journey of self-discovery and shocking mayhem.
Cast
- Nicholas Hope as Bubby
- Claire Benito as Mam
- Ralph Cotterill as Pop
- Carmel Johnson as Angel
Production background
Shortly after he had graduated from film school, Rolf de Heer and Ritchie Singer collaborated on the idea of what would eventually become Bad Boy Bubby. For most of the 1980s, de Heer collected ideas and wrote them on index cards. In 1987, he took a hiatus from making Bubby index cards, but in 1989 he resumed work. Sometime between 1989 and 1990, he saw the short film Confessor Caressor starring Nicholas Hope (which would eventually be included on the bonus DVD when Bad Boy Bubby was first released on DVD in 2004) and tracked him down. In 1991, he began work on the actual script.
After he heard a rumour about the reintroduction of the death penalty to Australia, de Heer was angered and rewrote the ending so that Bubby would be executed at the end of the film. This ending was scrapped when the rumour proved to be false.
Audio and visual innovation
Director de Heer describes the film as one large experiment, especially in the method used to record the dialogue: binaural microphones were sewn into the wig worn by leading actor Nicholas Hope, one above each ear. This method gave the sound track a unique sound that closely resembled what the character would actually be hearing. The film also used 31 individual directors of photography to shoot different scenes. Once Bubby leaves the apartment a different director of photography is used for every location until the last third of the film, allowing an individual visual slant on everything Bubby sees for the first time. No director of photography was allowed to refer to the work of the others.[3]
Awards
Award | Category | Subject | Result |
---|---|---|---|
AACTA Awards (1994 AFI Awards) |
Best Film | Giorgio Draskovic | Nominated |
Domenico Procacci | Nominated | ||
Rolf de Heer | Nominated | ||
Best Direction | Won | ||
Best Original Screenplay | Won | ||
Best Actor | Nicholas Hope | Won | |
Best Cinematography | Ian Jones | Nominated | |
Best Editing | Suresh Ayyar | Won | |
Seattle International Film Festival | Golden Space Needle Award for Best Director | Rolf de Heer | Won |
Valenciennes International Festival | Audience Award | Won | |
Venice Film Festival | FIPRESCI Prize | Won | |
Grand Special Jury Prize | Won | ||
Special Golden Ciak | Won | ||
Golden Lion | Nominated | ||
Release
On 23 April 2007, Eureka Entertainment released Bad Boy Bubby on DVD for the UK market with all scenes intact. On the Blue Underground DVD, director Rolf de Heer claims that Bubby was the second highest grossing film in Norway in 1995, second only to Batman Forever. In the UK, it was cut for cruelty to a cat.[4] The film was released on DVD in April 2005 by the Blue Underground company, and a special Two Disc Collectors' Edition was also released in June 2005 by Umbrella Entertainment.
Box office
Bad Boy Bubby grossed $808,789 at the box office in Australia.[2]
See also
References
- ↑ "BAD BOY BUBBY (18)". British Board of Film Classification. 19 August 1994. Retrieved 31 July 2013.
- 1 2 Film Victoria – Australian Films at the Australian Box Office
- ↑ de Heer, Rolf (1993). "Directors Statement – London Film Festival". Archived from the original on 4 March 2008. Retrieved 12 April 2010.
- ↑ IMDb – Bad Boy Bubby
External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Bad Boy Bubby |
- Bad Boy Bubby at the Internet Movie Database
- An article on Bad Boy Bubby from Mondo Digital
- A review of Bad Boy Bubby and the Two Disc Collectors' Edition by DVD Times
- Vertigo Productions – Rolf de Heer's official website
- Umbrella Entertainment
- Blue Underground
- Eureka Entertainment
- Bad Boy Bubby article by James Finlan
- Bad Boy Bubby at the National Film and Sound Archive