- Charles Chauvel (filmmaker)
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This article is about the filmmaker. For the politician, see Charles Chauvel (politician).
Charles Chauvel (filmmaker) 
Charles Chauvel in 1936.Born Charles Edward Chauvel
7 October 1897
Warwick, Queensland, AustraliaDied 11 November 1959 (aged 62)
Castlecrag, Sydney, AustraliaOccupation Film director, producer, screenwriter Spouse Elsa Chauvel (1927-1959) (his death) Charles Edward Chauvel OBE (7 October 1897 – 11 November 1959) was an Australian filmmaker.
Contents
Biography
Early Life
Born in Warwick, Queensland, he was the nephew of General Sir Henry Chauvel, Commander of the Australian Light Horse and later the Desert Mounted Corps in Palestine during World War I. His father, a grazier, also (aged 53) enlisted to serve in Palestine and Sinai in World War I. The Chauvels were descended from a French Huguenot family who fled France for England in 1685, and soon established a tradition of serving in the British army. The Australian Chauvel's were descended from a Charles Chauvel who retired from the Indian army to New South Wales in 1839 and was a pioneer in the New England region.
Chauvel was educated at The Southport School in Queensland. After leaving school Charles Chauvel worked on Queensland properties, and on his family property when his father was at war, before studying commercial art and taking drama classes, in Sydney. He was fascinated by films and pestered a friend, showman Snowy Baker, to give him work as a production assistant; usually, he was the man in charge of the horses. He followed Baker to Hollywood in 1922, at his own expense, and spent some time as a jack of all trades including working as an extra, a lighting technician, a publicist, a stunt double and so on.
First Films
Back in Australia after about a year, Chauvel obtained finance from Queensland businessmen and friends to make his first films The Moth of Moonbi and Greenhide. Both were romantic melodramas exploring a theme of the decadent city vs the authentic country. The Moth of Moonbai is a country girl who flutters to the city lights, loses her fortune, but eventually returns home and finds love with her father's trustworthy stockman. In Greenhide a city girl struggles to cope on a cattle station and gradually finds love with her polar opposite, an extremely taciturn bushman. The films were made in Harrisville, Queensland, enlisting the locals as extras and using locations around his family property 'Summerlands', situated near the edge of town. While making Greenhide he met Elsa May Wilcox (professional name Elsa Sylvaney), an actress, whom he married on 1927. After their marriage she traveled with him and assisted him on all his films. Both these silent films were released in 1926 and were reasonably successful in Australia. Unfortunately Chauvel could not arrange for the release of his silent movies in Hollywood because of the transition to sound. He returned to Australia and worked as a cinema manager during the depression.[1]
1930s
In 1933 he made his first 'talkie': In the Wake of the Bounty starring Errol Flynn as Fletcher Christian (before Flynn went to Hollywood). The film mixed re-enactments with documentary, and focused not so much on the mutiny itself as on its consequences.[2] To provide a long postscript to the story of the mutiny, the Chauvels went to Pitcairn Island and shot some very interesting footage of the Bounty descendants, spending three months on the island. He also included footage of bare-breasted Tahitian dancers which caused a temporary problem with the censor.[3] The documentary parts were later edited out and used as promotional material for the 1935 Hollywood film about the mutiny.[4]
In 1935, Chauvel won a Commonwealth Government competition for Heritage which gave a panoramic view of Australian history. It begins with a character from the earliest days of white settlement (1788), following his struggles, his loves and his marriage, then skips to the modern generation, where a romance between descendents of the original characters completes a circle. The modern hero is struggling to run an outback cattle station, the modern heroine is an expert aviatrix.
In 1936 he made Uncivilised a 'jungle story' filmed in Cape York.[5] Aimed at the U.S. market, it is the story of an upper class girl-reporter investigating the white leader of an aboriginal tribe.
International Success
The outbreak of war meant that Chauvel turned to (genuinely felt) propaganda films, making Forty Thousand Horsemen, a tribute to the Australian Light Horse Brigade in Palestine in World War I, in the sand dunes at Cronulla. It was both a popular and critical success and was credited with boosting morale. It also launched the career of actor Chips Rafferty. He followed this with The Rats of Tobruk (1944).[6]Both contributed to a classic Australian sense of identity.[7]
After the war he made a film about a pioneer family in Queensland, Sons of Matthew (1949), drawing on his own family history, and in 1955 made perhaps his best known film, Jedda. Jedda is a story of an aboriginal baby girl raised by a white station owner and kept in ignorance of traditional ways, and the aboriginal tribal man who carries her off, even though this is a forbidden 'wrong way' marriage, and brings tragedy to both of them. Both films involved travel to remote areas and difficult conditions for filming, and are considered Chauvel's best works.[8][9]Jedda was the first Australian feature film made in colour, and had to be developed overseas as there were no colour processing facilities in Australia.[10] For Jedda the Chauvel's sought out aboriginals for the lead roles, and in Robert Tudawali, playing the male lead, they found someone with great natural ability. Both these films were made in a period when the Australian film industry had virtually collapsed, unable to compete with imported films.[11]
Final Years
After this Chauvel turned to television, making a BBC series Walkabout which traveled to interesting locations in Australia. He died unexpectedly of coronary vascular disease in 1959. According to Ken G. Hall, Chauvel had left a message asking to speak to Hall on the day he died, and let an estate valued ₤32,000.[12]
Legacy
Since 1992 the Brisbane International Film Festival has awarded a Chauvel Award to a "distinguished contributor to Australian Cinema".
A cinema in the suburb of Paddington, Sydney is named after him.
Filmography
Film
Year Title Role Notes 1920 Robbery Under Arms actor directed by Kenneth Brampton 1920 The Shadow of Lightning Ridge actor directed by Wilfred Lucas 1920 The Jackeroo of Coolabong actor directed by Wilfred Lucas 1922 Captain Fly-By-Night actor 1922 The Man from the Desert actor 1923 Strangers of the Night actor 1926 The Moth of Moonbi director / producer / screenwriter 1926 Greenhide director / producer / screenwriter 1933 In the Wake of the Bounty director / producer / screenwriter 1935 Heritage director / producer / screenwriter 1936 Uncivilised director / producer / screenwriter 1936 Rangle River screenwriter (with Elsa Chauvel) directed by Clarence G. Badger 1937 Screen Test director / producer 1940 Forty Thousand Horsemen director / producer / screenwriter 1942 Soldiers Without Uniform director / producer documentary short 1942 Power to Win director / producer documentary short 1943 A Mountain Goes to Sea director / producer documentary short 1943 While There is Still Time director / producer documentary short 1943 Russia Aflame director / producer documentary short 1944 The Rats of Tobruk director / producer / screenwriter 1949 Sons of Matthew director / producer / screenwriter 1955 Jedda director / producer / screenwriter Television
Year Title Role Notes 1958 Australian Walkabout director / producer / screenwriter produced for the ABC and BBC References
- ^ F. Pike, 'Chauvel, Charles Edward (1897 - 1959)' Australian Dictionary of Biography online edition
- ^ Curators notes at Australian Screen
- ^ Australian Screen op cit
- ^ National Film and Sound Archive title details for In the Wake of the Bounty
- ^ Pike, op cit
- ^ Pike, op cit
- ^ Pike, op cit
- ^ Dunn,M. How They Made Sons of Matthew Sydney, 1949
- ^ Charles Chauvel spotlight at the National Film and Sound Archive
- ^ Charles Chauvel at Australian Screen (by Peter Dyer)
- ^ Charles Chauvel at Australian Screen (by Peter Dyer)
- ^ Philip Taylor, 'Ken G. Hall', Cinema Papers January 1974 p 86
Further reading
- Susanne Chauvel Carlsson Charles and Elsie Chauvel Movie Pioneers Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1989.
- Charles Chauvel Heritage Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1935.
- Charles Chauvel In the wake of ‘’The Bounty’’ from Tahiti to Pitcairn Island Sydney: Endeavour Press, 1933
- Charles and Elsie Chauvel Walkabout London: W H Allen, 1959.
- Elsie Chauvel My Life with Charles Chauvel (Sydney: 1973).
- Stuart Cunningham Featuring Australia: The cinema of Charles Chauvel North Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1991.
- Elyne Mitchell Chauvel Country: the Story of a pioneering Australian family Melbourne: 1983.
- Neil McDonald Damien’s Papers War Melbourne: Lothian Books 1991 (War photographer Damein Parer spent time as one of Chauvel’s crew on Uncivilised and Forty Thousand Horsemen.)
- Eric Reade The Talkies Era: a pictorial history of Australian sound filmmaking 1930-1960 Melbourne: Landsdowne Press, 1972.
- Charles Chauvel at Australian screen
External links
- Charles Chauvel at the Internet Movie Database
- Charles Chauvel spotlight at the National Film and Sound Archive
- Still photos at the National Film and Sound Archive
- Queensland Art Gallery information
Charles Chauvel Features The Moth of Moonbi (1926) • Greenhide (1926) • In the Wake of the Bounty (1933) • Heritage (1935) • Uncivilised (1936) • 40,000 Horsemen (1940) • The Rats of Tobruk (1944) • Sons of Matthew (1949) • Jedda (1955)Short films Soldiers Without Uniform (1942) • Power to Win (1942) • A Mountain Goes to Sea (1943) • While There is Still Time (1943) • Russia Aflame (1943)Television Walkabout (1958)
Ian Dunlop (1968) · Stanley Hawes (1970) · Ken G. Hall (1976) · Charles Chauvel (1977) · Marie Lorraine (1978) · Paulette McDonagh (1978) · Phyllis McDonagh (1978) · Jerzy Toeplitz (1979) · Tim Burstall (1980) · Phillip Adams (1981) · Eric Porter (1982) · Bill Gooley (1983) · David Williamson (1984) · Don Crosby (1985) · Barry Jones (1986) · Nadia Tass (1986) · David Parker (1986) · Paul Riomfalvy (1987) · Russell Boyd (1988) · John Meillon (1989) · Peter Weir (1990) · Fred Schepisi (1991) · Lee Robinson (1992) · Sue Milliken (1993) · Jack Thompson (1994) · George Miller (1995) · Jan Chapman (1997) · Bud Tingwell (1998) · John Politzer (1999) · Anthony Buckley (2000) · David Stratton (2001) · Patricia Edgar (2002) · Ted Robinson (2003) · Patricia Lovell (2004) · Ray Barrett (2005) · Ian Jones (2006) · David Hannay (2007) · Dione Gilmour (2008) · Geoffrey Rush (2009) · Reg Grundy (2010)
Categories:- Australian film directors
- Australian film producers
- Australian screenwriters
- People from Queensland
- 1897 births
- 1959 deaths
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