Peter Weir

A detailed Summary of Peter Weir

Combine an auteurist approach with a generic approach to discuss the films of a particular director in social, cultural, and ideological context. Briefly outline how this auteur uses genre in the films, and critically appraise the ways the auteur uses these generic elements to comment upon American society, culture, and ideology at particular periods in 20th century American history.

Peter Weir is an Australia born film director working in the United States and has himself stated: "Frankly, I've never fit in anywhere." This perspective is reflected in Weir's films, in which, as an auteur, he presents the perspective of an individual who is 'on the outside looking in'. His characters are all isolated from society in their own way. Some examples of such characters are: Max, a plane crash survivor who can no longer relate to the people or world around him in Fearless (1993); Allie Fox, an individual dissatisfied with the materialist society in which he lives in The Mosquito Coast (1986); and in a reversed approach, Truman Burbank, who is unaware that he is the world's biggest television star; he is the individual on the inside and everyone else is looking at him, in The Truman Show (1998).

As the film's title, Fearless, suggests, this new vision or perception has come about primarily through Max's loss of his 'fear'. Weir makes the point that it is not an easy process to live outside of 'normal' reality; there is a struggle to achieve individual status. Initially it is fear that holds a person back, but even if they overcome such fear, it is still a difficult journey to live within a society that is still trapped in it's 'lies' whilst you can see 'truth'. Max's old life, his life before the plane crash, threatens to disintegrate.

"I still like coming to America because it's mysterious ... Things change here often, and so do the people ... I still haven't figured America out yet, and that might be because the people who live here haven't either." Peter Weir is unique in his capacity to be a mainstream film director in Hollywood, but at the same time not be 'controlled' or compromised by the American film industry. He is an auteur who speaks with the voice of an individual, from the outside looking in. Peter Weir invites his audience to be like his character Truman Burbank, who conquered his fear and exited from the contrived stage at the conclusion of The Truman Show; he invites us to join him on the outside of the fishbowl.

Comparatively, Allie Fox, in The Mosquito Coast, seeks a truth beyond the commercially driven American society in which he lives. He attempts to find this truth by moving his family to a remote island where he is removed from civilisation as he knows it. He isolates himself and his family physically, or geographically, from American society. However, as the narrative plays out it becomes clear that this is not enough. Allie becomes the thing he so loathed. He turns into a Western conqueror, bringing civilisation to the 'savage' island. Interestingly the key symbol for such civilisation in the film is ice. This object could be seen as 'pure', non-commercial (as it comes from water that is free), and perhaps unpolluted. However Allie's machine for making ice soon turns into a machine of death. Eventually he attempts to use his invention to freeze to death intruders on his island, and the machine blows up, killing them. So Weir seems to be commenting that even an invention that at its conception was 'pure' or benign can become malignant in the hands of humanity, or specifically in this case, the hands of an American. Parallels could be drawn between All

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Approximate Word count = 1634
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Movies