australian television information archive

Silence is golden

THE SILENCE is fantastic. It's great because it has successfully lured the wonderful Richard Roxburgh out of tights and other unflattering period drama accoutrements. It's great because some big local talents such as Cate Shortland and Jan Chapman have demonstrated how Australians can produce internationally palatable local drama, proving that all the excuses and justifications for Bryce Courtney adaptations are bollocks.

And it's surprising because although The Silence (a two-parter which began last Sunday) is a disturbingly clever cocktail of Cold Case, Shooting the Past and all good Friday night British crime drama, it's very entertaining.

As Roxburgh's tortured cop becomes obsessed with an unsolved murder from the oh-so-sexy Darlinghurst of the '60s, he faces demons from his own troubled childhood. It's a murky journey that digs up hookers, boxers, crooked cops and florists, with an endless supply of clues to be found in 40 years of black-and-white photos.

I don't want to get greedy, but why can't we watch stories of this quality every week, or at least more than once every five years?

If our great filmmakers have to make great television, then so be it. The problem with raving so wildly about The Silence is that the thing was full of outrageous co-incidences and improbable plot turns and two female leads with the same brunette hairdo that made for some confusion in the darker sequences, but it would be absolutely churlish to point out any shortcomings in case everybody involved had a little sulk and decided not to play any more.

The calibre of actors in this country is freakishly high and maybe that's a testament to local theatre or our drama schools, but The Silence is proof that with a good story to tell, some believable dialogue and nothing too silly or fancy in the way of good direction, we come up with the goods.

Women's issues and the theme of sad grown-up boys and their lost mothers were everywhere on the box this week. These days housewives whose plaits are tied a little too tight get a lovely house, garden and a hit TV show all their own. In the '50s, nutty blondes were locked away in an asylum. Fifty years later, Detective Rush digs them up on Cold Case. It was another annoying episode groaning with sentimental imagery and wild goose chases. But Cold Case does have a trick up its sleeve. Every week she solves a crime, from some expensively although not always well-styled era, that probably wouldn't even occur today because times have changed.

Sexism, racism, homophobia, red-necked prudishness, fear of mental illness, ignorance - OK, it does sound like the US today and maybe Jerry Bruckheimer does his audience no favours by implying things have changed. Detective Rush (the blonde with the messy hair) always appears to have insights into both eras at the same time, with compassion and thoughtfulness. But after two seasons of revisiting a crime in every year of the 20th century, you think she'd pick up a few tips and dress a bit better.

Those of us who were children in the '60s and '70s couldn't imagine the world of Abortion, Corruption and Cops: The Bertram Wainer Story (last Thursday), although if Tony Abbott has his way we may get another opportunity. SBS should keep running this documentary until everybody's seen it, or give it to Seven to play in the ad breaks of Dancing With the Stars.

In 1967, a Scottish-born Melbourne GP, Bert Wainer, began a lifelong campaign to overturn the laws that made abortion an offence punishable by long jail sentences. He argued that bad laws create bad outcomes: compromised doctors, backyard abortions, police corruption and tragedy for women. (Botched abortions used to be the second leading cause of death for Australian women.)

News footage edited with interviews with survivors and dramatic re-enactments tell a story that is pure Hollywood. Wainer, a sort of Scottish Tony Soprano in appearance, was courageous, articulate and inspiring. In 10 years, when Russell Crowe plays Wainer and every Australian actress working today gets nominated for the supporting Oscars, young Australian women will appreciate the magnitude of his contribution.

Wainer tested the laws himself, forced a public inquiry that resulted in police jail sentences and eventually opened Australia's first public abortion clinic. Thirty years later, the law in Victoria remains unchanged. Thirty years later, Daryl Somers still hosts the top-rating variety show on TV. Heavy sigh. We have such a long way to go to right the wrongs of our past.

By Ruth Ritchie
April 08, 2006
Sydney Morning Herald