Following on from 2020’s most watched documentary on Australian television – Freeman, about the life and career of Cathy Freeman – co-directors and life partners Laurence Billiet and Rachael Antony have collaborated for The Giants, a stunning film that celebrates the life of environmental folk hero and gay icon Bob Brown.
As the film arrives in Australian cinemas ahead of its special Earth Day screening on the 22nd of April as part of the Gold Coast Film Festival celebrations, Peter Gray spoke with both Laurence and Rachael about why they wanted to specifically highlight Bob as their subject, if their story changed during the research process, and what they hope audiences will take away from viewings.
Congratulations on the film. As a gay man I almost feel like I’ve done myself a disservice by not knowing who Bob Brown is. But that’s the great thing about films such as The Giants, because I get to learn about beautiful, influential figures such as he. I wanted to ask both of you, where the idea for this film started? Was it always Bob that you wanted to focus on?
Rachael Antony: The last film we made was Freeman, about Cathy Freeman, and Laurence was the director of that, and when we finished that we were thinking about legendary Australian and people whose stories are bigger than themselves. For the Cathy Freeman documentary, Laurence worked with Stephen Page for Bangarra Dance Theatre, so there was contemporary dance inserted (throughout)…
Laurence Billiet: And for this one, we didn’t just want to make a boring thing about Bob Brown, right? So we wanted to find a way to tell his story and elevate it so people could understand what it’s all about.
Rachael Antony: So around the same time we were reading about trees. We we’re reading “The Hidden Life of Trees” by Peter Wohlleben and “Finding the Mother Tree” by Susan Simard, and we were really affected by the climate crisis and school strikes at the time (too). There’s all this debate about kids and should there be school striking, and so on. But, for me, it just felt like the kids on the street were a symptom of adults not being responsible or stepping up to the plate. I think Bob Brown is someone who’s always stepped up.
Then the bushfires happened and we lost 20% of our forests, and probably around 3 billion animals perished (in those fires). And that’s not talking about insects or anything (and) we were just so upset about it. After the fires the salvage logging began, so some of those old trees – which may or may not be dead trees, but they can work as habitat for the animals that survived – they were being suddenly moved. It just felt like humans were like an insatiable beast, and they were taking more than they needed. And it was taking things too far. At that point we felt galvanised to do something because we had been feeling really passionate about it, but (at the same time) a bit helpless as just two people. We’re not particularly influential, we don’t know any politicians (and) we’re not rich.
But all of these threads came together and we ended up with the story, while it intertwined with Bob Brown and the lack of trees that he’s trying to save. We wanted that narrative together so we could see the similarities between ourselves and plants, because we always think of plants as being another kind of species. But we come from the same life source ultimately.
Even though there is that respect and admiration for Bob throughout, I really appreciated that the film is never a “fan piece”, so to speak. When meeting Bob and navigating which avenue to display his life and work, did the focus ever change on how you were going to approach his story?
Laurence Billiet: We didn’t want to make a fan piece. That’s not interesting to do. It’s hard not to fall in love with Bob when you watch him doing his thing on screen. But Bob is also someone who’s very self deprecating, and he’s very humble, and it’s a lovely quality for someone who’s achieved so much. It was the same thing when we made Freeman, we wanted to be true to the nature of the person. I think (the Giants) is an optimistic film. I think it’s a defiant film. All those things are what Bob is, so I think we were trying to be close to what he stands for, as opposed to being a “fan piece”.
Rachael Antony: We actually cut out all the nice things people said about him (laughs). We can cut that together and send it to him for his birthday.
Laurence Billiet: Yeah, we have some lovely contributions. People said some extraordinary things, but when it becomes too positive it loses its purpose. I just thought that Bob is someone who isn’t looking back and not celebrating his own life. He’s not revelling in his own glory at all. He’s very driven. Having spent time with Bob, he’s always looking for the next thing. The next box to tick and getting shit done. That’s the way he is.
And you use animation in the film in a really exciting way too. Can you talk more about that?
Laurence Billiet: We were very keen to bring the forest to life and bring the magic and the wonder of the forest to people who might not go there. From a filmmaker’s perspective it’s very hard to do, because when you point a camera at a tree, nothing goes on. So it’s very challenging to recreate on screen scenes of drama and the complexity of what goes on in the forest. To our human eyes, we can’t see a thing.
We worked with The Tree Projects, who are this duo of elite climbers in Tasmania. They climb giant trees and they aim to educate people about them. We ended up rigging some of these giant trees with cables, horizontal and vertical. That opening shot is a vertical cable cam (shot), and it’s extremely challenging to do.
Our aim was to really showcase the viewpoint that you don’t get to see if you’re just walking through the forest. We then took it further with the animation with this French motion designer, and we wanted to expose the hidden flow of the forests and also create a bit more of a landscape, somewhere you can do and lose yourself physically and in a creative way. It opened us up to this world that’s still very alien. That’s the thing I find incredible, that we can go to the moon but we still don’t understand trees. We’ve only discovered in the last 10 years that they communicate with each other. Trees don’t operate on their own, they’re like a family. This is very new research.
One of the really great things about The Giants is that it shows how no one is truly powerless. Is there anything you’d like people to take away specifically from the film?
Laurence Billiet: Yeah, we’d like people to obviously look at trees differently. I think what we’ve learned from Bob’s life is that there’s nothing a small group of people can’t do. Bob’s a special person, but he’s also extremely normal. I think on native forest logging, 70% to 80% of Australians want an end to (it). We all agree it should be done (and) our governments aren’t doing it. We need to make a bit more noise. I think if everyone who watched the film is touched by the sight to do something, whether it’s big or small, then it will change.
Rachael Antony: I just wanted to go back to one of your earlier points (too) where you said that as a gay man you’re interested to more about Bob. We obviously had a particular idea about this film, and one part that I think did become bigger was this story around Bob and Paul (Thomas, his partner). Paul is a sheep farmer, an environmentalist and an activist in his own right. We wanted to present this as a love story, so while there were other complications in the historical context, we wanted their relationship and that partnership to be at the centre of it. That’s why we believed it was important to show their marriage ceremony. They’ve had a rough time, so it was nice to acknowledge that romance.
Laurence Billiet: And Rachel and I are also together in life, so we were interested in painting their relationship in a way that was really truthful to their love. There’s not many examples of same sex relationships that are celebrated. They’re being tolerated. It was nice for us to be able to celebrate their love in a gentle way. I hope it has an effect on younger people as well who may not be used to seeing older people’s relationships on screen.
The Giants is screening in select Australian theatres now.
