Bad Boy Bubby
Bad Boy Bubby | |
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File:Bad boy bubby.jpg | |
Directed by | Rolf de Heer |
Written by | Rolf de Heer |
Produced by | Rolf de Heer Giorgio Draskovic Domenico Procacci |
Starring | Nicholas Hope Claire Benito Ralph Cotterill Carmel Johnson |
Cinematography | Ian Jones |
Edited by | Suresh Ayyar |
Music by | Graham Tardif |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Roadshow Entertainment |
Release dates |
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Running time | 114 minutes[1] |
Countries | Australia Italy |
Language | English |
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. The film became notorious[citation needed] for pushing the boundaries of good taste with its strong scenes featuring violence, incest and blasphemy amongst other taboo topics.
History
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 and tracked him down. In 1991, he began work on the actual script.
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
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
Bubby won four 1994 Australian Film Institute awards: Best Director (Rolf de Heer), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Nicholas Hope), Best Original Screenplay (Rolf de Heer), and Best Editing (Suresh Ayyar). It was also nominated for Best Film (Rolf de Heer) and Best Cinematography (Ian Jones).
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.
- ^ a b 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
- Bad Boy Bubby at IMDb
- 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
- Use dmy dates from July 2013
- 1993 films
- 1990s comedy-drama films
- 1990s crime films
- Australian films
- Australian comedy films
- Australian crime films
- Australian drama films
- Italian films
- Italian comedy films
- Italian crime films
- Italian drama films
- English-language films
- Films directed by Rolf de Heer
- Animal cruelty in fiction
- Black comedy films
- Films set in South Australia
- Films shot in Adelaide
- Films shot in Australia
- Incest in film
- Independent films
- Venice Grand Special Jury Prize winners