{"id":410,"date":"2014-05-07T03:37:17","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T03:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/?p=410"},"modified":"2014-05-12T22:23:48","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T22:23:48","slug":"school-of-english-and-media-studies-nominate-honorary-doc-for-nz-cinemas-rascal-of-the-realm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/2014\/05\/07\/school-of-english-and-media-studies-nominate-honorary-doc-for-nz-cinemas-rascal-of-the-realm\/","title":{"rendered":"School of English and Media Studies nominate honorary doc for NZ cinema’s ‘rascal of the realm’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Film director Geoff Murphy
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Honorary doc for NZ cinema’s ‘rascal of the realm’<\/h1>\n
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Wellington film director Geoff Murphy is to receive an honorary doctorate in literature from Massey University \u2013 although he thinks \u201crascal of the realm\u201d would be a more fitting title.<\/p>\n

Mr Murphy, 75, is a legend in New Zealand cinema. He has directed 18 films and is best known for pioneering a renaissance in New Zealand cinema in the 1980s with three genre-challenging hits \u2013\u00a0Goodbye Pork Pie, Utu<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Quiet<\/em>\u00a0Earth.<\/em>\u00a0While all different, they were each profoundly New Zealand films, attracted large domestic audiences and are widely credited with helping dispel cultural cringe towards domestic films.<\/p>\n

Mr Murphy says he was surprised and pleased to be offered a Doctor of Literature (Honoris Causa), which he will receive at a graduation ceremony for Massey\u2019s College of Humanities and Social Sciences next Wednesday in Palmerston North.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nice. It\u2019s an honour. I appreciate it. It means I can put \u2018Dr\u2019 in front of my name. It\u2019ll be good when I\u2019m arguing with the city council,\u201d he says, with a wry comment on how he has been endowed with honours recently after three decades of being \u201cconspicuously ignored\u201d.<\/p>\n

Associate Professor Joe Grixti, head of Massey’s School of English and Media Studies, which nominated Mr Murphy honorary doctorate, describes him as \u201ca leading pioneer of New Zealand\u2019s new film industry” who “richly deserves to be honoured for his outstanding contributions to the national culture and heritage\u201d.<\/p>\n

Last year Mr Murphy, who is also a script writer, editor and musician (a founding member of Blerta), was recognised as one of New Zealand’s 20 greatest living artists, being named as an Arts Icon by the Arts Foundation. In January he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to film.<\/p>\n

He says making a feature film and completing a doctorate are comparable in that they are both \u201cfantastic feats\u201d that require enormous passion and faith. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing you get it done at all. A film can be 18 months of hard yakka. It takes over your life. And it changes in the process of making it. At the end of it you are emotionally, intellectually and physically exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy grew up in Highbury, Wellington, lived briefly in Palmerston North as a child and was educated at St Patrick\u2019s College in Wellington. After a year studying engineering at Victoria University, he opted to train as a schoolteacher and taught at Newtown and Lyall Bay primary schools for a decade.<\/p>\n

His first foray into film was when he worked on\u00a0The Magic Hammer<\/em>, based on a musical he had written for one of his classes. At the time, he was also part of a local jazz club with a group who would become the prominent filmmakers of their era, including Bruno Lawrence, John Charles, Alun Bollinger and Martyn Sanderson. When they formed the\u00a0Bruno Lawrence Electric Revelation and Travelling Apparition (Blerta<\/em>) and went on tour in 1971 Mr Murphy was aboard as trumpeter, filmmaker and explosives expert. The ensemble of musicians, actors and filmmakers set out to create films based on New Zealand stories rather than those provided by imported movies.<\/p>\n

He made films throughout the 1970s, including working with the legendary comedian John Clark on\u00a0Dagg Day Afternoon<\/em>, but his big break came with\u00a0Goodbye Pork Pie<\/em>\u00a0(1981), a low-budget comedy involving a madcap journey from Auckland to Invercargill in a stolen yellow mini, starring Bruno Lawrence and Kelly Johnson. It was New Zealand\u2019s first home-grown blockbuster and the first Kiwi film to screen at the Cannes Film Festival.<\/p>\n

Then came\u00a0Utu\u00a0<\/em>(1983), directed and co-written by Mr Murphy and sometimes described as a \u201cM\u0101ori western\u201d. It centres on a New Zealand Wars tale of Te Wheke, a warrior who seeks revenge (utu) after British soldiers kill his people.\u00a0Utu<\/em>\u00a0screened outside competition at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival, and received critical acclaim in the United States.<\/p>\n

A new digitised director\u2019s cut of the film,\u00a0Utu Redux<\/em>, was launched last year, and will be shown at a special screening in Cinema Gold on the evening of the graduation. Mr Johnston, who also starred in\u00a0Utu\u00a0<\/em>and is now a lawyer in Whangarei, will speak at the conferment of the degree.<\/p>\n

The Quiet Earth<\/em>\u00a0(1985) a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story also stars Bruno Lawrence and is based on a novel of the same name by Dr Craig Harrison, who lectured in English at Massey University\u2019s Manawat\u016b campus.<\/p>\n

When asked what he makes of the current film scene locally, he says there are \u201ctoo many distractions\u201d. While full of admiration for the phenomenal global success of the\u00a0Lord of the Rings<\/em>blockbusters (he was second unit director on all three), he does not regard them as New Zealand films. \u201cThey obscure the view.”<\/p>\n

Despite his success in the 1980s, he and his creative cohorts continued to struggle for funding, prompting him to take up offers of work in Hollywood where he stayed for the next 12 years to direct a number of big budget movies, including\u00a0Young Guns, Under Seige 2<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Freejack.\u00a0<\/em>It was a backward step creatively, but a necessary one financially, he says.<\/p>\n

His formative years as a film director and encounters with the-then New Zealand Film Commission left him bemused about a system employing public servants to assess and administer funds for creative projects. \u201cYou have to ask what qualities and expertise would a public servant have when they are looking at what it takes to make a film. You need people with massive amounts of talent, energy, perseverance, and you need to be a risk-taker. It\u2019s not the same list as what a public servant has. They are different beasts.\u201d<\/p>\n

His ultimate message to aspiring filmmakers is: \u201cBelieve in yourself.\u201d Even if it means the powers that be think you\u2019re a rascal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Vice-Chancellor Steve Maharey says conferring the honorary doctorate on Mr Murphy is a fitting way to celebrate the kind of determined, innovative spirit that Massey University champions. “What Geoff Murphy achieved through film was to challenge the status quo and to inspire a fresh vision of New Zealand culture and history through his compelling, comical and dramatic stories and characters. His films were remarkable when they were first made, and they continue to be treasures in our cultural canon.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeoff injected new life and direction into New Zealand cinema, and gave us new ways of seeing ourselves as a people. Finding creative new ways to explore, understand and shape our national identity is a great example and something I\u2019m confident many Massey students will do in their chosen fields.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Murphy will receive his degree at 2.30pm, May 14 at the Regent Theatre, Palmerston North.<\/p>\n

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Film director Geoff Murphy Honorary doc for NZ cinema’s ‘rascal of the realm’ Wellington film director Geoff Murphy is to receive an honorary doctorate in literature from Massey University \u2013 although he thinks \u201crascal of the realm\u201d would be a more fitting title. Mr Murphy, 75, is a legend in New Zealand cinema. He has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dmp","category-subject"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":419,"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions\/419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.massey.ac.nz\/expressivearts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}