Philippe Mora
Encyclopedia
Philippe Mora is a French
-born Australia
n film director
. Born in 1949 to a German Jewish father and a French Jewish mother, he began making films while still a child.
filmed in Flinder's Lane, just behind his mother’s studio at 9 Collins Street. The film features Mora, his brother William and friends, Peter Beilby and Sweeney Reed. Hia next film, Dreams in a Grey Afternoon (1965) was made as a silent movie but was screened with music by artist Asher Bilu
. Shot on 8 mm and blown up to 16 mm, the film features stop-motion animation of sculptures by the Russian-Australian sculptor and painter Danila Vassilieff, and includes rare footage of John and Sunday Reed.
His next project, Man in a Film (1966), was a pastiche of Federico Fellini
's 8½
and was also influenced by his recent viewing of The Beatles
' A Hard Day's Night
. Like its predecessor, it was made as a silent movie, shot on 8 mm and blown up to 16 mm, and again screened with music by Asher Bilu. Man in a Film starred Sweeney Reed and premiered at the Tolarno Galleries in early 1967.
Give It Up (1967), shot in Fitzroy Street, Melbourne, again featured Reed, plus Don Watson and Philippe’s younger brother Tiriel. The film symbolised Australian response to the Vietnam War
by depicting a man being repeatedly kicked and beaten in a busy street while onlookers do nothing.
In 1967, Mora moved into 'The Pheasantry', a home in King's Road
, Chelsea
in London, a residence that inspired the name of his production company, Pheasantry Films. Living in or near A virtual "who's who" of London’s underground 'glitterati' lived close to The Pheasantry, including Martin Sharp
, Eric Clapton
, Germaine Greer
, artist Tim Whidborne, 'prominent London identity' David Litvinoff (production adviser on Nicolas Roeg
's Performance), writer Anthony Haden-Guest
(author of The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco and the Culture of the Night) and another friend from Melbourne, photographer Robert Whitaker
, lensman of choice for many leading rock groups on the scene, including The Beatles and Cream
.
As "Von Mora", during this time he contributed cartoons to Oz
magazine and assisted co-editor Martin Sharp
with the landmark "Magic Theatre" edition. He also made his next short film, Passion Play, shot in the Pheasantry ca. 1967-1968 and featuring Jenny Kee
as Mary Magdalene, Michael Ramsden
as Jesus, and Mora himself as the Devil.
Mora began painting as soon as he arrived in London, and one of his first London exhibitions was held at the gallery of Clytie Jessop
, sister of Hermia Boyd (Hermia Lloyd-Jones), wife of noted ceramic artist David Boyd
. Jessop was also a well-known actress and director who played the sinister Miss Jessell in Jack Clayton
's classic supernatural thriller The Innocents (1961), and later directed the film Emma's War (1988) starring Lee Remick
and a young Miranda Otto
.
Jessop invited Mora to exhibit at her gallery in the Kings Road where the show was a great success — much to Mora's surprise garnering excellent reviews and generating numerous sales. By his own admission, he was so impoverished at the time that he had been forced to use house paint impregnated with insecticide for his paintings, a necessity he turned to his advantage by telling potential buyers that his paintings were "not only art, but they also kill flies".
More exhibitions at Clytie Jessop's gallery followed, with titles such as "Anti-Social Realism" and "Vomart". Eric Clapton bought one of the paintings from the latter exhibition, which depicted a shot-putter about to throw and simultaneously throwing up in a style reminiscent of the provocative Dada art of Barry Humphries
.
Mora also held a show at the Sigi Krauss gallery where Martin Sharp also exhibited, featuring pictures painted in black and white. The show also included a grey male rat which he had bought from Harrods. When the rat turned out to be female and gave birth, he tried unsuccessfully to sell the babies as 'multiples' in a limited edition of eight. The rat show attracted the interest of German avant-garde artist Klaus Stacks, who commissioned Mora to produce an edition of a hundred screen prints of the mother rat. In February 1971, Joseph Beuys
and Erwin Heerich invited him to sign a "Call to Action" manifesto demanding the freeing of the German art market.
His next show was an Easter Crucifixion exhibition at the Sigi Krauss gallery featuring a life-size sculpture of a sitting man made entirely of meat and offal, similar to Robert Whitaker's controversial "butcher" cover photos for the Beatles' 1966 Yesterday & Today album. At this exhibition Mora also screened his 8 mm 'film painting' Passion Play back-projected onto a screen framed in gold leaf. Although none of the exhibits were by Mora, Stanley Kubrick
's art director purchased some of artist Herman Makkink's work for use in the film A Clockwork Orange, notably the giant white phallus and the chorus line of dancing Jesus sculptures.
Mora's provocative and highly symbolic offal exhibit caused a stir. A brick was thrown through the gallery window, which led to it being featured on the cover of Time Out. Later, as the piece began to petrify, the police were called after Princess Margaret, dining at the restaurant across the street, complained about the stench. Detectives from Scotland Yard descended on the gallery and demanded that the sculpture be removed, but gallery owner Krauss refused. The police claimed it was a health hazard and forced him to move it into the garden, where it gradually rotted away.
Trouble in Molopolis (1970), Mora's his first feature-length film, was financed by the unlikely partnership of Arthur Boyd
and Eric Clapton
. It was shot in London, with Mora recalling, "every Australian I knew was pulled into the picture". It was filmed in Robert Hughes
' apartment and at the Pheasantry. Germaine Greer played a cabaret singer, Jenny Kee was 'Shanghai Lil', Laurence Hope
played a gangster, Martin Sharp featured as a mime and Richard Neville
as a PR man. Tony Cahill from The Easybeats
created the music with Jamie Boyd before the film premiered at the Paris Pullman cinema in Chelsea, as an Oz benefit. Introduced by George Melly
, the star of the film, John Ivor Golding, also made a memorable appearance at the premiere, defecating in the front row and then passing out in an alcoholic coma.
In 1975, Mora wrote and directed, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
, a documentary about the 1930s consisting of a series of film clips and photographs from newsreels, Hollywood films reflecting historical events and those about making movies as well as outtakes, promos, and home movies. This was followed in 1976 by his first theatrical release, Mad Dog Morgan
, which he also wrote and directed. The film starred Dennis Hopper
, Jack Thompson
, David Gulpilil
, Bill Hunter
and Frank Thring
. Mad Dog Morgan was the first Australian movie to get a 40-cinema release in the United States. It went on to receive the John Ford Award in Cannes in 1976 as part of US Bicentennial celebrations while in 1977 Mora was nominated by the Australian Film Institute
for 'Best Director' for the film.
After making The Beast Within
, his first film in America, Mora's next project was the parodic superhero musical, The Return of Captain Invincible
, starring Alan Arkin
, Christopher Lee
, Kate Fitzpatrick and an all-star Australian cast, with songs by Rocky Horror Show creator Richard O'Brien
. The film has long been regarded as a cult classic and recently became a minor hit in the US when it was re-released on DVD, due in part to its now-poignant final scene, in which Captain Invincible flies past the World Trade Center
.
These were followed by A Breed Apart
with Rutger Hauer and Kathleen Turner
, The Howling II & The Howling III
, and the political drama Death of a Soldier
, starring James Coburn
, which was based on the infamous Melbourne wartime Eddie Leonski
murder case.
Mora's next film used the plot of the best-selling book Communion, by his old friend from his London days in the late 1960s, artist, author and broadcaster Whitley Strieber
. Released in 1989, the film starred Christopher Walken
and was based on Strieber's own alleged encounters with aliens.
Film credits as director as well as occasional writer and actor during the 1990s included the horror spoof Pterodactyl Woman From Beverly Hills (1994) with Beverly D'Angelo
, Barry Humphries
(in three roles), Moon Unit Zappa
and Philippe's children Georges and Madeleine; Art Deco Detective (1994); Precious Find (1996) a sci-fi version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which reunited two actors from Ridley Scott
's Blade Runner
, Rutger Hauer and the late Brion James
. For television, Mora directed Mercenary II: Thick & Thin (1997), and the films Back in Business (1997), Snide and Prejudice (1998), and Burning Down the House (1998).
Mora's most recent film project, When We Were Modern, draws in part on his own life and experience. It examines the tangled lives and loves of the Heide inner circle — Sidney Nolan, Joy Hester, Albert Tucker and John and Sunday Reed. Young Australian actor Clayton Watson (The Matrix) will take the part of Nolan while Sunday Reed will be played by leading Hollywood actress Jennifer Jason Leigh
.
In the forties, on the run after deserting from the army, Nolan lived at the Reed's famous house "Heide", and it was here that he painted his first Ned Kelly series. While at Heide, Nolan conducted an open affair with Sunday Reed, but she refused to leave her husband and marry Nolan, so he married John’s Reed’s sister, Cynthia Hansen instead. The marriage eventually broke up, and Cynthia committed suicide in 1976. Her death sparked off a bitter feud between Nolan and author Patrick White
, who excoriated Nolan for abandoning his first wife (she and White were close friends) and remarrying Mary Perceval so soon after Cynthia's death.
While researching the film, Mora discovered previously unseen home movies of the Heide circle, including the only films of Joy Hester and the Mirka Café. When We Were Modern is dedicated to Sweeney Reed, who committed suicide in March 1979, aged only 34. He will feature prominently as a character and as a tribute to him, Mora is reportedly planning to screen some of the footage from Back Alley under the closing credits.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
-born Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
. Born in 1949 to a German Jewish father and a French Jewish mother, he began making films while still a child.
Career
Mora's first home movie Back Alley, now preserved in the The National Film and Sound Archive, was made in 1964 when he was 15. This was a parody of West Side StoryWest Side Story (film)
West Side Story is a 1961 musical film directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The film is an adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was adapted from William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. It stars Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno,...
filmed in Flinder's Lane, just behind his mother’s studio at 9 Collins Street. The film features Mora, his brother William and friends, Peter Beilby and Sweeney Reed. Hia next film, Dreams in a Grey Afternoon (1965) was made as a silent movie but was screened with music by artist Asher Bilu
Asher Bilu
Asher Bilu , is an Australian artist who creates paintings, sculptures and installations. He has also contributed to several films by Director Paul Cox as production designer. He was born in Israel, and began his career as an artist soon after arriving in Australia in 1956. From the start, his art...
. Shot on 8 mm and blown up to 16 mm, the film features stop-motion animation of sculptures by the Russian-Australian sculptor and painter Danila Vassilieff, and includes rare footage of John and Sunday Reed.
His next project, Man in a Film (1966), was a pastiche of Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
's 8½
8½
8½ is a 1963 Italian fantasy film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director...
and was also influenced by his recent viewing of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
' A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British black-and-white comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring The Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and originally released by United Artists...
. Like its predecessor, it was made as a silent movie, shot on 8 mm and blown up to 16 mm, and again screened with music by Asher Bilu. Man in a Film starred Sweeney Reed and premiered at the Tolarno Galleries in early 1967.
Give It Up (1967), shot in Fitzroy Street, Melbourne, again featured Reed, plus Don Watson and Philippe’s younger brother Tiriel. The film symbolised Australian response to the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
by depicting a man being repeatedly kicked and beaten in a busy street while onlookers do nothing.
In 1967, Mora moved into 'The Pheasantry', a home in King's Road
King's Road
King's Road is a street in Chelsea, London, England.King's Road or Kings Road may also refer to:* King's Road * King's Road * King's Road * King's Road...
, Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
in London, a residence that inspired the name of his production company, Pheasantry Films. Living in or near A virtual "who's who" of London’s underground 'glitterati' lived close to The Pheasantry, including Martin Sharp
Martin Sharp
Martin Sharp is an Australian artist, underground cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker. Sharp has made contributions to Australian and international culture since the early 60s, and is hailed as Australia's foremost pop artist...
, Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
, Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....
, artist Tim Whidborne, 'prominent London identity' David Litvinoff (production adviser on Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Roeg
Nicolas Jack Roeg, CBE, BSC is an English film director and cinematographer.-Life and career:Roeg was born in London, the son of Mabel Gertrude and Jack Nicolas Roeg...
's Performance), writer Anthony Haden-Guest
Anthony Haden-Guest
Anthony Haden-Guest is a British-American writer, reporter, cartoonist, art critic, poet, and socialite who lives in New York and London. He is a frequent contributor to major magazines and has had several books published.-Family:...
(author of The Last Party: Studio 54, Disco and the Culture of the Night) and another friend from Melbourne, photographer Robert Whitaker
Robert Whitaker
Robert Whitaker or Whittaker may refer to:*Robert Whitaker , American author*Robert Whitaker , British photographer*Robert Whitaker , British showjumper*Robert Whittaker, American vegetation ecologist...
, lensman of choice for many leading rock groups on the scene, including The Beatles and Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
.
As "Von Mora", during this time he contributed cartoons to Oz
Oz (magazine)
Oz was first published as a satirical humour magazine between 1963 and 1969 in Sydney, Australia and, in its second and better known incarnation, became a "psychedelic hippy" magazine from 1967 to 1973 in London...
magazine and assisted co-editor Martin Sharp
Martin Sharp
Martin Sharp is an Australian artist, underground cartoonist, songwriter and film-maker. Sharp has made contributions to Australian and international culture since the early 60s, and is hailed as Australia's foremost pop artist...
with the landmark "Magic Theatre" edition. He also made his next short film, Passion Play, shot in the Pheasantry ca. 1967-1968 and featuring Jenny Kee
Jenny Kee
Jenny Kee is an Australian fashion designer. She was born in Bondi to a Cantonese father and a mother of partially Italian descent. Kee started her career in fashion in modelling, at one time featuring as the face of Canadian Airlines advertisements...
as Mary Magdalene, Michael Ramsden
Michael Ramsden
Michael Ramsden was the lead singer with Hapshash and the Coloured Coat.He also played Jesus in the film Passion Play by Philippe Mora.-References:...
as Jesus, and Mora himself as the Devil.
Mora began painting as soon as he arrived in London, and one of his first London exhibitions was held at the gallery of Clytie Jessop
Clytie Jessop
Clytie Jessop is a British actress, notable for her association with cinematographer and film director Freddie Francis.Her first screen role was as the ghost of Miss Jessel in The Innocents , based on Henry James's The Turn of the Screw. She appeared only in long shot...
, sister of Hermia Boyd (Hermia Lloyd-Jones), wife of noted ceramic artist David Boyd
David Boyd
David Boyd may refer to:* David Boyd , Australian artist* David Boyd , Canadian children's author* David Boyd , cinematographer* David Boyd , Australian rugby league player...
. Jessop was also a well-known actress and director who played the sinister Miss Jessell in Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton was a British film director who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen.-Career:A native of East Sussex, Clayton started his career as a child actor on the 1929 film Dark Red Roses...
's classic supernatural thriller The Innocents (1961), and later directed the film Emma's War (1988) starring Lee Remick
Lee Remick
Lee Ann Remick was an American film and television actress. Among her best-known films are Anatomy of a Murder , Days of Wine and Roses , and The Omen .-Early life:...
and a young Miranda Otto
Miranda Otto
Miranda Otto is an Australian actress. The daughter of actors Lindsay and Barry Otto and the sister of actress Gracie Otto, she began acting at age eighteen, and has performed in a variety of independent and major studio films....
.
Jessop invited Mora to exhibit at her gallery in the Kings Road where the show was a great success — much to Mora's surprise garnering excellent reviews and generating numerous sales. By his own admission, he was so impoverished at the time that he had been forced to use house paint impregnated with insecticide for his paintings, a necessity he turned to his advantage by telling potential buyers that his paintings were "not only art, but they also kill flies".
More exhibitions at Clytie Jessop's gallery followed, with titles such as "Anti-Social Realism" and "Vomart". Eric Clapton bought one of the paintings from the latter exhibition, which depicted a shot-putter about to throw and simultaneously throwing up in a style reminiscent of the provocative Dada art of Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
.
Mora also held a show at the Sigi Krauss gallery where Martin Sharp also exhibited, featuring pictures painted in black and white. The show also included a grey male rat which he had bought from Harrods. When the rat turned out to be female and gave birth, he tried unsuccessfully to sell the babies as 'multiples' in a limited edition of eight. The rat show attracted the interest of German avant-garde artist Klaus Stacks, who commissioned Mora to produce an edition of a hundred screen prints of the mother rat. In February 1971, Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys
Joseph Beuys was a German performance artist, sculptor, installation artist, graphic artist, art theorist and pedagogue of art.His extensive work is grounded in concepts of humanism, social philosophy and anthroposophy; it culminates in his "extended definition of art" and the idea of social...
and Erwin Heerich invited him to sign a "Call to Action" manifesto demanding the freeing of the German art market.
His next show was an Easter Crucifixion exhibition at the Sigi Krauss gallery featuring a life-size sculpture of a sitting man made entirely of meat and offal, similar to Robert Whitaker's controversial "butcher" cover photos for the Beatles' 1966 Yesterday & Today album. At this exhibition Mora also screened his 8 mm 'film painting' Passion Play back-projected onto a screen framed in gold leaf. Although none of the exhibits were by Mora, Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's art director purchased some of artist Herman Makkink's work for use in the film A Clockwork Orange, notably the giant white phallus and the chorus line of dancing Jesus sculptures.
Mora's provocative and highly symbolic offal exhibit caused a stir. A brick was thrown through the gallery window, which led to it being featured on the cover of Time Out. Later, as the piece began to petrify, the police were called after Princess Margaret, dining at the restaurant across the street, complained about the stench. Detectives from Scotland Yard descended on the gallery and demanded that the sculpture be removed, but gallery owner Krauss refused. The police claimed it was a health hazard and forced him to move it into the garden, where it gradually rotted away.
Trouble in Molopolis (1970), Mora's his first feature-length film, was financed by the unlikely partnership of Arthur Boyd
Arthur Boyd
Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd, AC, OBE was one of the leading Australian painters of the late 20th Century. A member of the prominent Boyd artistic dynasty in Australia, his relatives included painters, sculptors, architects or other arts professionals. His sister Mary Boyd married John Perceval,...
and Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
. It was shot in London, with Mora recalling, "every Australian I knew was pulled into the picture". It was filmed in Robert Hughes
Robert Hughes (critic)
Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...
' apartment and at the Pheasantry. Germaine Greer played a cabaret singer, Jenny Kee was 'Shanghai Lil', Laurence Hope
Laurence Hope (artist)
Laurence Hope is an Australian artist from Sydney who is best known for his Lover, Dreamers and Isolates paintings.-Early years:...
played a gangster, Martin Sharp featured as a mime and Richard Neville
Richard Neville (writer)
Richard Neville is an Australian author and self-described "futurist", who came to fame as a co-editor of the counterculture magazine Oz in Australia and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and early 1970s...
as a PR man. Tony Cahill from The Easybeats
The Easybeats
The Easybeats were an Australian rock and roll band. They formed in Sydney in late 1964 and broke up at the end of 1969. They are regarded as the greatest Australian pop band of the 1960s, and were the first Australian rock and roll act to score an international pop hit with their 1966 single...
created the music with Jamie Boyd before the film premiered at the Paris Pullman cinema in Chelsea, as an Oz benefit. Introduced by George Melly
George Melly
Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...
, the star of the film, John Ivor Golding, also made a memorable appearance at the premiere, defecating in the front row and then passing out in an alcoholic coma.
In 1975, Mora wrote and directed, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (film)
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? is a 1975 documentary film produced by Image Entertainment. It consisted largely of newsreel footage and contemporary film clips to portray the era of the Great Depression.-Cast:...
, a documentary about the 1930s consisting of a series of film clips and photographs from newsreels, Hollywood films reflecting historical events and those about making movies as well as outtakes, promos, and home movies. This was followed in 1976 by his first theatrical release, Mad Dog Morgan
Mad Dog Morgan
Mad Dog Morgan is a 1976 Australian bushranger film directed by Philippe Mora and starring Dennis Hopper, Jack Thompson and David Gulpilil. It is based upon the life of Dan Morgan...
, which he also wrote and directed. The film starred Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
, Jack Thompson
Jack Thompson (actor)
Jack Thompson, AM is an Australian actor and one of the major figures of Australian cinema. He was educated at University of Queensland, before embarking on his acting career. In 2002, he was made an honorary member of the Australian Cinematographers Society...
, David Gulpilil
David Gulpilil
David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu , is an Indigenous Australian traditional dancer and actor. His first starring role was Walkabout....
, Bill Hunter
Bill Hunter (actor)
William John "Bill" Hunter was an Australian actor of film, stage and television. He appeared in more than 60 films and won two Australian Film Institute Awards.-Early life:Hunter was a son of William and Francie Hunter...
and Frank Thring
Frank Thring
Frank William Thring was an Australian character actor.-Early life:Thring was born in Melbourne and educated at the Melbourne Grammar School. His father, Frank W. Thring, was the head of Efftee Studios, in Melbourne, in the 1920s, and is said to be the inventor of the clapperboard...
. Mad Dog Morgan was the first Australian movie to get a 40-cinema release in the United States. It went on to receive the John Ford Award in Cannes in 1976 as part of US Bicentennial celebrations while in 1977 Mora was nominated by the Australian Film Institute
Australian Film Institute
The Australian Film Institute was founded in 1958 as a non-profit organisation devoted to developing an active film culture in Australia and fostering engagement between the general public and the Australian film industry...
for 'Best Director' for the film.
After making The Beast Within
The Beast Within
The Beast Within is a 1982 horror film directed by Philippe Mora and starring Ronny Cox, Bibi Besch, Paul Clemens, L. Q. Jones, Don Gordon, R. G. Armstrong, Katherine Moffat, and Meshach Taylor....
, his first film in America, Mora's next project was the parodic superhero musical, The Return of Captain Invincible
The Return Of Captain Invincible
The Return of Captain Invincible is a 1983 Australian musical comedy and superhero film starring Alan Arkin and Christopher Lee.-Plot:The plot involves the Captain America/Superman inspired super-hero called "Captain Invincible" who is active during World War II and afterwards...
, starring Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and...
, Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
, Kate Fitzpatrick and an all-star Australian cast, with songs by Rocky Horror Show creator Richard O'Brien
Richard O'Brien
Richard Timothy Smith , better known under his stage name Richard O'Brien, is an English writer, actor, television presenter and theatre performer. He is perhaps best known for writing the cult musical The Rocky Horror Show and for his role in presenting the popular TV show The Crystal Maze...
. The film has long been regarded as a cult classic and recently became a minor hit in the US when it was re-released on DVD, due in part to its now-poignant final scene, in which Captain Invincible flies past the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
.
These were followed by A Breed Apart
A Breed Apart
A Breed Apart is a 1984 American drama film directed by Philippe Mora. The screenplay by Paul Wheeler concerns the need to protect endangered species, in this case the bald eagle.-Plot:Obsessive collector J.P...
with Rutger Hauer and Kathleen Turner
Kathleen Turner
Mary Kathleen Turner is an American actress. She came to fame during the 1980s, after roles in the Hollywood films Body Heat, Peggy Sue Got Married, Romancing the Stone, The War of the Roses, Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Prizzi's Honor...
, The Howling II & The Howling III
Howling III
Howling III is a 1987 Australian horror sequel to The Howling, directed by Howling II: Stirba - Werewolf Bitch director Philippe Mora and filmed on location in and outside Sydney, Australia...
, and the political drama Death of a Soldier
Death of a Soldier
Death of a Soldier is a 1986 Australian film based on the life of American serial killer Eddie Leonski. The film was shot using locations around Melbourne, Victoria.The film is directed by Philippe Mora and stars James Coburn, Bill Hunter and Reb Brown....
, starring James Coburn
James Coburn
James Harrison Coburn III was an American film and television actor. Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.A capable,...
, which was based on the infamous Melbourne wartime Eddie Leonski
Eddie Leonski
Edward Joseph Leonski was an American spree killer who committed his crimes in Australia. Leonski is known as the "Brownout Strangler", given Melbourne's wartime status of keeping low lighting .-Early life:Born in New York, Leonski grew up in an abusive, alcoholic family, and one of his brothers...
murder case.
Mora's next film used the plot of the best-selling book Communion, by his old friend from his London days in the late 1960s, artist, author and broadcaster Whitley Strieber
Whitley Strieber
Louis Whitley Strieber is an American writer best known for his horror novels The Wolfen and The Hunger and for Communion, a non-fiction account of his perceived experiences with non-human entities. Strieber also co-authored The Coming Global Superstorm with Art Bell, which inspired the film about...
. Released in 1989, the film starred Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...
and was based on Strieber's own alleged encounters with aliens.
Film credits as director as well as occasional writer and actor during the 1990s included the horror spoof Pterodactyl Woman From Beverly Hills (1994) with Beverly D'Angelo
Beverly D'Angelo
Beverly Heather D'Angelo is an American actress and singer.-Early life:D'Angelo was born in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Priscilla , a violinist, and Gene D'Angelo, a bass player and television station manager. She is of part Italian ancestry...
, Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
(in three roles), Moon Unit Zappa
Moon Unit Zappa
Moon Unit Zappa is an American actress, musician and author. She goes by the name Moon Zappa; "Unit" is her middle name.-Personal life:...
and Philippe's children Georges and Madeleine; Art Deco Detective (1994); Precious Find (1996) a sci-fi version of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which reunited two actors from Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
's Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
, Rutger Hauer and the late Brion James
Brion James
Brion Howard James was an American character actor. Known for playing the character of Leon Kowalski in the movie Blade Runner, James portrayed a variety of colorful roles in well-known films such as 48 Hrs., Another 48 Hours, Tango & Cash, Silverado, Red Heat, The Player and The Fifth Element...
. For television, Mora directed Mercenary II: Thick & Thin (1997), and the films Back in Business (1997), Snide and Prejudice (1998), and Burning Down the House (1998).
Mora's most recent film project, When We Were Modern, draws in part on his own life and experience. It examines the tangled lives and loves of the Heide inner circle — Sidney Nolan, Joy Hester, Albert Tucker and John and Sunday Reed. Young Australian actor Clayton Watson (The Matrix) will take the part of Nolan while Sunday Reed will be played by leading Hollywood actress Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts...
.
In the forties, on the run after deserting from the army, Nolan lived at the Reed's famous house "Heide", and it was here that he painted his first Ned Kelly series. While at Heide, Nolan conducted an open affair with Sunday Reed, but she refused to leave her husband and marry Nolan, so he married John’s Reed’s sister, Cynthia Hansen instead. The marriage eventually broke up, and Cynthia committed suicide in 1976. Her death sparked off a bitter feud between Nolan and author Patrick White
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White , an Australian author, is widely regarded as an important English-language novelist of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays.White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative...
, who excoriated Nolan for abandoning his first wife (she and White were close friends) and remarrying Mary Perceval so soon after Cynthia's death.
While researching the film, Mora discovered previously unseen home movies of the Heide circle, including the only films of Joy Hester and the Mirka Café. When We Were Modern is dedicated to Sweeney Reed, who committed suicide in March 1979, aged only 34. He will feature prominently as a character and as a tribute to him, Mora is reportedly planning to screen some of the footage from Back Alley under the closing credits.