Swim fan

It was a long road from the backyards of Brisbane to the pinnacle of Australian swimming for Tony Fingleton. The writer and producer of Swimming Upstream, a movie which charts his difficult childhood and adolescence, spoke to The Blurb recently about the film.

The story started life, as many stories do, as a book - but not in the conventional way. "There were two books actually," Fingleton explained. "There was a book - a manuscript really - that I wrote with my sister Diane. That was more just an attempt to get our story, or lives, down on paper. There were no chapters as such, just a series of events from our lives. So it really wasn't a book; but we had put a lot of thought into the thing".

That manuscript, having been turned down for publication as a script, then found its way to a Sydney film producer, who decided to option it, with a view to making it as a mini-series; and. That project however went nowhere and two years later, the option expired and Fingelton got the rights back. "So I literally cut it in half to make a screenplay of it". When the film finally got made, Fingleton contacted the publisher who had turned down the original manuscript. "I said 'Guess what, they're making it into a movie'; and he said 'Well, let's do the book'".

Translating the manuscript for the screen naturally involved some hard choices. For example, Fingleton only included one scene alluding to his Catholic education. Also, his sister Diane is a relatively minor character. But Fingleton observes "There were five kids, so there were five stories really".

"I mean, you have to make choices, and this is only a, what, hour and a half movie. You have to tell a story, not five stories. Since I was writing it, I was the central character. But I know from the outset that the star part was the father - and the mother. There just aren't that many 20 year old actors out there who can, as they say, carry a picture. So I knew that I had to attract actors and I had to snare someone like Geoffrey Rush to play the father".

Easy said, but how does one go about snaring an actor like Geoffrey Rush? Fingleton laughs, "It ain't easy!" But essentially it boiled down to having the money to pay them. "And that's as simple as it gets". "I had a production company, and they had the money to do it. So they sent the script to Geoffrey's agent and they read it and loved it - but the first thing they ask is 'Will you pay the fee?' They negotiate that and then Geoffrey Rush reads it - still with the money on the table - and he has to like it. So it still all boils down to the script. And he did like it, he liked it a lot. I mean, he knew the territory; he grew up in Brisbane. I knew his mother for goodness sake. The same with Judy Davis - she read it and said "Yeah, I'd like to play that woman'. And when they're on board, the train's leaving the station and - jump on!"

When it came to filming the project though, doing so in Brisbane didn't faze the cast or crew in the least. Although it's a long way from Hollywood, Fingleton says that simply didn't matter. "This crew was fabulous," he explained. "One of the producers from the production company in LA, a real old pro - he made movies with Robert Mitchum and Burt Lancaster - and he said they were the best crew in the world. You don't have to be in Hollywood to find good crew. Australian crews are the best around"

The end product, too, was worth it. "I love the whole fifties feel of it. And I really love the Brisbane light, you know that harsh but beautiful clear sky and everything."

Oddly, Fingleton had to fight to get the film made in Brisbane in the first place, though. "The producers wanted to shoot it in Canada," he laughed. "They said to me "Do we have to shoot it in Brisbane?' I said 'Well, it's set in Brisbane, so you might want to think about it'. Then they thought about shooting in Sydney" He however I convinced them to come to Brisbane to see for themselves; because "Brisbane looks completely different to Sydney. The houses are on stilts for one thing. So they came, and they said 'Yeah, we can see what you mean - this can't be shot anywhere else'".

From Australia, the film will be assessed for international distribution. Fingelton says it's "understandable" that the distributors will want to "see how it goes here", but there are hopes for North American distribution in the near future.

David Edwards

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Interview - Tony Fingelton

Swimming Upstream is now available on DVD

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