Gillian Armstrong - Career

Career

Born in Melbourne, Victoria, Gillian Armstrong grew up in the eastern suburb of Mitcham. She attended Swinburne Technical College with the intention of becoming a theatre costume designer, but it was here she became increasingly interested in film. During this time, she was exposed to a range of artistic films that differentiated from the commercial cinema and Television she was used to.

After graduating from her four years at art school in 1968, Armstrong was set on pursuing a career in film. She began making short films of 2-10 minutes, and started work as an assistant editor in a commercial film house, which lasted a year.

In 1972 she entered, and later graduated from, the Australian Film Television and Radio School. She paid her tuition during this time through waitressing

Following a string of small jobs within the Australian film industry, she achieved her first real directorial recognition through her short film The Singer and the Dancer which won an award at the Sydney Film Festival.

Following this success, Armstrong was commissioned by the South Australian Film Corporation to make a documentary exploring the lives of young teenage girls living in Adelaide, South Australia. This became Smokes and Lollies (1976), her first paid job as director.

Armstrong’s own interest in the girls led her to revisit them at ages 18, 26, 33 and 48, resulting in four more films in the style of the popular "Up Series". These are Fourteen’s Good, Eighteen’s Better (1980), Bingo, Bridesmaids and Braces (1988), Not Fourteen Again (1996), and her most recent film Love, Lust & Lies (2009)

Armstrong’s first feature length film "My Brilliant Career (1979)", an adaptation of Miles Franklin's novel of the same name, was the first Australian feature length film to be directed by a woman for 46 years. Armstrong received six awards at the 1979 Australian Film Awards (previously the Australian Film Institute Awards, or AFI’s) including Best Director. The film also brought considerable attention to its two main stars, Judy Davis and Sam Neill who were relatively unknown at the time.

Following the success of My Brilliant Career, which was nominated for an Academy Award in Best Costume Design, Armstrong directed the Australian rock-musical "Starstruck (1982)" which proved her ability to tackle more contemporary and experimental subject matter and styles.

She has directed a number of Rock Music Video's in the early 1980s, including 1984's "Bop Girl" by Pat Wilson, which featured a very young Nicole Kidman towards the end of the video - http://fliiby.com/file/345474/2g8yyig51i.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Wilson#.22Bop_Girl.22

Since then, Armstrong has specialised in period drama. She was the first foreign woman to be approached by the American film company MGM to finance her direction of a big-budget feature, which became "Mrs. Soffel (1984)" starring Mel Gibson and Diane Keaton This film tells the scandalous true-story of an affair between a prisoner and a prison warden’s wife, and was relatively well received by audiences and critics

On returning to Australia, Armstrong continued to make both documentaries and feature films. She earned great recognition for High Tide (1987) and The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992) in which she was nominated for Best Director at the 1987 and 1992 Australian Film Institute Awards (AFI’s). The Last Days of Chez Nous also earned her a nomination at the Berlin Film Festival. Despite this, both films were largely unrecognised internationally

Armstrong discusses the making of High Tide in the 2003 Canadian documentary Complete Unknown co-directed by Griffin Ondaatje and Craig Proctor.

In 1994, Armstrong achieved her greatest Hollywood success with the adaptation of Little Women, starring Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Gabriel Byrne, Christian Bale, Claire Danes and Kirsten Dunst. This adaptation of Louisa Mary Alcott’s novel of the same name was one of the most popular films of the year, and emphasises Armstrong’s focus on portraying the intimate lives of strong female characters and their relationships with one another.

She followed this success three years later with the film Oscar and Lucinda (1997) starring Ralph Fiennes and a relatively unknown Cate Blanchett. This film, based on the novel by Australian Author Peter Carey, tells the story of a mis-matched love affair in 19th century Australia. It received mixed reviews both locally and internationally, despite its high production value and strong performances by the film main actors

In the 2000’s, Armstrong went on to direct the feature films Charlotte Gray (2001), starring Cate Blanchett, and Death Defying Acts (2008) starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Guy Pearce. Based on the novel by Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray is another of Armstrong’s films that centres around a strong female protagonist.

Quite removed from Armstrong’s usual subject matter, Death Defying Acts portrays a moment in the life of 1920’s escape artist Harry Houdini in the style of a supernatural, romantic thriller. It received a modest earning at the box office, and was part of a special screening at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival

Despite the success of these more commercial films, it was Armstrong’s lesser-known documentary Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst (2006) which earned her the most critical recognition during this time, and a nomination for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.