Ted Kotcheff

Welcome to “The Yabba”- short for Bundanyabba, a mining town in the Australian Outback. “Where nobody cares where you came from or what you’ve done” as John Grant’s new drinking buddy in the local Outback bar explains to him. “I’m a doctor. I’m also an alcoholic. But nobody cares about that. You won’t either…as long as you join the guys in the bar in rapid serial beer drinking- opening the throat and pouring the stuff down, quickly and sequentially.” A fair recipe for alcoholism. And no effete pommie behavior, either.

What is Wake in Fright? A newly restored, outrageous Australian film classic to be screened at Film Forum this Wednesday. The two key people involved in the making and publicizing of the film are executive director and producer Ted Kotcheff, and his close personal friend director and producer Antonio Saillant. Wake in Fright is variously described as one of the three great Aussie film classics ever made (along with Mad Max, and Walkabout), an expression of the Australian soul, a great favorite of Martin Scorsese, and of director and Executive Producer of TV’s “Law & Order,” Ted Kotcheff. It is also described as a deeply dark, raunchy, terrifying, madly intense film experience. It is a celebration of guns, booze, wanton destruction of outback-wild life, and descent into madness. Those who see it are inevitably blown away.