Hugo Weaving, After the Deluge, Bars
 

n.  Hugo Weaving ~ After the Deluge

AU Mini Series 2003:     Two episodes, appx 97min each
Hugo Weaving content p/ episode: approx  1)33%  2)60% 
Character: Marty  failed rock star, reforming rogue, prodigal son 
Cast: David Wenham   Alex Kirby, Hugo Weaving   Martin Kirby, Samuel Johnson   Toby Kirby, Ray Barrett   Cliff Kirby, Aden Young   Young Cliff, Rachel Griffiths Annie, Catherine McClements   Nicki Kirby, Essie Davis   Beth, Kate Beahan   Margaret,Vince Colosimo   Eric, Marta Dusseldorp   Eva, Bob Franklin Sid, Marco Chiappi   Bevan, 
Dir: Brendan Maher     Wri: Deborah Cox  Andrew Knight
Availablity: Screened Australian TV Channel Ten, June 2003. 
2DVD Region 4 set (16:9 anamorphic picture) available from Madman (AU$38 inc shipping to the UK).
 

Hugo Weaving: After the Deluge Plot/Comments:

After the Deluge is an artistically ambitious, beautifully written, acted and shot portrayal of one family's struggle with Alzheimer's and father-son relationships.
        Flitting repeatedly between reality and hallucination, Cliff re-experiences key moments in his life, with family and carers oblivious to the dark secrets he is reliving. However Brendan Maher's very stage-like answer to dramatising this is to have Cliff's fantasies often occupying the same physical space as the real world of his old age. Fluidly moving between the two worlds, this technique shows Cliff's confusion incredibly effectively.
Hugo Weaving, After the Deluge, Family, David Wenham
 
    A distant, stern and disapproving father, Cliff is unloved by the three sons his demanding and cold nature has pushed away for decades. 
      Marty (Hugo Weaving), has not seen his father for over 20 years; once a child violin prodigy turned violin-burning rock guitar legend, he is now a burnt-out and unsuccessful session musician. 
       Alex (David Wenham), resentful of Marty's abandonment of the family is an ultra-responsible, super-successful architect but is repeating the same mistake of distancing his children and family because of his work. 
      Toby (Samuel Johnson), the forgotten, quiet youngest son, is a Decent Bloke; happily married and desperate to repair his old family but  equally desperate (unsuccessfully) to start his own.
 
Cliff's Alzheimer's pulls a very dysfunctional family closer together, in an awkward and very unresolved way. The story focusses on each son and explains how the distant relationship with their father has shaped not only the men they became, but also their relationships with each other and with women.
 
   The beautifully-written screenplay is perhaps at its best when subtly exploring the growing, prickly relationship between feisty, damaged café owner Annie (Rachel Griffiths) and Marty, who sees in her the chance to "feel comfortable, like an old holey pullover", to be part of a family that works, despite not being perfect. 
    There are many barbed exchanges between these two characters. They have the most to lose by allowing themselves to be open to rejection but are equally desperate to trust and/or be trusted, despite themselves. These exchanges are skilfully acted and the chemistry between the superb Rachel Griffiths and Hugo Weaving is natural and absorbing.
 
After the Deluge Gallery
After the Deluge Classic Scene
After the Deluge Interview
After the Deluge Interview 2
Next: The Real Thing
Back: The Two Towers
Web Weaving
 
 
 

Typical Hugo Weaving Quotes:

  • See Classic Scenes 
  • "If you're gonna spout crap like that, you could at least do it without your clothes on"
  • To his childless youngest brother: "What about you, Tobes? Still firing blanks or did you get lucky"
  • During a Britney-esque recording session: "Sorry, I was trying to locate the key...I'm fed up of playing for 18 year olds"                                                Annie "Why? You don't mind going to bed with them"
  • [Marty looks appraisingly at waitress] Annie: "She's too old for you. She's at least half your age"
  • Marty: "So what's this about the old man? Is the fucker dead or on his way out?"                                         Toby: "He's got Alzhiemer's"                           Marty [smiling]: "So the maestro can't even control himself. Any particular reason why you're telling me this?"                                         Toby: "We thought you'd want to know"                                            Marty: "Why?"                            Alex: "Well, Marty, because he keeps asking for you"  [Marty is nonplussed and leaves]
  • "Haven't you noticed? Little pricks like that run the world....I'm not an accountant, I don't own a shop. Music's what I got ~ nothing else"   Annie: "Well taking out that guy didn't help"                                          "Well you're wrong. It actually ehlped a great deal" 
  • "She ditched you for a human sleeping pill" 

 

Comments and Queries:

  • Award winning series: AFI ~ Best miniseries, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Essie Davis). ARIA ~ Cezary Skubiszewski for best soundtrack album. Australian Writers' Guild: Andrew Knight.
  • Hugo Weaving asked writer Andrew Knight if he could add the two words "Oh Mum" to the scene where the brothers are clearing out their fathers belongings and he is offered the scrapbook with all the clippings of him their mum collected.
  • Weaving impressed Cezary Skubiszewski  with his electric guitar playing (other hands are used for acoustic) and how well he merged with the real musicians playing the band, jamming between takes.
  • 2-DVD available from Madman.
  • Other AFI nominations included:  Best Screenplay; Best Actor (Ray Barrett); Best Supporting Actor (Samuel Johnson); Supporting Actress (Essie Davis); Best Score
  • The one oddity with the production of the series is that besides the minor quibble of Samuel Johnson being mismatched to his character’s age, the flashbacks to the brothers’ childhoods seem to be set in the 1950s, where in reality it should have been in the late 1960s or early 1970s.
  • Recurring lines about Marty receeding and losing hair are found throughout the script. There are also recurring lines about a well-stuffed lunchbox being a Nylex  (flexible) hose fitting.
  • Fourth time Weaving has played a down and out rocker or a character who has played guitar in a band. See also True Love & Chaos, Road to Alice , Peaches.
  • David Wenham, a Belvoir St regular,  worked with Hugo Weaving  That Eye, The Sky, Russian Doll , and played Faramir in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Catherine McClements co-starred in The Blind Giant is Dancing and The Right Hand Man.   Aiden Young was in Exile. See The Usual Suspects for a huge list of recurring Weaving co-workers.


 
Hugo Weaving, After the Deluge, Rachel Griffiths
 
The  ensemble cast is absolutely flawless, though four actors in particular are given the opportunity in the script to really shine: Ray Barrett is extraordinarily believable as the guilt-ridden, withdrawn and confused Cliff;  David Wenham manages to make a low-key performance fascinating; Rachel Griffiths excels as the brittle Annie; and Hugo Weaving expertly shows Marty to be more than just an eternally surly man-child ~ he is as rigid, stubborn and inflexible as the father he despises.

   Having performances of this believability and intensity is unsual enough in a TV mini-series but After the Deluge matches these with fanastically sensitive, acute and well-structured  writing, direction and editing . It is hard to think of a television series with this much quality, let alone one which also takes the risk of trying such an unusual method of staging a character's backstory. 
     There is a recurring theme of being 'almost perfect' in the script ~ of accepting things as good, even though they are not flawlessly unrealistic. In observing the fractured relationships of fathers and sons, men and women, After the Deluge is an almost perfect combination of writing, direction and acting. It manages to artfully pull off the difficult combination of avoiding schmaltz while affecting emotions and intellect equally. To rip off a much better review: 'almost perfect? It's far better than that'.
 

Hugo Weaving, After the Deluge, Sex Drugs Rock n' Roll
 

Hugo Weaving content: 


Hugo Weaving's Marty has spent a lifetime pushing away his father, rejecting him in impending death, even as Cliff repeatedly asks for him. 
    However, he becomes the closest to whatever remains of the real Cliff, endlessly listening to an old tape recording (made for his dead mother's birthday) of them playing violin together 'almost perfectly'. As Marty finally moves closer to 'growing up', he secretly visits his father at the care home to play the same piece with him, this time as the teacher and on guitar ~ the instrument his father once despised so much. 
Hugo Weaving, After the Deluge, Leather Jacket
 
Like his father, Marty has a tendency to live in his own delusional world, whether it is fooling himself that he can relaunch his rock career; using his past as an excuse for the present; or losing track of time and place while straddled by a seventeen-year-old groupie, rambling about which female member of Gilligan's Island he would have shagged. Instead of once hating himself for the qualities he shared with the father he rejected, Marty learns to accept them as less than perfect parts, admitting to Cliff and himself that "Im just the same as you...only I don't have a war to blame it on".
           The writers have commented that Weaving "said he would have paid us to do the role". It's a superb part, giving him the chance to show one character in many different ways: the sulky rebel who uses his years-perfected 'don't give a shit' armour when dealing with his family; the patient teacher of his own father, communicating through music; the arrogant, creatively frustrated, failed rock legend; the charming bastard who effortlessly pulls women under half his own age ("young women are easier ~ they don't expect anything of me or ask difficult questions") and just as effortlessly  makes them hate him; the bantering flirt who never quite gets one up on Annie; and the nervous would-be suitor trying vainly to keep control of his emotions and his old habits.
Hugo Weaving, After the Deluge, Father's Death
 
     There are many fantastic Hugo Weaving scenes in this superb production ~ most of them involving Rachel Griffiths as well. 
     However, there are also some excellent 'solo' moments. Perhaps one of the most skillful is the potentially awkward moment when Marty receives the phone call confirming that his father has died: hunched over as if he has undergone tremendous physical exertion, then sitting back slowly, he fights against the emotional ties which he has rejected all his life and the old conditioning that 'boys don't cry'.

n.There is a scrapbook with old photos from Marty’s musical career, including photos from his early Lost Boys years. For the most part, these are just production photos of the modern Lost Boys reunion scenes. However, there is a great posed shot, with all the actors looking disturbingly present day, with the exception of Weaving, who is all arched Elrond eyebrows and Bowie-meets-Iggy Pop makeup (see  page 12 of the  gallery).
Hugo Weaving, After the Deluge, David Wenham, Rachel Griffiths, Funeral