There’s no bogus Bodhi-style mysticism, no heroic big wave scene, and the quirks of surfing culture are left unexplained. In Breath, the writer surfs, so does the director, all the ‘actors’ are surfers first, and the whole water unit surfs. He’s seen all the celluloid misfires and was adamant they wouldn’t be repeated on his watch. He’s a surfer himself, grew up at Lennox, still gets out there, so he’s acutely aware of how badly surfing has been represented on screen. These shortcomings needn’t be pointed out to Baker. Up there on screen are people you’d never meet down the carpark, saying shit you’d never hear spoken, and yeah, they’re all riding fifty foot surf….of course. Too many times has great material devolved into diabolical execution with the end result just another warped impression of surfing. Yet surfing on celluloid is an altogether different beast. The surfing scenes in the book are not just beautifully rendered, they’re also authentic - they could only have been penned by a surfer. To many people Winton is a national living treasure and a large percentage of them warned Baker “not to stuff up” Winton’s work.Īnd then there were the surfers. At the Sydney premiere to Breath, director Simon Baker admitted he felt pressure from all sides while making the screen adaptation of Tim Winton’s book.
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