.gif)
Sirens (film)
Encyclopedia
Sirens is a 1993 film, written and directed by John Duigan
, and set in Australia
between the two World Wars
.
Sirens, along with Four Weddings and a Funeral
and Bitter Moon
—all released in the U.S. within weeks of each other—were the films that brought Hugh Grant
to the attention of American audiences.
newly arrived from England, asked to visit a notorious artist, loosely based on the Australian artist Norman Lindsay
and played here by Sam Neill
, out of the church's
concern about a blasphemous
painting the artist plans to exhibit.
Estella, the priest's wife (played by Tara FitzGerald
), accompanies him on the visit to the artist's bucolic compound in the Blue Mountains. The artist's saucy models are played by Elle Macpherson
and Kate Fischer
; Lindsay's wife, Rose (Pamela Rabe
) also poses for him. Portia de Rossi
(in her film debut) plays the maid who has just begun demurely modeling for him as well. Mark Gerber plays the partially blind Devlin, the "odd-job" man who also poses for Lindsay.
While both Grant and Neill play characters critical to the film's story, the film is really about Estella, who responds to the sensuality of her surroundings over the course of her visit to Lindsay's estate. Her relationship with Tony includes the intimacy and commitment
needed in a well-rounded marriage, but is missing the passion, in all of that term's senses
.
All of Estella's sense
s are engaged by the backdrop
for the film, a lush and dangerous landscape filled with the distinctive flora
and fauna of Australia
. To the prim and proper English wife of a priest it's all quite exotic. Lindsay's voluptuous models (played by Macpherson and Fischer) live the libertine
lives that Lindsay champions through his paintings and Lindsay has animated postprandial
conversations with her husband. Those scenes and conversations, and various glimpses of naked models and a naked Devlin, contribute to the stimulating environment.
The surroundings and the lives of the models are siren
calls that lead Estella to fantasize with increasing intensity, and (with encouragement from the models) act on a few of her impulses. She suffers morning-after remorse about a late-night encounter with Devlin, and perhaps influenced by supportive words from her husband (who had witnessed her acting on one of her impulses, though not the sexual one with Devlin), the film ends with a playful scene between the two of them. The scene hints at the possibility that she may find passion with her husband after all.
A separate story arc
follows de Rossi's character as she matures emotionally under the influence of the other two models and Estella's advice. It intersects with the primary arc in the person of Devlin, to whom de Rossi's character is attracted.
and David Niven
. He has the same ease and urbanity in the way he moves and talks." Grant told Farber what he brought to the character of the Anglican priest:
Most of the film is set at what is now the Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum
, which was the original home of the real-life Lindsay with sequences filmed at the Mount Victoria, New South Wales
railway station.
of the film include a scene in which Grant's character walks past paintings in the Art Gallery of New South Wales
in Sydney, including:
of The New York Times
wrote: "Sirens is best watched as a soft-core
, high-minded daydream about the liberating sensuality of art.....[it] has an archly intelligent performance from Mr. Grant, who turns the priest's embarrassment into a real comic virtue. Ms. FitzGerald, who made a strong first impression in Hear My Song
, is again a forceful presence, even when acting out the story's giddy erotic fantasies." Maslin said the film "often verges on silliness and desperately overworks the symbolic importance of snakes
. Still, it's hard not to enjoy a film whose most intellectually daring character — Mr. Neill's stern Lindsay — claims to have spent a previous life in Atlantis
."
Hal Hinson of The Washington Post
was less forgiving: he called the ideas presented by the film "warmed-over D. H. Lawrence
" and the film, a "peculiar, not entirely undesirable sort of art-house hybrid, like a marriage between Masterpiece Theatre
and Baywatch
", citing "scenes, like the one in which Estella is brought to orgasm by the tender, knowing hands of a blind laborer, [that] are almost laughable."
Roger Ebert
, guessing incorrectly that the inspiration for Neill's character was Augustus John
, noted that Sirens has "no particular plot"; he also called it a "good-hearted, whimsical movie which makes no apologies for the beauty of the human body and yet never feels sexually obsessed."
John Duigan
John Duigan, is an Australian film director.Duigan emigrated to Australia in 1961, having been born to an Australian father...
, and set in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
between the two World Wars
World war
A world war is a war affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters....
.
Sirens, along with Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It was the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to feature Hugh Grant...
and Bitter Moon
Bitter Moon
Bitter Moon is a 1992 film starring Hugh Grant, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner and Peter Coyote and directed by Roman Polanski. The film is known as in France. The script is inspired by a book with the same name, written by the French author Pascal Bruckner. The score was composed by...
—all released in the U.S. within weeks of each other—were the films that brought Hugh Grant
Hugh Grant
Hugh John Mungo Grant is an English actor and film producer. He has received a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and an Honorary César. His films have earned more than $2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide. Grant achieved international stardom after appearing in Richard Curtis's...
to the attention of American audiences.
Plot
The film stars Grant as Tony, an Anglican priestAnglican ministry
The Anglican ministry is both the leadership and agency of Christian service in the Anglican Communion. "Ministry" commonly refers to the office of ordained clergy: the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons. More accurately, Anglican ministry includes many laypeople who devote themselves...
newly arrived from England, asked to visit a notorious artist, loosely based on the Australian artist Norman Lindsay
Norman Lindsay
Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria....
and played here by Sam Neill
Sam Neill
Nigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
, out of the church's
Anglican Church of Australia
The Anglican Church of Australia is a member church of the Anglican Communion. It was previously officially known as the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania...
concern about a blasphemous
Blasphemy
Blasphemy is irreverence towards religious or holy persons or things. Some countries have laws to punish blasphemy, while others have laws to give recourse to those who are offended by blasphemy...
painting the artist plans to exhibit.
Estella, the priest's wife (played by Tara FitzGerald
Tara Fitzgerald
Tara Anne Cassandra Fitzgerald is an English actress who has appeared in feature films, television, radio and the stage....
), accompanies him on the visit to the artist's bucolic compound in the Blue Mountains. The artist's saucy models are played by Elle Macpherson
Elle Macpherson
Elle Macpherson is an Australian model, actress, and businesswoman nicknamed "The Body". She is perhaps best known for her record five cover appearances for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue beginning in the 1980s...
and Kate Fischer
Kate Fischer
Kate Fischer, aka Katie Fischer, is an Australian model and actress. She attended the Canberra Girls' Grammar School....
; Lindsay's wife, Rose (Pamela Rabe
Pamela Rabe
Pamela Rabe is a Canadian / Australian stage, television and film actor. A graduate from the Playhouse Acting School, in Vancouver, Pamela Rabe is one of Australia’s most highly regarded and awarded actors. She is best known for her appearances in the films Cosi, Sirens and Paradise Road...
) also poses for him. Portia de Rossi
Portia de Rossi
Portia Lee James DeGeneres , known professionally as Portia de Rossi , is an Australian-American actress, best known for her roles as lawyer Nelle Porter on the television series Ally McBeal and Lindsay Bluth Fünke on the sitcom Arrested Development...
(in her film debut) plays the maid who has just begun demurely modeling for him as well. Mark Gerber plays the partially blind Devlin, the "odd-job" man who also poses for Lindsay.
While both Grant and Neill play characters critical to the film's story, the film is really about Estella, who responds to the sensuality of her surroundings over the course of her visit to Lindsay's estate. Her relationship with Tony includes the intimacy and commitment
Triangular theory of love
The triangular theory of love is a theory of love developed by psychologist Robert Sternberg. In the context of interpersonal relationships, 'the three components of love, according to the triangular theory, are an intimacy component, a passion component, and a decision/commitment...
needed in a well-rounded marriage, but is missing the passion, in all of that term's senses
Sense and reference
Sinn and bedeutung are usually translated, respectively, as sense and reference. Two different aspects of some terms' meanings, a term's reference is the object that the term refers to, while the term's sense is the way that the term refers to that object.Sinn and bedeutung were introduced by...
.
All of Estella's sense
Sense
Senses are physiological capacities of organisms that provide inputs for perception. The senses and their operation, classification, and theory are overlapping topics studied by a variety of fields, most notably neuroscience, cognitive psychology , and philosophy of perception...
s are engaged by the backdrop
Backdrop
Backdrop may refer to:* Theatrical scenery* Photography backdrops used in studio photography circa 1860-1920.* Filming location* A pro wrestling move that's also called a belly to back suplex....
for the film, a lush and dangerous landscape filled with the distinctive flora
Flora of Australia
The flora of Australia comprises a vast assemblage of plant species estimated to over 20,000 vascular and 14,000 non-vascular plants, 250,000 species of fungi and over 3,000 lichens...
and fauna of Australia
Fauna of Australia
The fauna of Australia consists of a huge variety of animals; some 83% of mammals, 89% of reptiles, 90% of fish and insects and 93% of amphibians that inhabit the continent are endemic to Australia...
. To the prim and proper English wife of a priest it's all quite exotic. Lindsay's voluptuous models (played by Macpherson and Fischer) live the libertine
Libertine
A libertine is one devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behavior sanctified by the larger society. Libertines, also known as rakes, placed value on physical pleasures, meaning those...
lives that Lindsay champions through his paintings and Lindsay has animated postprandial
Postprandial
Postprandial means after eating a meal while preprandial is before a meal.-Usages of the term:This term is used in many contexts but also in relation to blood sugar levels, which are normally measured 2 hours after and before eating in a postprandial glucose test...
conversations with her husband. Those scenes and conversations, and various glimpses of naked models and a naked Devlin, contribute to the stimulating environment.
The surroundings and the lives of the models are siren
Siren
In Greek mythology, the Sirens were three dangerous mermaid like creatures, portrayed as seductresses who lured nearby sailors with their enchanting music and voices to shipwreck on the rocky coast of their island. Roman poets placed them on an island called Sirenum scopuli...
calls that lead Estella to fantasize with increasing intensity, and (with encouragement from the models) act on a few of her impulses. She suffers morning-after remorse about a late-night encounter with Devlin, and perhaps influenced by supportive words from her husband (who had witnessed her acting on one of her impulses, though not the sexual one with Devlin), the film ends with a playful scene between the two of them. The scene hints at the possibility that she may find passion with her husband after all.
A separate story arc
Story arc
A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and in some cases, films. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. In television, the use of the story...
follows de Rossi's character as she matures emotionally under the influence of the other two models and Estella's advice. It intersects with the primary arc in the person of Devlin, to whom de Rossi's character is attracted.
Cast
- Hugh GrantHugh GrantHugh John Mungo Grant is an English actor and film producer. He has received a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and an Honorary César. His films have earned more than $2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide. Grant achieved international stardom after appearing in Richard Curtis's...
- Reverend Anthony Campion - Tara FitzGeraldTara FitzgeraldTara Anne Cassandra Fitzgerald is an English actress who has appeared in feature films, television, radio and the stage....
- Estella Campion - Sam NeillSam NeillNigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor. He is well known for his starring role as paleontologist Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III....
- Norman LindsayNorman LindsayNorman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria.... - Elle MacphersonElle MacphersonElle Macpherson is an Australian model, actress, and businesswoman nicknamed "The Body". She is perhaps best known for her record five cover appearances for the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue beginning in the 1980s...
- Sheela - Portia de RossiPortia de RossiPortia Lee James DeGeneres , known professionally as Portia de Rossi , is an Australian-American actress, best known for her roles as lawyer Nelle Porter on the television series Ally McBeal and Lindsay Bluth Fünke on the sitcom Arrested Development...
- Giddy (feature film debut) - Kate FischerKate FischerKate Fischer, aka Katie Fischer, is an Australian model and actress. She attended the Canberra Girls' Grammar School....
- Pru - Pamela RabePamela RabePamela Rabe is a Canadian / Australian stage, television and film actor. A graduate from the Playhouse Acting School, in Vancouver, Pamela Rabe is one of Australia’s most highly regarded and awarded actors. She is best known for her appearances in the films Cosi, Sirens and Paradise Road...
- Rose Lindsay - Ben MendelsohnBen MendelsohnPaul Benjamin "Ben" Mendelsohn is an Australian actor.-Early life:Mendelsohn was born in Melbourne, Australia, the son of Carole Ann and Frederick Mendelsohn. He attended Heidelberg Primary School and Banyule High School. His father is a prominent medical researcher who heads the Howard Florey...
- Lewis - John PolsonJohn PolsonJohn Polson is an Australian actor, director and founder of Tropfest. In February 2001, Polson attended the 12th Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival in Hokkaidō, Japan where his film Siam Sunset won the Minami Toshiko Award...
- Tom - Mark Gerber - Devlin
Production
Duigan told film critic Stephen Farber what drew him to cast Grant: "Hugh has the capacity to be a terrific player of light comedy, in the tradition of Cary GrantCary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
and David Niven
David Niven
James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...
. He has the same ease and urbanity in the way he moves and talks." Grant told Farber what he brought to the character of the Anglican priest:
- I kept looking at the part and wondered how I could crack it, because he was such a straitlaced character. And then I realized that if he thought he was trendy and avant-garde, that added a whole new swing to it. I see him as quite the star of his theological college, probably quite daring with his Turkish cigarettes. And I imagine that he even makes the occasional sexual reference in his conversation after a couple of glasses of sherry. But confronted with the real McCoy, in the form of Elle Macpherson without her clothes, he's hopeless.
Most of the film is set at what is now the Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum
Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum
The Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum is based in Faulconbridge in the Blue Mountains, Australia. The property is a stone cottage on a 42 acre block of land which was originally owned by the Australian artist and writer Norman Lindsay...
, which was the original home of the real-life Lindsay with sequences filmed at the Mount Victoria, New South Wales
Mount Victoria, New South Wales
Mount Victoria is a small township in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. It is the westernmost village in the City of Blue Mountains, located approximately 120 kilometres via road from Sydney and 1043 metres above sea-level...
railway station.
Opening credits
The opening creditsOpening credits
In a motion picture, television program, or video game, the opening credits are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen or static pictures, or sometimes on top of action in the show. There...
of the film include a scene in which Grant's character walks past paintings in the Art Gallery of New South Wales
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
in Sydney, including:
- "Spring Frost" by Elioth GrunerElioth GrunerElioth Lauritz Leganyer Gruner, early anglicised from Grüner , was an Australian painter, winner of the Wynne Prize seven times.-Early life:...
(which won the Wynne PrizeWynne PrizeThe Wynne Prize is an Australian landscape painting or figure sculpture art prize. One of Australia's longest running art prizes, it was established in 1897 from the bequest of Richard Wynne...
in 1919), - "The Golden Fleece" (1894) by Tom RobertsTom RobertsThomas William Roberts , usually known simply as Tom, was a prominent Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School.-Life:...
, - "Still Glides the Stream and Shall Forever Glide" (1890) by Arthur StreetonArthur StreetonSir Arthur Ernest Streeton was an Australian landscape painter.-Early life:Streeton was born in Mount Duneed, near Geelong, and his family moved to Richmond in 1874. In 1882, Streeton commenced art studies with G. F. Folingsby at the National Gallery School.Streeton was influenced by French...
, - "Bailed Up" by Tom Roberts, and
- "Chaucer at the Court of Edward III" (1847–51) by Ford Madox BrownFord Madox BrownFord Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...
.
Reception
Janet MaslinJanet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote: "Sirens is best watched as a soft-core
Softcore
Softcore pornography is a form of filmic or photographic pornography or erotica that is less sexually explicit than hardcore pornography. It is intended to tickle and arouse men and women. Softcore pornography depicts nude and semi-nude performers engaging in casual social nudity or non-graphic...
, high-minded daydream about the liberating sensuality of art.....[it] has an archly intelligent performance from Mr. Grant, who turns the priest's embarrassment into a real comic virtue. Ms. FitzGerald, who made a strong first impression in Hear My Song
Hear My Song
Hear My Song is a 1991 film, written by the actors Peter Chelsom and Adrian Dunbar , based on the story of Irish tenor Josef Locke...
, is again a forceful presence, even when acting out the story's giddy erotic fantasies." Maslin said the film "often verges on silliness and desperately overworks the symbolic importance of snakes
Serpent (symbolism)
Serpent in Latin means: Rory Collins :&, in turn, from the Biblical Hebrew word of: "saraf" with root letters of: which refers to something burning-as, the pain of poisonous snake's bite was likened to internal burning.This word is commonly used in a specifically mythic or religious context,...
. Still, it's hard not to enjoy a film whose most intellectually daring character — Mr. Neill's stern Lindsay — claims to have spent a previous life in Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
."
Hal Hinson of The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
was less forgiving: he called the ideas presented by the film "warmed-over D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
" and the film, a "peculiar, not entirely undesirable sort of art-house hybrid, like a marriage between Masterpiece Theatre
Masterpiece Theatre
Masterpiece is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston. It premiered on Public Broadcasting Service on January 10, 1971, making it America's longest-running weekly prime time drama series. The series has presented numerous acclaimed British productions...
and Baywatch
Baywatch
Baywatch is an American action drama series about the Los Angeles County Lifeguards who patrol the beaches of Los Angeles County, California, starring David Hasselhoff. The show ran in its original title and format from 1989 to 1999, sans the 1990-1991 season, of which it was not in production...
", citing "scenes, like the one in which Estella is brought to orgasm by the tender, knowing hands of a blind laborer, [that] are almost laughable."
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, guessing incorrectly that the inspiration for Neill's character was Augustus John
Augustus John
Augustus Edwin John OM, RA, was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a short time around 1910, he was an important exponent of Post-Impressionism in the United Kingdom....
, noted that Sirens has "no particular plot"; he also called it a "good-hearted, whimsical movie which makes no apologies for the beauty of the human body and yet never feels sexually obsessed."
Box Office
Sirens grossed $2,780,839 at the box office in Australia, which is equivalent to $4,170,959 in 2009 dollars.External links
- Norman Lindsay Gallery Home Page
- Sirens at the National Film and Sound ArchiveNational Film and Sound ArchiveThe National Film and Sound Archive is Australia’s audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national collection of audiovisual materials and related items...