#973: ARMSTRONG, Gililan: My Briliant Career (1979)

ARMSTRONG, Gillian (Australia)
My Brilliant Career [1979]
Spine #973
Blu-ray


For her award-winning breakthrough film, director Gillian Armstrong drew on teenage author Miles Franklin's novel, a celebrated turn-of-the-twentieth-century Australian coming-of-age story, to brashly upend the conventions of period romance. Headstrong young Sybylla Melvyn (Judy Davis, in a star-making performance) bemoans her stifling life in the backcountry, where her writerly ambitions receive little encouragement, and craves independence above all else. When a handsome landowner (Sam Neill), disarmed by her unruly charms, begins to court her, Sybylla must decide whether she can reconcile the prospect of marriage with the illustrious life's work she has imagined for herself. Suffused with generous humor and a youthful appetite for experience, My Brilliant Career is a luminous portrait of an ardently free spirit.

100 minutes
Color
Monaural
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2019
Director/Writers


Adapted from the novel by Miles Franklin.
Screenplay by Eleanor Witcombe.
Gillian Armstrong was 29 when she directed My Brilliant Career.

The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by critic Carrie Rickey.

Commentary

From 2009 featuring Armstrong.

Interview 1

With Armstrong.

Interview 2

From 1980 with actor Davis.

Interview 3

With production designer Luciana Arrighi.

One Hundred a Day (1973)

A student short film by Armstrong.

Trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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