Nick Cave interview

Time Out talks to Nick Cave about his bloody Australian western, 'The Proposition'. Gay cowboys not included.

Mar 10 2006

'Let's get this straight. There's no gay sex in our western.'

Nick Cave is wearing a full Zapata moustache, a velveteen jacket and smoking roll-ups. He's looking me very directly in the eye and making sure I get the point. 'There is no gay sex whatsoever. That's the big difference between Australian and American westerns.'

There are other differences. Although 'The Proposition' may come over like Sam Peckinpah does 'Walkabout', there lies a serious concern behind Cave's mock horror at thought of men doing it with what it means to be a contemporary Australian man; a concern that is at the heart of his gay sex-less western.

'There have been biopics like 'Ned Kelly', but that didn't really deal with the issue of empire-building in Australia and of how that effects what it means to be Australian.'

Anti-Arab riots on Bondi Beach at Christmas and the continuing success of John Howard's Liberal government – a government that plays the race card at elections and claims Australia has 'said sorry enough' for the murder and exploitation of its original inhabitants – suggest this is a timely film.

'I didn't set out to dump on Australia, but it's disappointing when your country falls for the race card and the rioting just seemed inevitable after Howard got back into power again. When I left Australia in 1980, the issue of what happened to the indigenous population was still a polarising subject in the country, but the Howard government seems to have sidestepped that. Australian feelings towards their own history are so complex and wounded about what went on back then that it's difficult for them to get any kind of perspective on it. It's a place they absolutely don't want to go.'

Directed by long-time collaborator and fellow Australian exile John Hillcoat (Cave co-wrote Hillcoat's 1989 film 'Ghosts of the Civil Dead'), 'The Proposition' of the title is made to semi-reformed outlaw Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) by Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone), an English policeman intent on 'civilising' the nineteenth-century outback. Charlie's elder brother Arthur (an impressively deranged Danny Huston) is engaged in an orgy of rape and violence, the younger brother Mike is a 14-year-old halfwit in police custody. If Pearce kills Arthur, Winstone will not hang Mike.

The film that follows reworks the outlaw myth of the outback into a tale of hypocrisy, murder and exploitation. As you would expect, Cave's screenwriting carries the stamp of his songwriting and trademark themes are explored – namely old testament religion (in this case Cain and Abel), redemption and violence. There's also lots of violence. John Hurt has his innards rearranged, Guy Pearce is transfixed with a spear, there are various unwelcome amputations, an extended whipping scene that leads directly to the film’s bloody dénouement, and several heads explode.

'Well, a head explodes, and if you shoot somebody in the head then maybe that's what happens. I wrote the whipping scene before Mel Gibson’s 'The Passion' and when I saw it, I said, "Oh fuck, you can't whip anyone more than they whip Christ in 'The Passion'." So we had to think of a different way. What I had written was more violent on the page than it ends up on the screen: First stroke of the whip and an arc of blood splatters the front row, second stroke of the whip, another arc of blood… Thankfully John was making the film and he is very serious about violence; his take is to get in there fast, show how confused and bloody it is and then get out and watch what happens to people after that, the consequences of it.'

The consequences are as bleak as Cave's keening soundtrack is beautiful, suggesting that he is no optimist when it comes to the Lucky country's future.

'I think the attempt to 'civilise' Australia is folly, and it seemed more effective to show it that way. But ultimately I was just trying to write something that I wanted to happen on screen. You invent these characters and you don’t really know what they are going to do next. You lie in bed at night thinking that you can have them do whatever you fucking like. I also felt enormous freedom because I was pretty sure that the film would never get made.'

The fact that it did get made and attracted such an impressive cast is partly due to Cave's personal pull, although he only admits direct responsibility for the appearance of one actor, who we won't name here.

'He'd done one of those actorly things where they say, "Oh, I'm not making anymore movies this year, I've got other projects", but actually he was just sitting at home and smoking dope and not reading my script. So I called him up when he was a little stoned and said, "Read my fucking script". A week later, we had him.'

Appropriately, the actor in question has one of the more contemplative roles in the midst of what is, for everyone else, a vision of Australia's history that is unremitting in its violence, racial hatred and misery. Even the sex goes wrong.

'Exactly! And it's with Emily Watson. When Ray Winstone was reading the script he said, "Do I have to fucking shoot blanks all through this fucking film?" Anyway, I've written a new film for Ray that we're making this summer. It's a British sex romp.'

And presumably not as bleak as 'The Proposition'?

'Well, it's not an English kitchen sink drama; it's set down in Brighton in the present day.'

In Brighton?

'Yes – but Ray's very, very heterosexual in this film.'

'The Proposition' opens today.

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