Sirens

Sirens (1994)

Love, Lust, Art and Religion

In 1930s Australia, Anglican clergyman Anthony Campion and his prim wife, Estella, are asked to visit noted painter Norman Lindsay, whose planned contribution to an international art exhibit is considered blasphemous. While Campion and Lindsay debate, Estella finds herself drawn to the three beautiful models sitting for the painter's current work, freethinking Sheela, sensual Pru and virginal Giddy.

Date of release
1994-03-04
TMDB
5.6 / 10 (178)
Runtime
1h 38m
Genres
Comedy, Drama
Director
John Duigan

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: A$2.8M
  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 3

Sirens is a 1994 film, based on the life of artist and author Norman Lindsay, written and directed by John Duigan and set in Australia during the interwar period. Sirens was mostly filmed at the Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum, Lindsay's home and studio in Faulconbridge, New South Wales and the town of Sofala near Bathurst.

Production

The film was a long-standing project of John Duigan:

The starting point was the idea of doing something on the tension between the church's teaching and the sensual side of life. I have always felt that the church's actual teachings on this issue—since I experienced it first-hand as a boy at school—reflected some biases, particularly against the place and role of women in the church, and the place of women's sensuality.

He originally pitched the project to Kennedy Miller after making Fragments of War but they passed.

Duigan said that what drew him to cast Grant: "Hugh has the capacity to be a terrific player of light comedy, in the tradition of Cary Grant 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:

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.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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