Background

As with the original Super 8 film by → ↑ → from 1981, the 16mm remake of Romantic Story takes an extremely cheap romance comic omnibus, and uses three of its short stories to make a 3-part film. Every image, detail and line of dialogue from the original comic pages are precisely remade in the film's shots, using human actors, sets and locations. All framing, duration, mise-en-scene and editing are imported from the comic unfiltered and untransposed. The result is a disjointed, alienating and overall 'bad' form of cinema. Romantic Story stradles the extreme peripheries of cinematic narration, positioned by Brechtian recitation to one side, and Warholian performance on the other—with nothing inbetween.

Linda Barron, Adrian Martin & Angie; Sally Jackson, David Chesworth & Linda Barron - Romantic Story © 1984

Credits

16m version

Crew

Direction, editing, music & soundtrack production - Philip Brophy
Script - from the Romantic Story comic © 1982 Federal Publishing Corporation P/L USA
Camera & Lighting - John Laurie & Dale Putting
Funded with assistance from the Australian Film Commission

Cast

Too Many Kisses
Debbie - Linda Barron
Lucas - David Chesworth
Andy - Paul Taylor
Bob - Adrian Martin
Extras - Angie, Sally Jackson, Steven Godard, Lino Caputo, Philip Brophy, Maria Kozic

Never Trust A Sailor
Nina - Merryn Gates
Arnie - George Huxley
Extras - Peter Lawrence, Philip Brophy, Maria Kozic

Forbidden Ground
Kirk - Philip Moreland
Yvette - Maria Kozic
Claude - Dale Putting
Paul - John Laurie

Peter Lawrence, Merryn Gates & George Huxley - Romantic Story © 1984

2024

4K restoration by Ray Argall, Piccolo Films

16mm version

1985

1st NATIONAL SCRIPTWRITERS' CONFERENCE, Melbourne; Next Wave Festival, Melbourne

1984

Melbourne International Film Festival; Glasshouse Theatre, Melbourne

Super 8 original

1982

Melbourne Cineastes Society, Melbourne; Melbourne Film Festival; Virgin Press benefit concert, Seaview Ballroom, Melbourne; The Mill, Geelong; Burwood Town Hall, Melbourne
Australian Independent Filmmakers Programme, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Departure Lounge, Sydney; Paddington Cinema, Sydney
Media Resource Centre, Adelaide

1981

Clifton Hill Community Music Centre, Melbourne
City Studio, Sydney

Overview

From the original 1981 programme note

This story is not about romantic and personal relationships between people. It is a film about a comic strip that is used as a film script—without any conventions of transformation between texts. Romantic Story is not and adaptation; it is a forced application of form. In the sense that the history of the film is hinged on a history of literature, Romantic Story is based upon "illiterature". This film does not consume the comic book text in the quest for a filmic text. In the way that adaptation generally involves a sort of obliteration of the form of the source of the text. Nothing goes down smoothly or properly because the comic book is continually seen throughout the film—not visually, but textually. Romantic Story is not a "bad"film—it is simply "lliterate".

Maria Kozic & Phillip Moreland - Romantic Story © 1984

Technical

After extensive screenings around Australia of the Super 8 print, a 16mm blow-up print was made with funding from the Australian Film Commission. The film shoot took the form of a conventional lo-budget crew-assembled production. Costumnes, sets and locations were all rudimentary in tone and basic in quality, with no concern for heightened aesthetic value. Notions of 'camp' and 'kitsch' were studiously avoided in all levels of the production. The non-professional cast was directed to emote with obvious and insensitive delivery, in accordance with the cliched dialogue from the original comic. No synch sound was recorded; post-dubbed dialogue accentuates the flattened artificiality of the project. No location sound or atmospheres were recorded, placing all post-dubbed dialogue in a vacuum of cartoon 'speech bubbles'. Whenever a character speaks in voice-over (as derived from the boxes of text in the comic) the screen goes black.