** Note that there is an error in the newsletter. This is the correct talk.
Friday 1 August 7.30pm: FILM SHOWING Von Loves Her Modernist.
Burnside Uniting Church, Corner Fisher & Portrush Roads.
Produced and directed by Rob George. Music by Guy Cundell.
A 65 minute documentary produced by Prospect Productions.
The precocious, brilliant and energetic poet, Max Harris, is Adelaide’s own enfant terrible. In the late 1930s he set out to throw hand grenades at the cultural establishment. He fell in love with Von Hutton while still at school and they stay together for 55 years. Max promoted modernism in art and literature founding the magazine Angry Penguins and the Contemporary Art Society. He teamed up with art patrons John and Sunday Reed in Melbourne and riding high he was targeted in the notorious Ern Malley hoax. Humiliated, Max turned to book-selling, publishing, and writing newspaper columns. He remained a promoter of Modernism to the end.
An interview with Von Harris conducted in 2007 forms the backbone of the film. Other interviewees include Von and Max’s daughter, Samela Harris, family friend Peter Goers and literary historians Philip Butterss and Nicholas Jose. Max’s grandson Ryder Grindle reads excerpts from Max’s writings. Other readings include Ern Malley excerpts, trial transcripts, letters from key characters and excerpts from “Carys”, the diary of a young woman who was a member of Max’s circle in the early war years read by the diarist’s daughter, Ann Barson. The film reveals an active, innovative and lively anti-conservative underbelly in this place that was commonly referred to as the “City of Churches”. Adelaide’s history is much more interesting and diverse than popular belief would have it.
Rob George is a screenwriter, film maker and playwright. His plays include “Percy and Rose” about the composer Percy Grainger for the 1982 Adelaide Festival, “Lovers & Haters – the turbulent times of Don Dunstan” for the 2008 Adelaide Festival which he wrote with Maureen Sherlock. “Von Loves Her Modernist” is the first of three films Rob has made for the SA History Festival with “The Many Loves of Geoffrey Dutton” in 2023 and “Madge & Bibs and the Advancing Girls” in 2024.