Lonely Hearts

Clip 1: The lady in question

Taken from the feature Lonely Hearts (1981)

Original title classification M – this clip chosen to be PG

Curator’s clip description

At the dating agency, Peter (Norman Kaye) is ‘introduced’ by proxy to a prospective partner, a young woman called Patricia. He fears he’s too old but the consultant says she needs a mature man. Peter has to pay an extra fee before he can contact her.

Curator’s notes

Great example of Norman Kaye’s subtle and funny performance, emphasising the character’s age and courtly manners. The fact that he celebrates by shoplifting is a jolt to our perceptions – this man is more complex than he seems, but perhaps that too is a sign of his new freedom.

Note the director’s walk-on in the supermarket – the man shopping in the same aisle is Paul Cox. The curious sounds of sawing and hammering in the dating agency are never explained – but they have an echo in the theatre scenes, where the set construction is also very noisy.

Paul Byrnes, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This clip shows Peter Thompson (Norman Kaye), a middle-aged man, at a dating agency. The consultant at the agency asks him some personal details. Her coworker enters, pretending to look for a file on Patricia Curnow. When Peter sees Patricia’s photo and it is suggested that they would make a good match, Peter is concerned that he would be too old for her; however, the consultant assures him that Patricia needs a mature man. Peter takes Patricia’s number, but then learns that he is required to pay a membership fee on top of the consultancy fee before he can contact her. Although he is taken aback at the expense, he is keen to meet Patricia and pays. Later, at the supermarket, Peter shoplifts some groceries.

Educational value points

In 1981, when the film is set, Peter’s use of a dating agency would have been seen as an act of desperation. However, by 2001 the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated that 28 per cent of all households were single-person households and with this rise in the number of single people, the use of dating services has become much more common. The dating services industry incorporates traditional introduction agencies and personal ads, concepts such as ‘speed-dating’ and ‘dinner-for-six’ groups, and Internet dating sites. It has become big business, with one well-known website boasting approximately 700,000 members.

The clip raises questions about the loneliness of the individual in modern society, at a time when technology enables unprecedented ‘connectedness’. In 2004–05, the Australian telephone-based support organisation Lifeline analysed caller profiles across the country. It found that callers who cited ‘loneliness’ as their main reason for calling were more likely to be single, separated, divorced or widowed. It also found that lonely callers were more likely to live in metropolitan than rural areas, and were likely to be aged between 35 and 44.

Lonely Hearts is an example of a film in which style is subservient to story. The films of Paul Cox rarely contain special effects or complicated production set-ups. As a director, he is more concerned with achieving strong stories that explore themes of the human condition such as loneliness, love, hope, ageing and isolation, and working with actors to capture convincing performances. Cox’s method of casting is to choose an actor on the basis of previous work rather than on a screen test, which he feels is disrespectful to the actor. Cox prefers not to rehearse but to use scripts loosely, allowing actors more room for spontaneity and improvisation.

Like all of Cox’s films, Lonely Hearts is an ‘auteur’ film, made according to a personal, independent model that supports the filmmaker as auteur, or ‘author’ of the work. This ensures that the director’s distinctive personal vision is achieved in the film. The auteur approach is antithetical to the Hollywood model, in which the producer has creative control. Cox is deeply opposed to that model, which he believes has been embraced by the Australian film industry in recent years, resulting in what he sees as the devaluing of the auteur approach in favour of formulaic filmmaking.

Paul Cox is one of Australia’s best known independent filmmakers. He was born in Holland in 1940 and moved to Australia in 1965 where he began working as a photographer. He made his first films in the early 1970s and his first feature film, Illuminations, in 1976. Since then, Cox’s inspiring body of work has gained him a reputation as an auteur of international acclaim. His film credits include several documentaries and shorts, and 18 features including Man of Flowers, My First Wife, Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh, Island, A Woman’s Tale, Exile, Lust and Revenge and Innocence. Made in 1981, Lonely Hearts is one of his early films.