FESTIVALS: * World Premiere at the Busan International Film Festival
Mad as Hell: Peter Finch
Category |
Biography, Cinema
Year |
2011
Country |
Australia
Running time |
77’ - 55’
Format |
16:9
Production |
Lowlands Media Pty Ltd
Director |
Robert de Young
Mad as Hell is the first documentary to map the significance and legacy of Australian actor Peter Finch's life and career as seen through the eyes of his daughters, fellow actors, producers and his manager. Finch is still the only actor to have been awarded a posthumous Academy Award® for Best Actor (Network, 1977).
With: Anita Harrison, Tamara Tchinarova Finch, Samantha Finch, Diana Braley-Finch, Barry Norman, Trader Faulkner, Vincent Ball, Peter Thompson, Bill Hunter, Virginia McKenna, Glenda Jackson, Howard Gottfried.
Born in England and raised in Australia following a bizarre stint in 1920s India with his eccentric grandmother, Finch found fame in Aussie radio and movies before capturing the attention of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh during the Old Vic's 1948 tour Down Under. With rich archival material and the illuminating testimony of Finch's three daughters and first wife, Tamara Tchinarova Finch, de Young effectively checkerboards the actor's restless private life with his rising stature in pics such as "The Shiralee," "The Pumpkin Eater," "Far From the Madding Crowd" and groundbreaking gay-themed drama "Sunday Bloody Sunday."