The Anzacs of the First World War command a powerful place in the Australian national consciousness. They provided a compelling foundational story for our fledgling federation and bequeathed the terms ‘digger’ and ‘mateship’ as oft-invoked symbols of Australian identity. As such, Jeremy Sims’ Beneath Hill 60 will assume an important place in our national history, as a reminder that contribution of the Anzacs in the Great War did not begin and end at Gallipoli.
Australian actors Brendan Cowell and Harrison Gilbertson were among those who heeded the call and headed back to the Western Front (reconstructed in Townsville) to bring to life the amazing true story of engineer Oliver Woodward and his Australian First Tunneling Company. But both had a tough time wrapping their heads around the sheer devastation they were recreating.
“It is inane,” Cowell says, “So many beautiful boys are lost.”
“I can’t fathom war in itself,” adds Gilbertson, “Nobody in war wins; everybody loses. And that’s why I can’t fathom it. What’s the point in playing a game of human chess?”
Nevertheless, Cowell and Gilbertson threw themselves into their respective roles as Woodward and a terrified, 16 year old Frank Tippin; down into the tunnels on a muddy, claustrophobic set that brokered no complaints.
“That was the rule I made with all the actors before we did it,” Cowell says, “A lot of things got old pretty quickly, being freezing and lying in the trenches with corpses around you and your crouching down all the time, overheating, getting paranoid and blood, mud, all sorts of things. So if you started to think about all the things that were annoying you, you’d probably combust.”
“This was a kind of a motto we went on; that no matter how bad things were for us, it’s a very small percentage of actually how bad it actually was for them.”
To get his cast into the mindset, Sims had supporting actor and former Army officer Warwick Young put his recruits through their paces in an in-character boot camp.
“That was really, really interesting,” Gilbertson says, “We kind of formed our own little corps of men and there moments like when Mark Coles Smith [who plays Billy Bacon] was sleeping next to me in the trench, because we stayed in the trenches overnight and it gets really cold up there, and I was really shivering and freezing, and he put his blanket on top of me. And we didn’t [even] know each other that well.”
Cowell on the other hand, was off shooting the film’s flashback sequences on the homefront, and copped the flip side of this cast bonding.
“They became a real company and they drank rum and shot the guns,” he says, “And then I come in and I haven’t really met a lot of them and the first scene is me saying, 'I’m your new commanding officer.' Jeremy [Sims] kind of set it up that way so they look at me like, ‘Who the hell is this clown?’”
Alarmingly, what little training the cast received was reflective of historical fact.
“They only had about eight days military training before they were on the boat to Europe,” says Cowell, “And the training was pretty simple: here’s how you tie your shoes up, here’s how you hold a gun. Keep your feet dry – get on the boat!”
Indeed, in creating their characters, both Cowell and Gilbertson are aware of their responsibilities playing real people and recreating this true story.
“There was not much [known] about [Tiffin],” Gilbertson admits, “The only evidence that he existed was that he made a box and Woodward wrote a few passages about him saying he was a really nice young man who was in the corps.
“So it was weird, because you were playing someone who did exist, but at the same time there was no evidence about what they were like. So it was good because I think, especially playing a 16 year old in the war, that character represents every 16 year old who was in the war.
“I think anyone who was in that film, whether they were an extra or the lead role, was representing people who did a lot for the country.”
For Cowell, playing Woodward was less about pressure than it was the thrill of a new discovery. “For me it was one of the most exciting factors, that not only were we telling a great Australian story, but I think we’re telling one that no-one knows,” Cowell says, “So it wasn’t so much, ‘Oh no, how are we going to get this right?’ [it was more] ‘I think people are going to be really astounded. I can’t believe they’re going to see this.’”
However Beneath Hill 60 doesn’t just portray the Australian story. In a rather daring move, Sims and screenwriter David Roach spend a lot of time in the German trenches as well.
“When I first read the script of the film,” Cowell says, “I said, 'You know, it’s pretty wild Jeremy, that you switch perspectives in the last third. Do you think the audience is going to go with it?'
“The story of Babek [played by Kenneth Spiteri], he’s kind of like the German Woodward. He’s a real thinker, he goes above and beyond what he’s been told, and you kind of like him,” Cowell says, “He’s trying to figure out Woodward’s brain and Woodward can feel him moving in, lurching towards him. And that’s when the movie becomes a thriller.
“Not only do we have the war movie, the Australian story and unearthing this great tale and these men, but we’ve got an amazing thriller. And even though I knew the ending I thought, 'Oh fuck, they’re going to get us!'
Gilbertson in particular hopes this suspenseful dose of reality will shock members of his generation out of their more superficial concerns, “We are so lucky, especially in the Western world," he says,. "The things that annoy us are whether or not the DVD we rented has a scratch on it.”
“I’d like to think that people are smart enough to see the film and [have a wake up call].”
But as for Cowell, he’s wryly reminiscing on a more classic tale of divide and conquer.
“Jeremy loved shooting the German stuff,” he concludes, “and it kind of annoyed me, because he’d come to set and go, 'Fuck the Germans are brilliant.'”
Spiteri as Babek - Image
Published by Street Press Australia
Australian release date: 15 April 2010
Click here to view the trailer.
