Oscar-nominated director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Tender Mercies) crafts a tender coming-of-age tale that introduces one of Australian literature's most beloved characters to ...
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Title: The Getting of Wisdom (1977)
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1 win & 4 nominations.
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Cast
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Julia Blake | ... |
Isabella Shepherd
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Dorothy Bradley | ... |
Miss Hicks
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Kay Eklund | ... |
Mrs. Rambotham
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Max Fairchild | ... |
Mr. O'Donnell
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Jan Friedl | ... |
Miss Snodgrass
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Diana Greentree | ... |
Maisie Shepherd
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Maggie Kirkpatrick | ... |
Sarah
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Monica Maughan | ... |
Miss Day
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Candy Raymond | ... |
Miss Zielinski
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Terence Donovan | ... |
Tom McNamara
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| Kerry Armstrong | ... |
Kate
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Celia De Burgh | ... |
M.P.
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Kim Deacon | ... |
Lilith
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Chinky
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Jo-Anne Moore | ... |
Tilly
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Plot Summary
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Storyline
Oscar-nominated director Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy, Tender Mercies) crafts a tender coming-of-age tale that introduces one of Australian literature's most beloved characters to the screen, Laura Tweedle Rambotham (Susannah Fowle). Written by Anonymous
Taglines:
There is hope, there is hurt . . . there is loneliness, there is love . . . there is wanting and there is joy in . . . The Getting of Wisdom See more »Genres:
DramaCertificate:
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Details
Country:
AustraliaLanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
25 August 1977 (Australia) See more »Also Known As:
A bölcsesség elnyerése See more »Company Credits
Production Co:
Australian Film Commission, The, Nine Network Australia, Southern Cross Films Pty. Ltd. See more »
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company contact information
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IMDbPro »
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Sound Mix:
MonoColor:
Color (Eastmancolor)Aspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1
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(uncredited)
Music by Robert Schumann
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Did You Know?
Trivia
This picture was one of fifty Australian films selected for preservation as part of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia's Kodak / Atlab Cinema Collection Restoration Project. See more »Quotes
Lilith: [Laura enters her assigned bedroom in the school and meets Lilith Gordon, who spies Laura holding a cake tin, which Lilith grabs and opens and sees glace cherries on the cake. She commences to eat them] Ohh, scrummy!See more »
Soundtracks
Kinderszenen Op. 15, No. 1 Von Fremden Ländern Und Menschen(uncredited)
Music by Robert Schumann
See more »
This film directed by Bruce Beresford is like the underbelly of fellow Australian Peter Weir's 1975 Picnic at Hanging Rock, also set in a turn of the century ladies college, but while Weir's title is all romantic lyricism, Beresford goes for lowbrow comedy. Beresford's out to show how schoolgirls are just as cruel as schoolboys by placing a fish-out-of-water into their "well-bred" environment. Of course, it's no surprise that the impoverished heroine Laura is far more civilised than the other girls. That is, until she learns that the "wisdom" to be got is being an opportunist. Pauline Kael put it best when she wrote "what she learns is the principle of contagion - that you get close to the powerful, so that their power can rub off on you, and stay clear of the helpless and weak, so their failure won't infect you". Such is the rewards of finishing schools. Beresford even gives us a freeze-frame close-up of Laura with over-bite begging for acceptance. He isn't interested in presenting these girls as beautiful or sensuous, and deliberately shows their facial pimples and awkward bodies. Even the suggestion of lesbianism in Laura's relationships with 2 girls are diffused by making one fat and expelled (for stealing from the others to buy a ring for Laura), and the other a rich older student, who cradles Laura in bed like a mother. The female staff are also grotesques - Sheila Helpmann as the schoolmistress wears an unwavering look of disdain, though when she drops it at Laura's graduation, we get a laugh, and Beresford undercuts the sight of floating black swans that Laura feeds by having them bleet loudly. The film works the best with Beresford's use of Laura's piano playing, when he edits to his comic routines, but he unfortunately indulges Barry Humphries as the school's minister in a long monologue where he denounces the thieving friend.