Beyond the Multiplex

Nick Cave talks about writing, morality and his tough new movie. Plus: The mockumentary must be stopped!

By Andrew O'Hehir

Read more: Andrew O'Hehir, Movies, Movie Reviews, Nick Cave, Arts & Entertainment, Reviews, Beyond the Multiplex, Tribeca Film Festival

©2006 First Look Studios

Ray Winstone as Captain Stanley in "The Proposition"

May 4, 2006 | "I really think that morality is kind of an accidental thing," says Nick Cave. "It just depends on your situation; it's not really a matter of choice." Cave, the singer-songwriter and all-around post-punk cult hero, is talking about his first foray into screenwriting, with the big, bloody-minded Australian western "The Proposition." But fans of his music will recognize the currents of fatalism and ambiguity beneath that statement as central principles in his work.

Directed by John Hillcoat ("Ghosts ... of the Civil Dead"), "The Proposition" demands your attention. It's the kind of movie we don't often encounter these days, and actually never did: A dramatically dense and morally complicated work, it's also a highly pictorial wide-screen entertainment with a dynamite cast, channeling the legacy of John Ford and Sam Peckinpah (and maybe Joseph Conrad too). But in fairness, it wouldn't be getting the attention it's getting from people like me -- and would probably never have been made in the first place -- if its writer were someone else.

While the 48-year-old Cave is a long way from being a superstar or a celebrity, to his core cadre of fans (and I'm among them) he's a signature artist, something like the Bob Dylan of the '80s generation. His musical fusion of British-style art-punk, gospel, R&B and country prefigured the "Americana" wave of the '90s, and his opaque, quasi-mythic lyrics about love, violence, God and the devil brought a biting literary sensibility to a generally inane form. Cave has published a novel ("And the Ass Saw the Angel") and two books of poetry, but "The Proposition" is his first screenplay.

You don't have to know or care anything about Cave to appreciate "The Proposition." While the setting may be the Australian outback in the 19th century, the film's themes and concerns are those of almost every western: imposing civilization on a lawless and violent frontier. This conflict is embodied in Capt. Stanley (Ray Winstone), an officer recently arrived from England to enforce law and order to a fly-bitten, sun-baked town in the middle of nowhere.

On one hand, Stanley is a devoted husband, seeking to protect his wife, Martha (Emily Watson), from the depravity of their surroundings. On the other, he's a ruthless and often brutal administrator, determined to stop the infamous local outlaw Arthur Burns (Danny Huston) no matter what the cost. Stanley has arrested Burns' two brothers, Charlie (Guy Pearce) and Mike (Richard Wilson), and strikes an uneasy deal with Charlie: He's to head back out into the distant Queensland hills and kill his brother Arthur. If Charlie succeeds, he and Mike will be pardoned. If he fails, Mike will hang.

This is the proposition of the title, and it's a morally murky affair from the get-go. Stanley is asking the impossible of Charlie: to choose which of his brothers will live and which will die. Furthermore, Stanley knows that executing Mike -- a simple-minded kid who does his brothers' bidding -- is profoundly unfair. As Cave explained during our conversation, the moral poles of "The Proposition" are never fixed. Stanley represents civilization, yet he authorizes the indiscriminate slaughter of aboriginal rebels; and the killer and rapist Arthur Burns, when we finally meet him, turns out to be a sensitive, sentimental man who loves his brothers and the natural world.

The bargain made between Stanley and Charlie will rebound against everyone in the film, from Stanley's vicious, upper-class civilian supervisor (David Wenham) to the drunken and loquacious English bounty hunter Jellon Lamb (John Hurt). Cave has always been obsessed with biblical themes, and to a large extent "The Proposition" is a story of original sin. In this case that means the violent, genocidal sins that lie at the headwaters of Australian history, but Americans are in no position to claim the moral high ground on this front.

Ultimately, the Burns brothers will be unable to protect their bucolic, murderous utopia, and Stanley will be unable to protect his wife's little piece of England in the Outback. Some will live and some will die (gruesome deaths indeed), but the costs of all this violence will be carried forward into the future, as many generations as you wish to count.

Next page: Cave on matching kids' clothes and poetry that rhymes