Caroline Gerard is a young Australian writer-producer. She has a background in corporate law and has managed to imaginitively leverage her experience of that world to create a film set in the Sydney business community. The Bet is her first feature film, which was released nationally on September 13, 2007 and is now available on DVD.
In her work as a lawyer, Ms Gerard found the business world an important source of inspiration for her script and spent a number of years researching the film industry before deciding how to proceed. In order to gain creative control, she chose not to approach government bodies for funding and has relied entirely on private investment; an unusual approach in Australia.
Cherian Philipose talks to Caroline Gerard about the making of the film The Bet.
CP: Caroline, could you talk a little bit about your background in corporate law and how that might have influenced you to make this film about the corporate world?
CG: The story absolutely came directly out of my experience working as a corporate lawyer. While I was working for the large law firm, I found myself surrounded at work and outside the office, by lots of men interested in the pursuit of money and success (so were the women but the men were more overt and aggressive in that area).
The plot isn't based on anything real, the bet itself was pure invention but the characters were all loosely based on people I knew or had met, or combinations of those people.
CP: The Bet shows a rather naοve lead character being deceived and abused most cruelly for the sake of someone else's profit. Do you see this film as a morality tale with a message about the need for greater ethics in the corporate world?
CG: I think this film is a morality tale, yes. But for me the moral of the story is about what you choose to value in life and how you might want to be careful about placing too much value on material things or trying to belong to a world which is based on how much money you make, rather than a morality tale about ethics generally in the corporate world. The corporate world to me is simply an extension of humans and how they operate it's just one sphere where humans do their thing and it just happens that there's money involved and often flow- on consequences which don't necessarily happen in other environments. I think that's why a lot of people carry around a lot of stereotypes about the corporate world. I don't think the corporate world essentially lacks ethics any more than any other world (in fact, some of the most honest, professional, ethical and moral people I've ever known work in that world) but humans at their extremes will do anything when pushed a certain way and that's what happens in 'The Bet' of course.
CP: The lead character in The Bet is a stockbroker from a working-class background who wants to fit in with old money. Could you talk about your understanding of class in Australia and how and why you chose to explore this theme?
CG: There's a general consensus around the idea that there are no class divisions in Australia that we are just one big middle class. I'm not sure that is entirely true. But I don't think the divisions are clear either. I do believe there are some parts of Australian society who consider themselves in a different league from other parts of society, maybe not even that consciously.
A lot of it comes down to money and privilege. Aden's character Angus represents that landed gentry old Geelong Grammarian style of character, with generations of money behind him. This upbringing has bestowed on him unconsciously a sense of entitlement. He is conscious he is privileged and has been raised to know that and give to charity etc. but ultimately feels a bit separate from say the garbage collector or the postman and, unconsciously, feels he is entitled to behave in a certain way. He works for an investment bank his father has been a director of. He is powerful.
Will, from a much more middling background is totally impressed by all of this and wants all of that for himself. I think it is representative of a broader shift in Australian society over the last seven to ten years we're more interested in what we can achieve as an individual and what possessions (and therefore possibly status) we can accumulate with hard work and the right job.
CP: Your film has been privately funded. Could you talk about why you chose this path? What were some of the advantages and disadvantages? Did it give you more creative control?
CG: My idea was that film was a commercial enterprise first and foremost so I did what any regular venture capitalist might do seek out investors interested in taking on this gamble with me. The advantages flexibility and control (creative and otherwise) for the producer, you don't have to jump through all the government hoops and comply with their conditions (not saying the government shouldn't have conditions but those conditions would have added to the cost of production). Disadvantages I didn't see it coming, but the whole industry is so wrapped up in government funding, that there's a whole system set up around that, so you end up being a total outsider without the government money and it's extremely difficult to find support and help and break into the "club" when you need to, for example, getting a great distributor on board.
CP: What are some of the projects you have planned next?
CG: I would love to go back to working on some of the scripts I have lying around. I'm also extremely interested in television. I think that's where a lot of the really interesting and genuinely exciting things are happening in visual storytelling and drama (although not so much in Australia because our market is so small). You can take more risks with television it seems and take more time with characters and their development and I love that.
Feeds