Copyright Statement - ResearchSpace@Auckland

Westland
290
Westland was David’s dream. Williams’s camerawork captured a range of images of
its natural beauty contrasting sharply with the deserted ghost towns and abandoned
coal mines. For David, the wildness of the area offered security for a man on the run.
In a voice over to the accompaniment of a montage of Westland, David soliloquised
that, “We’ll be nothing against a wall of mountains; a thin streak”. The fact that his
sister was living in the area was an advantage. The bush would be his refuge and the
girl who seemed pliable enough to follow him and not to ask too many questions
would be his companion and lover. As Broadley described it, “I say I may never
come back and she says I may never come back too so let’s have a thing together.
[We were] looking forward with anticipation rather than looking back in anger”.
After abandoning the car, a simple sequence notable for a tracking shot similar to the
one used in the Remuera garden, they reach an abandoned hut where they pause to
rest. David tells her to lie down and makes a fire with a minimum of materials
(assisted in fact by accelerants), covering her with a blanket and leaving her sleeping.
On his return, having visited his sister in Hokitika to obtain additional supplies of
food and clothing, he finds her huddled only in a blanket by a dying fire (even though
she had curled up fully clothed on the bed before falling asleep). In spite of the
privations of the journey and her long sleep, her makeup and hairstyle remained
remarkably intact.
The composition of the two-shot of the young couple seated in the hut was indicative
of Tony William’s ability to keep extending his skills as the shooting of Runaway
progressed. A more conventional set-up would have had the pair alongside each other
but, as Colin Broadley pointed out, “the positioning in the scene, with both of us in
the middle and her head immediately below mine is one of Tony’s things. It is quite
unusual to do a scene symmetrically like that.” The sequence was reminiscent of a
European art film. After his explanation David turns to her and they make love. The
reason for the blanket-only covering was now obvious – a dramatic device to enhance
the eroticism. (A publicity still, showing Diana loosely wrapped in the blanket would
be used in the promotion of the film.) By today’s standards the sequence is tame and
tender. Broadley remembered his screen kiss with Deirdre McCarron as simply part
of the role which he was called upon to play. “It was a bit more sexy than it was with