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terms – unless one read the scenes with Laura as a warning that commerce with
Europe offered no solution!
The most obvious gaps in the finished film are those related to characterisation.
Although the garden conversation between father and son is a strong scene, it would
have been further strengthened by more knowledge of the father’s character which the
proposed scene of him in his role of headmaster would have provided. Admittedly
the film generally keeps his son at the centre of the action and scenes in which he did
not appear are few. 1 Despite the amount of exposure that David Manning receives,
his own motivation is often unclear. It could be argued that Runaway attempts to
show what Robin Maconie perceptively termed “the tragedy of inarticularity,” 2 or
that it followed Antonioni’s precedent in relying heavily on subtext, but even visually
literate film goers had difficulty understanding the film’s central characters
sufficiently to feel emotionally involved with them.
The character of Isobel, although crucial to the story, remains somewhat flat and
insipid, a problem that could have been alleviated by the inclusion of three scripted
scenes that were dropped. In the first scene, David, having cut in on Isobel and Tana,
dances with her. In the words of the script, “Isobel’s sensuality has emerged. The
voluptuousness that has been hinted at before breaks out in her every movement and
gesture”. This sensuality, which adds an additional layer to her apparently shy
personality, would have provided a greater understanding of the young woman and
Manning’s attraction to her. The second and crucial omission, a scene between Isobel
and David after the dance in the early morning in his boarding house bedroom. In the
script, David and Isobel had made love in his bedroom rather than, as the film
suggested, merely chatted and danced together. This love making is crucial to an
understanding of the young man’s subsequent frustration – his feelings of anger,
isolation, and abandonment. Of particular significance is the final line in which
Isobel bluntly informed him that, in spite of what they have just shared, she could not
go away with him because she was “going to marry Tana”. All of this would have
helped to explain why Laura’s subsequent racist taunts triggers off his assault on her.
Why was the love scene deleted? Time or budgetary constraints were not an issue at
this stage. Unfortunately for O’Shea, Kiri Te Kanawa flatly refused to do the