Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

157
have been made if I’d waited until all the finance was available”. 523 In fact, the film
was begun with only one third of the necessary finance, and Ward had to try to get
further finance as he went along. An incident occurred which could well have resulted
in the destruction of the completed film. A fire in Ward’s flat destroyed all of his
belongings including all the publicity stills for the film. As The Evening Post reports
the story, In Spring “escaped incineration by pure chance”, due to Ward having left the
print of the film in his car overnight. 524
Reception
After its release, international response to the film was overwhelmingly positive. The
film shared the Grand Prix prize at the 1982 Cinéma du Réel documentary festival in
France, a reviewer for Sonovision commenting on the strength of the film’s visual
impact in comparison with many of the documentaries screened in competition. 525 It
also won a Silver Hugo Award at the 1980 Chicago Film Festival. In 1980, it was
screened at the San Francisco Film Festival in the New Directors series, where the
director of the festival, Albert Johnson, described the film as “documentary raised to the
highest level of cinema humanism”. 526 Subsequently, In Spring and A State of Siege
toured the USA, and consequently, critical response to In Spring in the USA tended to
make comparisons between the two films. While the observational documentary style
of In Spring is naturally somewhat different from the dramatic style of A State of Siege,
what the two films do have in common, apart from their similarities of subject-matter,
are minimal dialogue and reliance on images to carry the narrative. Kevin Thomas, in a
review for the Los Angeles Times, wrote that the films complement each other “as
profoundly compassionate and beautiful portraits of solitary women struggling to
survive in a harsh elemental world”. He identified Ward as “the major talent emerging
from the burgeoning New Zealand cinema” and drew similarities between the films in
their visual style: “Ward […] avoids conventional exposition and narration to trust his
images to express the inner lives of these women”. While Thomas saw both films as
“poetry”, he pointed out that they are also “devastating” commentaries on the society in
523
Ward, "That Personal Quality," 44.
524
Bruce Watson, "Movie Escapes Thorndon Blaze," The Evening Post 10 April 1978.
525
"Impressions Sur Quelques Images Du Réel (Powerful Imagery of Vincent Ward)," Sonovision April
1982.
526
Albert Johnson, "Focus on Vincent Ward," Alternative Cinema 12.3&4 (1984/5): 10.