Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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little miniatures of itself that hit and explode on your retina […]. Flash! And just when
you think you know what it’s all about, it takes off in the other direction, like a rat up a
drain pipe.” 597
Tetley found it difficult to work on a project that had “essentially no narrative” and very
little dialogue and describes it as “the hardest script I’ve ever had to work on, but the
best, in terms of the process”. One of the ways in which Tetley found to proceed was to
write poems without scenes before he wrote the scene. While this was a unique
experience for him, he felt that he had learnt a great deal from doing so, because
you’re looking for mythic content the whole time […]. Birdie you know, is
Daedalus […]. For me, anyway, it’s the touchstone of whether you got it right
or not […]. We wrote the film out, at a certain stage, as a folktale ‘Once Upon a
Time’, about twenty five pages, and that was really interesting because that
started to tell us about what was happening with structure and [whether] we
actually [did] have things down that we said were there.
Tetley cites as examples of the archetypes they wanted to use in the film: Ethan as a
“hugely mythic figure, with the hawk and calling the deer […], and the whole animality
of the sexuality perhaps – there’s a feeling of something coming out of the earth, and
the idea of the stranger”. 598 Ethan’s car was always envisaged as being like a shark, and
the notion of his driving into the farm and smashing the gate relates to his animal
sexuality.
For Tetley, who at this time had had little experience of writing feature film scripts, the
process of working on Vigil for two and a half years was a valuable learning experience.
Over that period he developed a very good working relationship with Ward, who was
happy to leave him to do things on his own, and in the final drafts, to let him “have a go
at structure and shape”. Tetley was also involved in the shoot as an assistant to Tim
White, and to help Ward with any writing that needed to be done on location. Later,
Ward invited him to watch the film being cut, which Tetley felt was a “wonderful”
opportunity for him as an inexperienced writer. “The thing I learned about cutting was
597
Ward and Tetley, “First Blood Last Rites: Second Draft Screenplay” (Wellington: Vincent Ward
Productions, 1982) 13.
598
Lynette Read, interview with Graham Tetley, 4 December 1998.