Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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stick on the wall of Ward’s basement flat in Sydney, then make up stories based on the
images. Nowra recalls that the director was “fascinated by body scarring, for some
reason […] and we were determined that we were going to write an epic love story,
because we wanted it to be about love”. Many of the images were of paintings by Frida
Kahlo whom Ward was interested in because of her scars. Later, the character of
Albertine was envisaged as being “a Frida Kahlo figure, but wilder”. 859 Ward already
had the title of the film, Map of the Human Heart, and they collected more and more
images loosely based on the title - of women, paintings they loved, and maps. Thinking
the film was going to be set during a war, they also collected pictures of submarines.
The resulting eclectic collection of images “didn’t make sense and we’d tear down those
images that we didn’t particularly like, or that didn’t particularly inspire us”. 860 Nowra
was able to relate to this visual method of approaching a story because, like Ward, he
had also wanted to be a painter and he was very interested in art.
The process involved linking images with emotional situations, which eventually were
linked up to make a story. After an outline had been completed, they applied for a
script development grant from the Australian Film Commission, which enabled them to
travel to Canada. From Alaska, they travelled further north, then separated for a time,
Ward staying with a group of Inuit on Little Diomede, an island in the Bering Sea
between Alaska and the Soviet Union, and Nowra journeying to the Shishmaref Island
in the Arctic. Ward was particularly interested in Inuit art because of its topographical
nature: “I think the reason it’s map-like is because to survive in that environment, you
have to have a sense of what it’s like to see the terrain from above, and memorize it so
you can pass on information. The same is true of aboriginal art in Australia. An art of a
people who dwell in the desert is essentially an art of landmarks”. 861 One of the
concepts which Ward was fascinated by was the idea of a map drawn on animal hide,
and he and Nowra went up to the Canadian Arctic circle, beyond Fort St John, to a
settlement of Beaver Indians to research their traditional belief in the map which
enabled an Indian shaman to guide his way to heaven. Nowra was interested in the
Metis, a French Canadian term for mixed breed Indians, who were a “despised people”.
He had met a few Metis in Winnepeg where he had travelled on his own, and decided
859
Lynette Read, interview with Louis Nowra, 19 February 2000.
860
Lynette Read, interview with Louis Nowra, 19 February 2000.
861
Ward quoted in John Calhoun, "Map of the Human Heart," Theatre Crafts International 27.6 (1993):
11.