Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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he formed a successful partnership with Timothy White, who worked on several of his
films and went on to become a leading producer in Australia. What was most fortunate
for the director, however, was that by the time he had completed his training, the local
film industry was in a stage of rapid development. This growth was due in part to the
founding of the New Zealand Film Commission which made government funding
available to local filmmakers, and in part to the success of feature films such as
Sleeping Dogs which had demonstrated the viability of making local features. Ward
was able to take advantage of the developing expertise of local filmmakers such as Alun
Bollinger (who had worked on Sleeping Dogs) for the film he made as part of the
requirements for his third professional examination at Ilam, A State of Siege.
A State of Siege, Ward’s first major film, clearly demonstrated his fascination with the
theme of outsiders, the extraordinary thoroughness of his working methods, and the
influence of European film. It was the result of a collaboration between Ward and
White as his producer, and a number of industry professionals who, for various reasons,
agreed to work on a low-budget student film. Since it was a collaborative project, a
study of the process of making the film provides a good case study in the strengths and
weaknesses of auteur theory. The film was a remarkable one for two students to have
conceived and completed, particularly as this was the first time Janet Frame had agreed
to allow her work to be adapted to film. A State of Siege has historical significance as,
arguably, New Zealand’s first thorough-going or full-scale example of an art film. With
its emphasis on atmosphere and the psychological state of the protagonist (rather than
on action), its literary associations, subjective point-of-view and oblique narrative, A
State of Siege was reminiscent of European precedents. The film’s style was also
consistent with this genre in its careful composition of shots, slow pace of editing and
reliance on visual methods of storytelling. Ward consciously attempted to emulate the
work of filmmakers such as Carl-Theodor Dreyer. His interest in Expressionism was
reflected in the film’s effective creation of Stimmung (an atmosphere of unease), the use
of chiaroscuro lighting and distortion, the way the landscape and interior settings
reflected the mood of the main character, and the general world-view implied by the
film.
While A State of Siege could be viewed as the type of derivative film that young art
students make, it already displayed signs of Ward’s auteurist approach and working