Baz Luhrmann's 'Australia' Should've Ended in Tragedy

On the underrated film, its alternate ending and the Faraway Downs miniseries

Nov 21, 2023

Upon its November 2008 release in US movie theaters, Baz Lurhmann’s big budget historical epic romance Australia became a critical and commercial flop. 15 years to the day later, Faraway Downs - an extended 6-episode television revision of the film - is set to premiere as an original series for the Hulu streaming service.*

**Screencap:** Hugh Jackman’s character, only known as “The Drover“. Image courtesy of Disney.

*Only in the US though. Internationally, it will be known as a Star+ Original in Latin America and a Disney+ original in Europe, Asia, and other territories.

In this article, I want to share my thoughts about Australia, which I recently saw and greatly enjoyed, as well as discuss what I believe Faraway Downs will do to improve on the theatrical release. In particular, I want to talk about why Faraway Downs is likely to end with the tragic death of the Drover character, which in my mind is how the theatrical cut should have ended and was indeed meant to end.

Contents

Faraway Downs

Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Release Date: November 26, 2023
Duration: About 225-240 min.
Plot Summary: Opening in 1939, the story follows the lives of three major characters: the British aristocrat Lady Ashley (Nicole Kidman), who seeks to sell her late husband’s Australian cattle ranch Faraway Downs, Nullah (Brandon Walters), an Indigenous child working at the ranch, and the Drover (Hugh Jackman), a mysterious stockman previously employed by Ashley’s husband.

Faraway Downs isn’t something that was at all planned back when Australia came out in 2008. That is to say, it wasn’t designed to have both a theatrical cut and an extended broadcast version from the outset.* No, this is a case of a film being retroactively extended and restructured.

*Such an approach that is not uncommon for European productions. Examples include Das Boot (dir. Wolfgang Petersen), Carlos (dir. Oliver Essayas), and Mysteries of Lisbon (dir. Raul Ruiz), all of which had both a theatrical feature version and a TV miniseries version created around the same time.

Typically, this happens if the picture is already long and has a large amount of unused deleted footage. Reincorporating deleted scenes to expand the feature to multiple hours then allows it to be broken up into distinct television chapters or episodes and aired over several nights.* In this case though, the miniseries is set to follow the binge-release model popular with streaming platforms, meaning all six episodes will premiere at once on November 26. In effect, though broken up into episodes, the new version can be consumed all at once, similarly to a feature film.

*There is, for instance, The Godfather Saga, a 1977 recut of the first two Godfather films by Francis Ford Coppolla that reincorporated previously deleted footage from both movies into a 7.5 hour chronological broadcast version.

Revision History

The idea to revisit the picture came to Luhrmann during the COVID lockdown when the production of Elvis was put on pause. This allowed him to have a new look at the “2 million feet of film” he still had and reconceive the picture for episodic streaming.1 The result was for him “a different variation on the themes” of Australia.2

Though the technology helped motivate the production of the new version, the decision primarily stemmed from the fact that Luhrmann wasn’t very happy with the theatrical release. And while he hasn’t exactly admitted it outright as of yet, there is plenty of evidence that one of his key issues was with the ending of the film.

Let’s go back to November 2008. Just a few weeks before the theatrical premiere of the film, information around the web begins to spread about Luhrmann changing the ending of Australia in response to studio pressure.

One of the key reports was from the Herald Sun, which stated that Luhrmann “bowed to studio pressure for a happy ending.” This occurred following ‘disastrous reviews’ from a test screening where participants wanted the ending changed due to them loving High Jackman’s character, who died in the screened version. It states:

“Luhrmann's initial cut - which ran for more than three hours - ended with Hugh Jackman's character, The Drover, dying in the final scenes… After intense discussions with studio executives, Luhrmann was persuaded last week to go for a more uplifting ending.”

Luhrmann subsequently played down the negative buzz from the reports in an interview with Scott Feinberg for the LA Times. Following the claims about the ending being changed due to test audience reactions, he stated:

"…I wrote, I think, six endings in all the drafts I did, shot three, and I ended up concluding the film in a way in which I — probably more than anyone — least expected…. I came up with a third ending, and the ending that I've created about the film came from a place of a response, actually, to the thing that I wanted the movie to be — the important, big idea of the movie — how to amplify that big idea.”

Here, he basically endorses the final ending of the movie without really confirming or denying whether or not there is a ‘Drover dies’ ending or if he changed it, while positioning the theatrical ending as something he wanted, as an ending was something he came up with naturally and what he chose for the film.

Furthermore, he responded to the claims that the film was initially too long, sugges-ting that it was now of the proper length and effectively positioning it as his cut:

"The length is the length that I want it to be. It's the length that I think is the right length to be as inclusive as possible. I mean, my rough-cut, by the way, wasn't that long; it was only about three hours."

From these comments, it would seem that the theatrical cut of Australia was one Luhrmann was happy with, that it represented his vision and that its ending was not forced upon him but was a deliberate creative choice.

**Screencap:** Lady Ashley tries and fails to sing. Image courtesy of Disney.

14 years later, while working on Elvis, Luhrmann was more candid about his experience editing the film and painted a rather different picture.

Here are some quotes:

“For various reasons that aren’t worth going into, I never got to finish it ultimately the way I wanted to… People go ‘well it’s long anyway’ but actually the reason it felt long was a lot of crucial plot material wasn’t in it.”

*Source: Sidney Morning Herald - May 2022

“Australia was the most difficult, and of all the films, it was certainly the one that was least resolved. It was a bumpy ride…. In the end, we got into such conflict. I don’t know about you, but I usually win those conflicts and I kind of lost it. It’s the first time I had studio conflict I couldn’t solve.”

*Source: Vogue Conversation with George Miller - June 2022

Lurhmanmn’s comments here indicate that he was, in fact, dissatisfied with the theatrical duration of the film and believed it should’ve been longer. Cutting it down negatively affected its pace and flow.*

*I feel I should mention that cutting a film down length-wise doesn’t necessarily make it flow better. A longer cut can sometimes be better and more consistently paced than a shorter one. This is demonstrated by the extended 223-minute cut of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which has a much better flow than the jumpy, overstuffed theatrical release.

Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the new cut would have a different ending, indicating that Luhrmann had chosen to reinstate one of the two unused endings he had shot before he arrived at the theatrical ending that found itself.3

The inclusion of a new ending is in line with something else Luhrmann has mentioned, which is that the new cut would have “alternative plot twists” to the theatrical release, suggesting the presence of alternate footage of the same scene.4

But which alternate ending will Luhrmann actually reinstate?

As I said before, the director confirmed there were 3 endings shot, but he never spe-cified exactly how the two alternate endings differed from the theatrical one.

More recently, he he has revealed that the new ending was the ‘initial ending’ he had, but he plays coy with what it contains. He states:

“Without giving away what that ending is, I initially thought and then revisiting it realized just how important it is for Lady Ashley not to be defined by any one person so much as her relationship to her environment. It’s a melodrama and melodramas have a relentless amount of tragic twists and turns. But I think that if I was being true to the bigger theme of the story, the “Faraway Downs” ending speaks more directly to the primary theme of the movie.”

Source: Interview with Baz Luhrmann by Adam Chitwood, The Wrap, Oct. 18 2023.

Though Luhrmann is still being ambiguous here, I believe there is enough evidence in the film itself to conclude that the rumored ‘Drover dies’ ending actually exists and that this is the ending that will play out in Faraway Downs.

To explain that, it is necessary to discuss the film itself.

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The subversive power of Australia

“By choosing to set the film between the two world wars, I was able to bind the historical romance to what really is the greatest scar in the history of this country: the Stolen Generation [the thousands of mixed-race Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families by the state and assimilated into white society during the 20th century.”

Source: Baz Luhrmann, “How we made the epic of Oz,” The Guardian, 2008.

Australia is an underrated and largely misunderstood film. At the time of its release, critics seemingly didn’t know quite what to make of its (intentional) tonal clashes and its paradoxical combination of farcical comedy, serious historical drama, and epic romance. I would argue that this constitutes a strength rather than a weakness, for Australia is a film of deliberate contradictions that attempts to enhance its depiction of reality by foregrounding its artificiality and its status as a movie.

It aims to provide an insightful look at the history of the horrifying treatment of the aboriginal Australian population by European settlers, yet simultaneously participates in revisionism by featuring more modern progressive white main characters. It positions itself as a historical film set in real-life Australia yet also relies on mythic and romantic archetypes in its depiction of the country.

It is postmodern, ironic and self-aware, a work that builds itself up initially as a familiar, lighthearted romantic comedy in a period setting that abides by conventions of the genre before subverting them with dark, shocking turns that change its emphasis. Thus, what the film is really doing becomes all the more powerful because it initially lulls audiences into a false sense of complacency.

In my mind, one of the best illustrations of this is its treatment of the 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz and its famous song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The first time it shows up is when Nullah asks Lady Ashley to sing him a song and it is the only one that comes to her mind. Her performance of it is comically terrible - Ashley doesn’t remember the song well at all and can’t seem to get even the first and most famous line of it right. Nullah doesn’t seem to mind though. He loves the song and subsequently becomes intent on seeing The Wizard of Oz.

Even as he comes to perceive the wizard as similar to his grandfather, a ‘magic man,’ the irony seems lost on Nullah that in pop culture, Australia and Oz are closely associated. Australia can be abbreviated as ‘Oz’ in regular speech and there are some that believe Oz to be a mythic, magic standin for Australia itself - a fantastic version of it that doesn’t exist.

Thus, the invocation of the fictional land of Oz and its film adaptation calls attention to the very status of Australia as similarly a film and a textual construct. The desire for Oz, a beautiful happy magic land where skies are blue and dreams are possible can be seen as a desire for a magic, dreamy version of the country of Australia itself.

The meta-textual aspects of the story and the sharp contrast between reality and fantasy come to the foreground when Nullah later goes to a racially segregated movie theater in Darwin to see The Wizard of Oz on the big screen.

**Screencap:** Nullah about to use charcoal to make his skin look darker. Image courtesy of Disney.

As a mixed-race child of what would be known as “the Stolen Generation,” Nullah risks being caught by the police and forcibly taken away to a foster white family. And so he resorts to having his face covered with charcoal to make himself indistingui-shable from full-blooded aboriginals, who are allowed to sit in the back of the theater.

The image of a disguised Nullah sitting enraptured by the picture is an ironic shock to the system that uses the status of The Wizard of Oz as classic, escapist, feel-good entertainment with the power to comfort the viewer with an illusory immersive reality against itself. In the context of everyday racism and class divide in 1930s Australia, its presence only serves to foreground the horrors of real life, making it impossible for the viewer to escape them.

Australia the film thus confronts audiences with the terrifying historical reality of Australia the country by juxtaposing it with the fantasy perpetuated by traditional Hollywood cinema. It makes you remember that you’re watching a movie and calls attention to the fact that movies tend to romanticize the historical past, immersing you in illusory images that distort and beautify the periods they depict.

And so it positions itself as comparatively more real.

A compromised ending

That juxtaposition between reality and fantasy extends to the overall structure of the film, which consists of two parts. Part 1, which encompasses approximately the initial 100 minutes follows Lady Ashley as she comes to the Faraway Downs ranch in 1939, learns of local cattle baron King Carney stealing from her herd, and then attempts to deliver a large stock to the British Army to fulfill her late husband’s contract.

Part 2, which encompasses the final hour of the movie, then picks up around 1942, skipping over multiple events, to arrive at a point where WW2 catches up with the main characters, with the historical bombing of Darwin becoming a key event.

Despite having instances of subversion, the first half of the movie seemingly brings the main plot to a crowd-pleasing, happy ending, with Lady Ashley and the Drover admitting their love and basically taking in Nullah as a foster son.

But then the film continues and its second half undermines the first by showing that its main couple’s happily-ever-after doesn’t last, while also subordinating the fictional romantic narrative to the larger historical narrative. And in this larger context, the characters’ victories in the first part don’t really seem to matter. The way the plot develops in the final hour suggests that it’s building towards a tragic ending. And indeed, the film seems to give us one before revealing it to have been a fakeout.

In the aftermath of the bombing of Darwin by Japan, the villainous Neil Fletcher, who hates Nullah, sees an opportunity to murder the boy and cover it up. He manages to get his hands on a rifle, targets Nullah and prepares to open fire. The Drover sees this and rushes to save the boy, while Nullah’s grandfather George, looking from afar, prepares a makeshift spear. The cutting of the sequence keeps getting fast and faster, to the point where everything seems to happen at once.

I’ve included a .gif to help illustrate what I’m talking about:

**Gif:** Nullah is almost shot. Gif my own. Images courtesy of Disney.

For a moment, it seems Fletcher has shot Nullah, but it’s then revealed that George had tossed his spear into Fletcher’s back just in the nick of time. Fletcher dies. Nullah and Drover are both okay. They reunite with Ashley and return to Faraway Downs. Some time later, Nullah leaves them to go on a walkabout with his grandfather.

The end.

Rather than shock viewers with a tragic, subversive death, the ending goes in for wish fulfillment, with everyone surviving and going home. But the way the sequence is shot and cut together, you can see that it could be easily changed to have a different outcome. Thus, I suspect that the original ending used alternate footage, which revealed that Fletcher did get a shot off, but hit the Drover, mortally wounding him.*

* January 16, 2023 Edit: I’ve written a follow-up post about the many changes of Faraway Downs following the release of the miniseries. You can see how my predictions about the ending turned out here.

Even if this is not exactly the case, an ending where the Drover died should’ve been in the theatrical cut as he is an archetypal, larger-than-life figure.* Killing him off would deconstruct the romantic narrative and undermine the myths he represents. Without this tragic turn of events, the film doesn’t quite feel complete or true to itself. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, but that it’s unable to achieve its full potential.

* While fulfilling the real-life profession in Australia’s history, the character seems heavily inspired by the Western archetypal cowboy. His real name is never even revealed. He is only ever referred to by his profession, which is to drove cattle.

To put it another way, an ending where the Drover dies would make a lot more sense thematically and stylistically for the type of movie Luhrmann is making than the one we get in the theatrical release. It would also fit with the early reports about Lurhmann being forced to change the ending due to test screenings.

Finally, two of Luhrmann’s previous movies - Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Moulin Rouge! (2001) - both concluded with tragic deaths, so the choice to kill off a main character would be in line with the director’s larger body of work.

All this leads me to believe that not only does the ‘Drover dies’ alternate ending exist, but that this is indeed the ending Luhrmann has chosen to restore in Faraway Downs.

Assuming I’m not wrong and the miniseries ends with Hugh Jackman’s character biting the bullet, Faraway Downs will prove the stronger of the two versions of Australia, at least in my opinion. Of course, I could be wrong, and the director has something else planned. But in any case, I do believe some sort of tragedy does have to happen for the picture to feel wholesome and complete.

Other Thoughts and Notes

Australia is not a perfect film by far, but I kinda love some of the things it’s doing, and I definitely believe that a longer cut could improve upon it. So, here I will speculate on what other editorial differences the miniseries might have from the theatrical cut, as well as note some things that don’t quite fit into an argument.

How long exactly Faraway Downs is at the moment is not entirely clear. Luhrmann himself claimed in 2022 that it would contain an hour of extra footage and more recent reports are stating that the new miniseries will amount to 4 hours, suggesting an extra 75 minutes.

The introduction is very fast-paced and more kinetic than the rest of the picture. It’s not until about 30 minutes in that Australia slows down to truly focus on its characters and this is where I feel it really picks up and becomes engrossing. I can definitely see this introductory section being extended to make it somewhat slower paced and more consistent with the rest of the film.
To add to that, I think the opening act is far more in line with what we normally expect from a Baz Luhrmann film. His movies tend to move a mile per minute and overwhelm the senses with detail. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when Australia slowed down somewhat and allowed its plot to unfold more gradually.
The 2-year gap between Part 1 and Part 2 is condensed to a mere montage in the theatrical cut and so largely skips over a key plot development: Fletcher’s murder of King Carney and his subsequent rise to power. I suspect this could become a whole subplot in Faraway Downs, allowing Carney a better send-off.
I suspect it is the second part that will be most extended in Faraway Downs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Luhrmann is able to devote a good 90-120 minutes to it. There is definitely room to elaborate on the plot points we see here, as the theatrical cut the film rushes somewhat towards its finale, to the point where I sometimes had trouble following the exact sequence of events.
Assuming that the ‘Drover dies’ ending and the theatrical ‘Drover lives’ ending are the ones known to us, and do exist, what then was the third ending that Luhrmann shot? This is something I’m quite interested in, as the either of these alternate endings were ever released on DVD or BluRay. One article I’ve read suggests that there was an ending, where neither Lady Ashley nor Drover survive the bombing of Darwin, but I haven’t found any evidence that this is true.
Interestingly, in the recent interview for The Wrap, Luhrmann backs away from the claim that three endings exist. Or rather, he states that “there were only two possibilities.” Could he mean that he shot three endings, but didn’t really ever consider one of them for inclusion? I’m not sure.
For anybody interested into a deep, scholarly dive into the film, I suggest reading Stephen Papson’s 2011 article in JumpCut on the film’s parody and its status as a postmodern film. He points out multiple references Australia deliberately makes to other movies, positioning itself as a self-referential intertext.
I haven’t read the full article but found a quote from scholar Marcia Langton, who views Dorothy Gale’s escape to a dream world as “…a metaphor for Luhrman’s own artistic struggle with the prosaic facts of history. In his imagined cinema of the 1940s, the spatial and social shape of racism is reconstructed with such exact detail, I felt I had been transported back to my own childhood.”5

Conclusion

Much like the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Australia is on some level a movie about how history is constructed by movies, about who gets to tell stories and why. In that sense, it also qualifies as an example of historiographic meta-cinema, a term I use in reference to Linda Hutcheon’s ‘historiographic metafiction.’

I hope that the new cut, whatever its actual changes are, gives the film a second chance to find an audience in the US and so get some deserved re-appreciation.

But what do you think? 

Is 'Australia' a good movie? Does it have irony or should it be read exclusively as a sincere film? Does it fail or succeed as an epic romance? Does the theatrical ending work? Would a tragic ending not fit? 

Please leave a comment! (Or perhaps a note.)

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