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ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Shine is an emotionally transcendent drama about one man's extraordinary victory over adversity. It introduces international audiences to Australian filmmaker Scott Hicks and to his star, Geoffrey Rush, one of his country's leading stage actors in his first major screen role. 
Inspired by the troubled but ultimately triumphant life of classical pianist David Helfgott, Shine focuses on Helfgott's painful retreat into a private world while still in his early 20's and on the brink of a glittering international career. Spanning the 1950's to the 1980's, Shine dramatizes the deeply moving way in which Helfgott, after a decade of obscurity, achieves both personal and professional fulfillment through the love and support of a remarkable woman. Avoiding the straightforward, linear approach of conventional biography, Shine employs an impressionistic musical structure that intricately counterpoints past and present, to tell a story that has all the power of actuality and the poetry of art.
Joining Rush in Shine is an ensemble cast that includes Armin Mueller-Stahl (Avalon, The Music Box), Noah Taylor (Flirting, The Year My Voice Broke), Oscar-nominee Lynn Redgrave, and Academy Award winner Sir John Gielgud. The film was produced by Jane Scott from a screenplay by Jan Sardi. Geoffrey Simpson (Little Women, Green Card) was director of photography, and Pip Karmel the editor. Shine is a Fine Line Features release.
"This is a story that has fascinated me for years," says Scott Hicks, who first read about Helfgott more than ten years ago in a small newspaper story announcing a concert appearance. Though it was his wife's birthday, Hicks cancelled the celebration and went to see Helfgott perform. "I felt it was something really important and that I had to go and see him," explains Hicks. "I wasn't quite sure what to expect but when David sat down and started to play, he quite simply transported the room. I was utterly captivated.
Instantly struck by the little he'd read and what he had seen on stage, Hicks knew there was a film in Helfgott's story. "This was a story about a winner," Hicks states, "an unlikely hero who achieves the one thing we all desire: he finds his own place in the world, and someone with whom to share life, love, and music. His story is very uplifting and compelling." After the concert Hicks went to see Helfgott and his wife, and told them he was a filmmaker and that he would love to make a film based on David's life. "They, of course, said "who the hell are you?'" he recalls. It took Hicks a full year to elicit enough goodwill and trust from the Helfgotts to get them to agree. 
Hicks goes on to explain his intense attraction to David's story, and his intense need to film it. "I thought there was an apparent contradiction between this eccentric, slightly confused individual and the enormous precision of delivering some of the most complex music ever written. And, in that contradiction, I felt lay a wonderful story. Then, of course, there's the music! David's fantastic repertoire embraces all the massively popular and familiar romantic classics -- Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Liszt -- all accessible to a vast audience, not merely classical concert goers."
But, as Hicks stresses, "David's music is one thing. David's story is another. It touches people because they recognize that clearly it is about redemption. It's about being able to survive experiences that none of us would want and to come out on the other side -- in love, loved, and playing music to audiences." Convinced he had a subject for a film that could move people as much as Helfgott's own performances moved him, Hicks developed the story and struggled to pull the project forward, even as he took time off to write and direct another feature film and to travel to a host of remote locations, from China to Africa, to film a series of award-winning documentaries.
Between these other commitments, Hicks pursued the Helfgott story and by 1990, Jan Sardi was involved as screenwriter, ("Jan became captivated by David in much the way that anyone does," says Hicks.) "Scott had such passion for this story," says Sardi, "that I very much wanted to be involved but, undoubtedly, it's the hardest thing I've done. When you're dealing with someone's life, you tread a fine line between events that are known to have happened and your own creative license. Also, the film must be entertaining, it must begin and end within 110 minutes, and it must take the audience on what is a rollercoaster ride of emotion." Hicks adds, "I'm very aware that in making this film, one is dealing with material that has its origins in someone's life story and it requires great care. It's too easy to be judgmental and it's too easy to draw pop-psychology conclusions."
Hicks and Sardi agreed that Shine would be inspired by Helfgott's life, not a biographical reproduction of that life, nor any sort of documentary. "There is an emotional truth in the story -- and everything has its point of reference in David's experience," stresses Hicks, "but, if we were to try and make David's life, it would be a 20-hour mini-series of extraordinary experiences." Intent upon avoiding "docudrama," Hicks and Sardi wanted to make a film that had the feeling of a work of fiction and that would also have the amount of style one might expect in a story about genius, creativity, and madness. In light of this, they gave Shine a distinctive musical structure, assembling it much like a concerto, David's greatest triumphs having been in the performance of concertos. The screenplay is divided into movements, alternating in rhythm from fast to slow to fast, and uses the standard elements of exposition, development and recapitulation classically associated with the form. With David at the center of every scene, there is no question that the film is conceived as a piece for a soloist playing in conjunction with an orchestra. 
In addition, Hicks has given the film certain visual refrains that appear throughout, serving to underscore emotions and to connect the different time frames. David's eyeglasses are one such leitmotif and highlight the character's impaired ability to "see" objective reality clearly at several points in the film. The use of David's hands, whether controlling the keys of the piano, or flailing about in moments of panic is another such device. Finally, the use of aquatic imagery, drawn from David's extremely close relationship to water and swimming, helps tie together every part of the film, beginning with the opening images set in a rainstorm.
During the course of development, Hicks had approached noted producer Jane Scott, who had vast experience with projects both personal (Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career) and popular (Crocodile Dundee I and II and Baz Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom) to produce the film. It took more than two years before she was able to patch together various contributions from France's Pandora Cinema, the BBC and a number of Australian government financing organizations. "I little dreamt it would be so difficult to finance," Jane Scott recalls, "but the script by Jan Sardi kept us inspired."
Noted Australian stage actor Geoffrey Rush was chosen by Hicks to play the adult David Helfgott. "I took the conviction that the character had to be played by an Australian," says Hicks, "and by someone who could appealingly create a very eccentric and idiosyncratic character. Geoffrey, who seems to have specialized in playing difficult characters whose minds wander along the fine edges of sanity, is an actor of status who has no peer in Australia. I was convinced that he was the right choice for the role." Though Rush had had little experience in film, he was more than ready for the challenge. Attracted to what he calls "the big, classical dimensions of the role," the Shakespearian actor recalls that "this was the first screenplay I'd read where I thought "yes, that's the role for me.'"
Rush's theatrical training came in particularly handy in the staging of the performing scenes. "I did my own stunts at the keyboard," states the actor, who was accustomed to the challenge of learning a new set of skills to enhance a performance. "I already knew my way around a piano, and I can read music, although very slowly. "I had a fantastic piano tutor to assist me and I worked very hard. If you are going to play Hamlet, you know you've got a big sword fight at the end, so you work on it. I was playing a concert pianist so I needed to pull off those moments and went into training!" Because Rush was up to the task, Hicks had much greater latitude visually and was able to cover the performance scenes from an unlimited number of angles. 
Given Helfgott's notoriously difficult repertoire, hand doubling was especially demanding. The musician's favorite work, Rachmaninoff's "Piano Concerto No. 3," is performed by the young David, and duplicating the hand movements, as Rush did, was not possible for the younger actors. Even so, it is crucial that the "Rach 3," as it is called in the film, was not replaced by a simpler, more manageable piece. There are significant links between the Russian composer and the Australian pianist: both were child prodigies, both were internationally known in their teens, both went into extended periods of depression and unproductivity, and both were subjected to exotic treatments and therapies before being restored to active creative life.
With such technical and logistical matters to sort out, "the next difficulty of course," observes Jane Scott, "was finding the two other Davids - the adolescent and the very young child." Noah Taylor, best known for his work in The Year My Voice Broke and Flirting, was the first person the filmmakers saw for the adolescent David. Comments Hicks: "I knew that Noah was an actor who works very differently from most, but who has tremendous instincts. He gave a brilliant audition and I knew I wouldn't have to see anyone else." Says Taylor: "David Helfgott is an incredible man - he really is a very interesting and inspiring character, which was one of the reasons why I was so attracted to the project." About the character whom he shares with Taylor, Rush says "Noah and I had worked together in On Our Selection as brothers and then here we were as the same person! We looked at tiny behavioral details that we thought would be useful echoes from one to the other - how David holds a cigarette, how he adjusts his glasses. By the time we see the adult David he's spent more than a decade in psychiatric institutions and has changed quite considerably, which is a valid justification to have two actors play the one character.
Young Alex Rafalowicz was selected to play David as a child. Says Jane Scott: "It's quite amazing but Alex had something of both Geoffrey and Noah in his look. He gave a very tender portrayal and he was only 7! Young children usually have a problem in focusing and don't always listen to what's being told to them, but Alex was very serious and took everything in.
Oscar-nominee Lynn Redgrave, who was cast to play Gillian, David's wife, convinced Hicks when he saw her one-woman show in Houston. "I immediately thought that she was the actress who could play Gillian," he recalls, "a character who needs to be both tough and energetic, but with a certain vulnerability and softness." For her part, Redgrave was more than happy to return to Australia for work. "My grandfather went to Australia in 1907," she notes, "and stayed there until his death in 1974. He starred in all the early silent movies made there, so I feel some kind of connection to the country. The film also gave me a chance to spend some more time with Sir John, whom I've known since I was a child. He's one of the last of the great actors, like my father, and it was wonderful to share the screen with him." Many of Redgrave's scenes were shared with Geoffrey Rush, of whom she says: "Geoffrey's a great actor, I think because both of us have a background in theater we spoke the same language and we talked through the permutations and possibilities of every little tiny moment!
The acclaimed German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl who plays David's father, Peter, was suggested by the film's Los Angeles casting director. Says Hicks: "I had seen Armin in The Music Box and could see that he had immense power as an actor, but the attraction for me was that he doesn't exhibit that all the time: he lets it seethe under the surface. He has the ability to be utterly charming as a character but you know underneath there's a time-bomb waiting to explode." Of his character, Mueller-Stahl says, "We see in Peter how too much love can destroy. As a child Peter had wanted to play the violin but his father wouldn't allow it. So he is trying to be the opposite of his father by pushing his son to be a great pianist. But he's a very strong person and he pushes too hard.
It was the script that had first attracted Mueller-Stahl: ("I had a few scripts on my table, but this was by far the best, he notes) and indeed Sardi's screenplay was the reason why Hicks was able to attract such a high caliber cast, including the legendary Sir John Gielgud. "The script is always the calling card," Hicks says. "So much effort had gone into developing this one that it was very rewarding when it all fell into place. Early on in the life of this project I had fantasized about how marvelous it would be if we could actually shoot those scenes between Parkes and David in London, at the Royal College of Music, and how fantastic it would be if someone like Sir John Gielgud would play Parkes. Years went by and it was tremendously exciting when Sir John did finally accept the role. He was full of ideas about how his character would be, what he would wear and he even brought certain items of his own wardrobe with him! He had amazing vitality and energy and a depth of complexity in his performance that few actors ever achieve.
Comments Jane Scott: "It's to Scott's great credit that he was able to work with this extraordinary cast with such confidence. Not everyone would be able to step up in front of Sir John and not feel a little nervous, but Scott was always very much at ease.
Production on Shine began in London in April of 1995, and the two week shoot there proved to be very demanding as pre-planning from Australia was difficult. Comments Jane Scott: "It was extremely hard work moving across the world to start filming in London, but we wanted to give it that flavor of reality. There's great value in that we really do see the Albert Hall, the Royal College of Music and Trafalgar Square. We know we're there, there's no doubt about it and that's very important. At the time though it was very challenging.
In this regard, cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson, who has worked in every imaginable type of location for such renowned directors as Gillian Armstrong, Peter Weir, and Vincent Ward, as well as Hicks, helped immeasurably: "Geoffrey and I have worked together several times in the past and have a very strong relationship. He is an absolute perfectionist and a very skilled artist. I have a strong visual sense of how I want things to look for dramatic purposes. Geoffrey is able to turn that into fantastic pictures with either the moodiest of lighting, or a softer, gentler look for a more romantic situation.
With the London shoot complete, Hicks and Simpson then undertook seven weeks of principal photography at over 40 locations in and around Adelaide: There were a number of scenes that were very much like David's mind - very fragmented," says Simpson. "Much of the camera work was quite extreme. For instance, in one of the scenes we are looking over a shoulder and purposefully block a bit of the other faces. We get tighter and tighter and end with a frame composed of just one of David's eyes.
It was this ability of the entire creative team to get inside the head and heart of David Helfgott that defines Shine. "The film is," says Hicks, "a story about the power of love, both to destroy and to redeem: It is this emotional current which underscores the drama and explores areas of human experience that we are all touched by. I believe that an audience wants to be taken on an emotional journey and that's what I attempted to do.