Last year, Australian filmmaker Peter Weir was given an honorary Oscar for having “illuminated the human experience with his unique and expansive body of work.” Sadly, it’s now official that his filmography is complete, as Weir confirmed during an appearance at the Festival de la Cinémathèque in Paris that he has retired from directing.
Télérama reported (and IndieWire was kind enough to translate their report) that Weir was asked why 14 years have gone by since his last movie. Weir replied, “I am retired. Why did I stop cinema? Because, quite simply, I have no more energy.“
Born in 1944, Weir got his career started in television back in the 1960s, working on the TV projects The Life and Times of the Reverend Buck Shotte and Man on a Green Bike. After contributing a segment to the anthology film Three to Go, he made the 50 minute movie Homesdale and the documentary Whatever Happened to Green Valley? In 1974, he made a horror comedy with a very popular title: The Cars That Ate Paris. The following year, he directed the mystery Picnic at Hanging Rock, which is one of the films he’s best known for. Since then, Weir films have included The Last Wave, The Plumber, Gallipoli, The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness, The Mosquito Coast, Dead Poets Society, Green Card, Fearless, The Truman Show, and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. His last film, the historical drama The Way Back, was released in 2010.
Weir’s honorary Oscar came after he was nominated for multiple Academy Awards over the years, but never won. His nominations include Best Director for Witness, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; Best Screenplay for Green Card; and Best Picture for Master and Commander.
Although Russell Crowe is very proud of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and has said, “Peter Weir’s film is brilliant,” Dead Poets Society cast member Ethan Hawke has previously suggested to IndieWire that the experience of working with Crowe, and dealing with Johnny Depp on an abandoned project called Shantaram, drove Weir away from filmmaking. Hawke said, “I think he lost interest in movies. He really enjoyed that work when he didn’t have actors giving him a hard time. Russell Crowe and Johnny Depp broke him. He’s someone so rare these days, a popular artist. He makes mainstream movies that are artistic. To have the budget to do The Truman Show or Master and Commander, you need a Jim Carrey or Russell Crowe. I think Harrison Ford and Gerard Depardieu were his sort of actors. They were director-friendly and didn’t see themselves as important.“
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