Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Bad Boy Bubby (1993)

play Coarse language – low ; Sexual references
Email a link to this page
To:
CC:
Subject:
Body:
clip How the other half eats

Original classification rating: R. This clip chosen to be M

Clip description

Bubby (Nicholas Hope) encounters a dog, a printing shop and a cake shop. In each place his senses are overwhelmed. When he mimics the sound of an upper-class woman (Celine O’Leary) in the cake shop, she takes him under her wing. In her car, he touches her breast – as he does with all the women he meets. Bubby’s mother never explained that this is not done. He has never ridden in a car before, but he has heard how young men in cars shout abuse, so that’s what he does when they stop at an intersection. A policeman doesn’t find it funny.

Curator’s notes

by Paul Byrnes

Nicholas Hope’s performance is quite astonishing in the role of Bubby. He was an unknown actor when de Heer saw him in a South Australian short film. This was his first feature and it was shot in sequence to help him achieve his performance. It’s an extremely difficult role to make credible – not just because Bubby is so childlike and pre-verbal, but also because we have to see the native intelligence beneath his lack of worldly knowledge. Hope manages to convey all this without becoming sentimental or cloying. A number of people have noted that the film bears some resemblance to the story of Kaspar Hauser, a German child who turned up on a street in Nuremberg in 1828. He could barely talk, although he appeared to be in his late teens. His story was turned into a film in 1974 by Werner Herzog (The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser), but de Heer has said he has never seen that film.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer How the other half eats from the feature film Bad Boy Bubby as a high quality video download.

To play the downloadable video, you need QuickTime 7.0, VLC, or similar.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before downloading the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

This clip is available in the following configurations:

File nameSizeQualitySuitability
badboybu3_pr.mp4 Large: 20.8MB High Optimised for full-screen display on a fast computer.
badboybu3_bb.mp4 Medium: 9.8MB Medium Can be displayed full screen. Also suitable for video iPods.

Right-click on the links above to download video files to your computer.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer this clip in an embeddable format for personal or non-commercial educational use in full form on your own website or your own blog.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before embedding the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Copy and paste the following code into your own web page to embed this clip: