Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows an efficiency expert, Mr Wallace (Anthony Hopkins), instructing Carey (Ben Mendelsohn) in staff efficiency assessments at an ailing moccasin factory in Melbourne, Victoria, and explaining the reasons behind his proposed workplace changes to a sceptical Mr Ball (Alwyn Kurts), the owner of the factory. Wallace flags radical and unwelcome changes to the staff’s work practices and Carey is shown trying to time some of the employees at work.

Educational value points

• The scenes in this clip reveal, with a comic undertone, the varied responses to the impending decline of the moccasin factory. The comedy owes much to the contrasts presented by Wallace’s sharp, cut-throat philosophy of improving productivity, the low-key responses of Carey, who just wants to get back to his female interest in the office, and Mr Ball, who cares so obstinately about his ‘family’ of workers.

• The film takes its name from Spotswood, a suburb in Melbourne’s west where in the mid-1960s, when the film is set, the working-class ethos was strong. The introduction of efficiency principles designed to improve the factory’s financial position is in contrast to this ethos, which extends even to the owner, Mr Ball, who is concerned about the local economy and his workers, who are local consumers.

• Mr Wallace is keen to introduce to the moccasin factory ‘scientific management’ principles, some of which resemble features introduced under economic rationalism, which took hold in Australia in the 1980s. Wallace’s efficiency measures would treat workers simply as inputs to production, reduce labour costs by retrenching some of those workers and introduce new machinery and automated work practices.

• The themes touched on in this clip allude to economic and political, as well as social, developments in the recent history of Australian industry following the introduction of trade liberalisation, global competition and automation. Australian manufacturing declined by more than 10 per cent from the 1960s to 1992, and from the mid-1960s to 1999 the manufacturing workforce decreased from 25 per cent to 12 per cent of the total Australian workforce.

• Wallace introduces the metaphor of the clock and its mechanism, a common one in ‘time and motion’ studies and in theories of efficiency, to illustrate his theory of productivity to the young Carey. The metaphor is carried through in the design of lighting and sound in the clip. Darkness is used to heighten not only a sense of the factory being stuck in the past but also a sense of being inside a clock. Similarly, the soundtrack includes typing that resembles the ticking of a clock.

• Veteran Australian actor Alwyn Kurts (1915–2000) is well known for his many television and feature film roles, which include Inspector Fox in Homicide (1964–76) and Ted Cook in the series The Last of the Australians (1975–76). Kurts won an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for the film Tim (1979). In 1992 he was nominated for the AFI Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance in Spotswood.

• Sir Anthony Hopkins CBE (1937–) is an internationally acclaimed film, stage and television actor who has won distinguished awards, including the 1991 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Shadowlands (1993).

• The film Spotswood won three AFI Best Achievement awards in 1991, for its cinematographer, Ellery Ryan, its costume designer, Tess Schofield, and its production designer, Chris Kennedy. It also received six other AFI award nominations for members of the cast and crew, including Ben Mendelsohn, Alwyn Kurts, and writers Max Dann and Andrew Knight (for Best Screenplay, Original or Adapted).

• Ben Mendelsohn (1969–) has played leading roles in feature films and television series, including the miniseries Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude (1999), the film Mullet (2001), in which he played Eddie, and the television series The Secret Life of Us (2005). Mendelsohn has won acclaim for his sensitive and intelligent approach to playing awkward characters such as Trevor in The Year My Voice Broke (1987), for which he won an AFI Award in 1987 for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

We see Mr Wallace and Carey walking the corridors of the office.
Mr Wallace OK. Listen, I’m instituting some changes here and I’ll be needing you to assist me. I’ve chosen you, Carey, because I think you’ve got the right attitude. You could have quite a future, if you set your mind to it.
Carey Yeah?
Mr Wallace Yes. Now look, what I want you to do is very important. Have you ever seen or studied the inside of a clock? All the components are reliant on the others, but some play a bigger role and some a smaller. But the mechanism does not function unless all the parts are working. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Carey Yes.
Mr Wallace Good. Our job is to make sure all the parts that go to make up Balls are performing to the best of their ability.
Carey Right.
Mr Wallace You’re going to have to keep your wits about you, though. Sometimes people resent change. So, ah, you’re going to have to put aside some of your friendships for the time being, I’m afraid. And fill these forms in as accurately as you can. OK? Any questions?
Carey Can I go back to the office later?

They pass the factory floor where dividers separating the employees are being installed.
Mr Wallace One of the first laws of industry – reduce the amount of unnecessary contact between the employees.
Mr Ball And the girls won’t mind?
Mr Wallace Oh, no. Oh, you’ll find they’ll appreciate the lack of distraction. After a while.

They progress to another part of the factory.
Mr Wallace Now, this should overcome your delay problems in despatch, Mr Ball.
Mr Ball Save you a bit of effort, ‘ey, Kevin?
Kevin Yeah, if you say so, Mr Ball.

Ladies are taking their lunch break.
Lady Just like Nancy Sinatra. It was really good…
Mr Wallace Right. I’ve staggered the lunch hour into three separate shifts – 12, 12:30 and 1 – and moved a couple of the tables. There’s a tendency, when you have a large group of people, for a conversation to eat into production time.
Mr Ball Oh?
Mr Wallace These changes, of course, are very minor. I want to spend the next few days going over the financial side of your business. Right? Carey…

Carey is timing the women workers.
Lady Rose! Rose, can you hear me?
Carey Is that as fast as you can do it?
Lady 2 I dunno, I never thought about it.
Carey Please do it again.
Lady 2 No, Carey.
Carey Look, you have to. It says so right here.

Three men are talking around a table.
Gordon Now, we’re all set for the dinner dance? Everyone knows what’s expected of him?
Man Yeah, right Gordon. Right.
Gordon Ah. Young new executive.
Man You right, Carey?
Carey Um … would you mind starting work so I can time what you’re doing? Do you mind?