Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Winter of Our Dreams (1981)

play
Email a link to this page
To:
CC:
Subject:
Body:
clip 'Nocturnal guests'

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

Clip description

Lou (Judy Davis) catches the last ferry to Balmain, after phoning Rob (Bryan Brown). He meets her on the wharf and takes her home. She tries to embrace him, not knowing that his wife is in the next room. After meeting Gretel (Cathy Downes), Lou feels embarrassed and confused. Rob tries to put her at ease. He tells her she can stay the night.

Curator’s notes

This is Lou’s first inkling that Rob lives a different lifestyle to any she has seen – an 'open relationship’ with 'nocturnal guests’ allowed. The arrival by ferry is partly symbolic – to accentuate the sense of a different world. Lou lives in a world where sex is bought and sold; she’s shocked to meet people who place no boundaries around it, even when married, but the conflict in this scene is around class, rather than simply sexual mores.

Davis’s performance gives a lot of subtle signs of her character’s working class origins – both in the way she talks and the way she thinks. Rob’s house, the décor and his clothing, show that he’s from a new class, one she is not comfortable with – the inner-city, educated intelligentsia. In contrast to clip one, in which she was able to exercise a degree of control in her own milieu, she feels completely at sea in his house. She thought that she was getting away from her sordid life, but her escape has been blocked by his unknown reality. The key question throughout the movie is where can she go? Where is there a place for her?

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer 'Nocturnal guests' from the feature film Winter of Our Dreams 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
winterof2_pr.mp4 Large: 21.6MB High Optimised for full-screen display on a fast computer.
winterof2_bb.mp4 Medium: 10.2MB 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: