As a warts-and-all account of his life so far, Ian Mune’s book is an insightful and compelling yet easy read: a classic case of the specific, individual story that resonates far beyond itself, both as an exploration of human experience and as a social history.

We get family – grandson /son /nephew, husband, father, grandfather; life and work in rural, urban and international settings; the pursuit of acting, writing and directing in live theatre, television drama and feature films – something of a ‘Renaissance man’ himself, he participates in the renaissance through all three domains. And teaching. Mune is a born teacher, not least because he is always learning and he is compulsively generous with what he discovers. 

Reciting a poem about peas and honey in a Tauranga Sunday School concert, aged 5, gives him his taste for engaging an audience; for working the laugh. “It is the laughter of unanticipated recognition, and for the last 60 years that is where I have hung my hat.” (p.9)

Being a scriptwriter, he shares his experiences in the present tense, giving them fresh vitality as he confronts, critiques and sometimes allows himself to celebrate the boy /youth /man on his never-ending quest for authenticity in himself, his work, his life and the world around him. By including his own flaws, downfalls and redemptions in the mix – knowing, I’m sure, that this is the key to a central character we can relate to – he earns the right to assess, in retrospect, the systems and organisations he works within, and this too is a gift to us all.

Theatre-wise (which he is), the plot takes him through school and ‘am-dram’ in Tauranga; to Wellington’s Victoria University and Training College then Downstage (where he sets tables, designs posters, paints foyer murals and helps build sets as well as acts), the New Zealand Theatre Centre (which rose from the ashes of the New Zealand Players) and NZBC Radio Drama; the Welsh Theatre Company (where Keith Johnstone, the father of Theatre Sports, was a crucial influence); back to Downstage with Dickie Johnstone (no relation), this time to direct, then on to Auckland’s Mercury Theatre …

Screen-wise (that too) he acts in early TV drama (Pukemanu, Hunters Gold) then hooks up with Roger Donaldson to pursue their mutual passion for film, starting small (Derek, Winners & Losers) before making it big with Sleeping Dogs, for which their reward is to get no backing from the newly-formed NZ Film Commission for their next one: “Nobody doubts you can do it. It’s just … well, there was a feeling that you’ve had your turn.” (p.206) It is at the Cannes Film Festival, hustling, that Mune discovers what drives his passion:

 

“The festival lasts two weeks. At the end of the first week, I decide I am the wrong man in the wrong place. I’m not a businessman, a producer, a salesman, a deal-maker; I’m a plumber, a chippie, a drainlayer. I work at the coalface, not in the office. I sit around drinking cocktails I can’t afford and am supposed to be impressed by these big-rollers who are personal friends of any star you want to name, and I think about rehearsing Marat/Sade, Macbeth, Othello and Jumpers. I think of student actors getting their first adrenalin rush from a mask working for them, of a designer finishing off the last touches of a set. I think of setting up a shot with the DOP and the operator, of the whole amazing machine coming together for the magic moment of the take, of the delicate hands of the sound mixer as he sneaks in the tiny rustle that will herald the arrival of the baddy. Apart from the few days off Jo and I have been able to squeeze in, I’m glad to leave it all behind.” (p.209)

 

Ian and Jo met as students and she remains at the core of his life through thick (he’ll say he can be that, too, sometimes) and thin (financial hardship is a constant companion, even in the wake of hard work and apparent success). As they raise a family, she claims the right to ‘do her things’ too – partner in tea shop, dog breeder, gardener, goat farmer, MA in History, novelist – and his love and respect for her shines through.  They epitomise the generation who have eschewed predictable ‘careers for life’. Instead they have applied their talents and ever-improving skills to a rich variety of pursuits, by choice, accident and/or out of sheer necessity.  

If you presented their lives as a plot for a novel, an assessor /publisher /editor would cry, “Too much and it’s all over the place!” But real life tends to be like that, especially for those trying to make a living in theatre, film and television – or live with such a person – in a small country like New Zealand. Being multi-skilled, self-employed and able to create your own projects, as well as work to order for others, is a fundamental requirement of survival, and the Munes embody the struggle, stress and joy of all that.

One of Ian Mune’s many skills as a writer is the ability to distil a play, film or miniseries to its essence for us, not to mention such phenomena as the 1981 Springbok tour and the forces driving economic boom /bust cycles. He is also very adept at planting seeds for the future fruiting of key ‘plot points’, and stitching recurring themes into the rich tapestry of an extraordinary life that speaks of, to and for us all.   

Given the book’s great values, it may seem petty to note the odd error and stylistic slip, but most should have been picked up in editing, so I will.

Having mentioned a Downstage production of Genet’s The Maids and told us artist Pat Hanly “is going to design the set for the upcoming Beckett’s Happy Days” (p.94), Mune goes on to tell us he is “building Pat Hanly’s Maids set, an irregularly shaped mound of sand in which Pat Evison will sit up to her waist …” (p.95). That, of course, can only have been for Happy Days.

An anti-establishment student called Derek arrives on page 60 and threads his anarchic presence through the next 100 pages before he is identified as Derek Morton. This could be a legitimate device but the index has only the one entry for him: p.160. In a sequence about Don Selwyn, Mune mentions “a Moynihan episode” out of the blue and it’s not until five pages later (p.196) that we learn Moynihan is a new TV series (in which Mune plays the lead).

Film historian Leslie Halliwell is misspelt as Helliwell (p.181), and Frank Finlay (brought over to play Justice Mahon in Erebus – The Aftermath) is credited as having played “in the British TV series Bouquets and Barbed Wire” (p.266) when it was Bouquet of Barbed Wire.

These quibbles aside, the book is beautifully designed with a liberal sprinkling of photos and a comprehensive index that renders it highly usable by the many students of theatre and film who will undoubtedly use it in their studies. There are also shaded panels of text that detail ‘The Actor’s Nightmare’ (p.99), ‘The English Theatre’ (p.110), a summary of media and public response to a small Welsh mining town disaster (p.114), ‘Who Are All Those People Standing Around On A Movie Set?’ (pp.161-163), ‘Sleeping Dogs – Synopsis’ (p.191) and two contrasting imdb.com reviews for his film adaptation of Bruce Mason’s The End of the Golden Weather (p.283).

Every part is told with a sense of purpose, not the least of which is the contribution it makes to us. The oft-repeated actors’ mantra, “Where have you come from, what do you want and how are you going to get it?” brings an underlying cohesion to this story, which – like an epic film – constantly changes direction, as internal flaws and external forces conspire to render it unpredictable.

His stories about the different ways he approaches roles as an actor, and works with actors as a director, engage us as co-questers rather than as passive students of his wisdom. When faced with the challenge of playing real people on screen: Morrie Davis (Erebus – The Aftermath), Rob Muldoon (Fallout) and Winston Churchill (Ike: Countdown to D-Day), his quest for truth in performance reaches well beyond imitation.

The odd experience of the conventions of English theatre and Hollywood – “Lalaland” – only confirm his fundamental desire to stay in NZ and tell our stories. But that is not easily done. In 2000, on receiving the Rudall Hayward Lifetime Achievement Award, Mune uses his acceptance speech to confront the NZ Film Commission with what it has become, reminding them it had been formed “with a clear brief to support this burgeoning new industry.” While he acknowledges – in the book – the “invaluable support” he has received at times from the NZFC, and Creative New Zealand too, he feels the industry is in a state of confusion:

 

“In short, the control mentality has won the day. The Film Commission, unsatisfied with its wobbly attempts to support the industry, chose to lead it. Control. The first weapon and last-ditch defence of the truly terrified … We have become a marketer-oriented industry where the deal is more important than the movie … The people who are in control … who are even now dictating what stories the story-tellers may tell, are neither film-makers not story-tellers. They are not leaders, they are followers – of the market … And because they believe that a singular market-oriented paradigm imposed upon the story-tellers from above will work, they will sacrifice the very thing they are duty-bound to foster – the clear, passionate voice of the New Zealand artist.” (pp.295-296)

 

Ever willing to have us learn from his mistakes too, Mune lets us know he screwed up on trying to make a documentary about the shooting of Roger Donaldson’s The World’s Fastest Indian with Anthony Hopkins, and that chapter in itself embodies a fascinating insight into the maturing of sometimes volatile creative people. Mune is not one to gossip but he does tell it like it was – or as he sees it – with a clear focus on what is to be gained from retelling each story.

Given he was the first person to bring Keith Johnstone-style improvisation to NZ, in the summer of 1968-69, and employed those interactive co-responsive principles in much of his subsequent work as an actor, director and teacher, a project called Birth, Death and the Bits Between – a comedy of bad manners, may well be the best Kiwi film we will never see.

A collaboration between Mune, screen acting coaches Vicky Yiannoutos and Michael Saccente, and an eclectic group of extremely talented actors, its devised story is interwoven from various pairings and groupings. (Think Robert Altman, perhaps?) But the NZFC refuses production funding because the script they are obliged to turn it into “doesn’t cut it.” Mune goes into meltdown and a gaping hole is left in our screens, except for the odd acting role he snaps up.  

Mune’s book ends with cogent observations on the state of our television, “wiggling and very noisy wallpaper”; theatre, “… kids are putting plays together, writing, producing, performing all over the place. And they’re good!”; film, “A lot of actors and crews are working for mates’ rates or nothing on Kiwi movies and trying to make a living out of American stuff” … and Peter Jackson’s report on the NZFC:
 

“For my money it’s the best thing he’s done since Heavenly Creatures. The central tenet of the report is that the Commission should entirely rethink and refocus its energies on supporting the film-makers of potential ability, and stop trying to run the industry. I couldn’t have said it better myself – although I think the report is a little thin on how to deal with proven film makers wanting to make Kiwi movies. If the report is taken up in principle, that can be worked through.”

 

I agree. When Jim Booth helmed the NZFC, he saw the raw talent and passion of Peter Jackson’s early work and got alongside him, asking “What do you need?” and “How can we help?” This is how Mune, as a film director, supports his actors and how he likes his producers to support him. The only thing I’d add is that exactly the same approach is required with Creative New Zealand: support, don’t try to control; let the play-makers play.  

There are so many levels on which MUNE an autobiography is an absolute treasure. As well as being a ‘must read’ for all actors, directors, producers, designers, crews, funders, administrators and supporters of NZ theatre, television and film, it is an absorbing story of a creative New Zealand life well lived. 
_______________________________
For more production details, click on the title above. Go to Home page to see other Reviews, recent Comments and Forum postings (under Chat Back), and News.