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Author, producer and director Michael Jenkins – who introduced Heartbreak Excessive to Australian audiences, in addition to ABC crime dramas Blue Homicide and Scales of Justice – has died aged 77.
Jenkins died on Monday afternoon, his companion, Amanda Robson, confirmed to his administration. He was identified with Parkinson’s illness in 2020.
“Jenkins’ contributions to the leisure business and his legacy as a film-maker and storyteller will probably be nicely remembered,” his administration company wrote.
A prolific director who turned recognized for his frenzied, fast-paced model and depictions of vice and delinquency, Jenkins was described as “heat, truthful and empathetic” by his colleague and fellow director Ian Barry.
“Unequivocally, Mike has been a prodigious creator of wonderful and groundbreaking movie and tv spanning 5 a long time,” Barry wrote in a tribute for the Australian Administrators’ Guild. “I’d lengthy marvelled at Mike’s expertise as a film-maker and his potential for capturing reality in efficiency and to realize startlingly real looking visible types.”
Born in Sydney in 1946, Jenkins studied philosophy at college and undertook a cadetship on the ABC after commencement. He spent a couple of years working as a reporter within the Canberra press gallery, however quickly transferred again to Sydney and commenced working as a manufacturing assistant on the ABC – earlier than he received his begin as a director on the ABC cleaning soap opera Bellbird within the late 60s.
Over the subsequent decade he continued to jot down and direct plenty of exhibits and TV motion pictures on the identical community. In 1983 got here considered one of his breakouts: the ABC crime miniseries Scales of Justice – controversial on the time for its deal with police corruption.
Over three episodes, it adopted a younger constable whose idealism is slowly eroded as he witnesses malfeasance throughout the pressure. The present launched Jenkins’ unsparing, unvarnished tone to broader audiences.
Two years later, he made his characteristic movie debut in a very totally different style: the second world battle musical Insurgent, starring Matt Dillon, Debra Byrne and Bryan Brown. It went on to win 5 AFI awards.
Jenkins helmed two extra movies within the following years: the 1988 David Williamson adaptation Emerald Metropolis, that includes a younger Nicole Kidman in considered one of her earliest movie roles; and the 1991 household drama Candy Talker, which reunited Jenkins with Bryan Brown.
In 1993, he struck gold once more with The Heartbreak Child, a romcom based mostly on a stage play following a instructor (Claudia Karvan) who falls in love together with her pupil (Alex Dimitriades). The movie turned a field workplace success in Australia and obtained worldwide recognition on the Montreal world movie competition, the place it received greatest screenplay.
It additionally turned a precursor to Heartbreak Excessive, which Jenkins – together with producer and longtime collaborator Ben Gannon – developed as a spin-off from The Heartbreak Child.
On Heartbreak Excessive, which premiered on Channel Ten in 1994, Jenkins labored as each govt producer and director. Set in a Sydney highschool, the present turned a cult hit for its barbed dialogue, gritty realism, and distinctly multicultural solid that set it other than the stylised polish of different teen collection.
It ran for 210 episodes and was syndicated in over 70 nations, although Jenkins himself left after three years.
The present kicked off a successful streak within the late 90s. In 1995, a 12 months after Heartbreak Excessive launched, Jenkins directed the ABC crime miniseries Blue Homicide, returning to the identical themes of corruption and disillusionment he had explored on Scales of Justice.
Based mostly on the true story of a disgraced police officer and a gang kingpin, the present was a vital success, selecting up 4 AFI awards and three Logies – together with for its lead Richard Roxburgh. In a current retrospective, Guardian critic Luke Buckmaster known as Blue Homicide “a visceral skewering of Australian machismo” that continues to be “startlingly contemporary”.
From 1997 to 1999, Jenkins and Gannon once more labored collectively as creators of Wildside, one other resoundingly acclaimed crime drama.
Like a lot of Jenkins’ earlier work, it leant right into a documentary model, with semi-improvised dialogue and frenetic camerawork because it adopted the lives of an inner-city detective and the employees of a disaster centre.
All through the 2000s, his output slowed, although he did make headlines in 2007 when he was introduced because the director of a movie based mostly on a real-life case in regards to the gang-rape of a teenage lady.
“It’s an extremely sympathetic investigation and exploration of those occasions,” Jenkins mentioned on the time – although the movie was later shelved after criticism from then-NSW premier Morris Iemma.
Jenkins’ final credit score was as a producer on Netflix’s 2022 reboot of Heartbreak Excessive, the place he consulted on scripts. He’s survived by his companion Amanda Robson. In his later years, he retired to Tasmania, although he had just lately moved again to Sydney to be nearer to household.
