After movies such as Dead Poets Society, Master And Commander and The Truman Show, Peter Weir won’t be making another film.
This year marks the 21st birthday of a flat-out masterpiece of a blockbuster, 2003’s Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World. Not just because it has a great telling of the weevils joke in it, the Russell Crowe-headlined film is genuinely wonderful and deserves a 4K re-release.
It’s also just one of the many terrific movies from Australian director Peter Weir who, across a career that’s spanned decades, has given us features such as Picnic At Hanging Rock, The Truman Show, Fearless (really underrated and underseen film, that, with an amazing Jeff Bridges lead performance), Dead Poets Society and Witness.
His last movie was back in 2010, the Jim Sturgess-headlined The Way Back. Since then, Weir has been linked with a film called The Keep that obviously didn’t happen. Peter Weir was also set to direct Shantaram, starring Johnny Depp, but it sounds like all didn’t quite go to plan there either.
Ethan Hawke would imply in 2022, in fact, that working with Crowe and Depp might have contributed to Weir taking a step back from cinema. Peter Weir never commented on that, though.
Still, over the last day or two, Peter Weir has been a guest at the Festival de la Cinematheque that’s been taking place in Paris. He was asked there about why he hadn’t made a film in 14 years. His answer was pretty to the point. “I am retired”, he confirmed.
“Why did I stop cinema? Because, quite simply, I have no more energy.”
Given that Peter Weir is now 80 years old, it’s not too tricky to begrudge him a bit of peace and quiet. In fact, at the festival, he was described as still in a straw hat, and still enjoying a nice glass of wine too. If I get to 80, I intend to also be wearing a straw hat, and drinking wine.
A very happy retirement, Mr Weir. Do come to the UK. Ideally, for a big screen showing of Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World.
