211: Wake in Fright (with Patrick Marlborough)

Junk Filter

CW: This episode contains discussions of alcoholism and cinematic violence including animal cruelty.

The writer, comedian and musician Patrick Marlborough returns to the podcast from Perth, WA to discuss Wake in Fright (1971), the landmark Australian film by the late Canadian director Ted Kotcheff.

One of only two films to be shown twice in the history of the Cannes Film Festival, and influential in shaping both the Australian New Wave and Ozploitation genres, Wake in Fright was acclaimed around the world but outraged local audiences with its brutal and merciless depiction of Australian toxic masculinity, violence, and alcoholism.

Patrick gives us some insight on how Wake in Fright captures some of the ugliest aspects of the Australian national character, and we discuss how Kotcheff’s Canadian-ness was an asset for his outsider’s view of this world, the amazing supporting performance by Aussie comic screen icon Chips Rafferty in his final role, and how this great film was nearly lost forever.

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Trailer for the new restoration of Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971)

Original US trailer for Wake in Fright (aka Outback)

"The Making of Wake in Fright", Peter Galvin’s extensive 3-part feature on the production, for SBS

“Wake in Fright understood the horrors of Australian booze culture. 50 years on, nothing’s changed” by Joseph Earp, for The Guardian, April 9, 2025

“Andor in the Genocide” by Patrick Marlborough, for the literary journal Overland, April 30, 2025