A whale of a tale
Michael Dillon’s award-winning film The Great White Whale is possibly the greatest tale you’ve never heard of — one that unfolds like a boy’s own adventure back in the days when such things were possible.
We’re not talking about Moby Dick — which of course you have heard of. We’re talking about Heard Island, a volcanic, glacier-infested island, the largest of a subantarctic island group located 2000km south-west of Albany and around 1500km north of Antarctica.
As for the name, you can just picture Fidelia Heard on the deck of the ship the Oriental, one clear, cold day in November 1853, shouting to her husband John as she catches sight of an uncharted landmass which bore a remarkable resemblance to a surfacing whale.
Unchartered no more.
At the heart of this tale, however, is Big Ben (named for Ben, a strapping sealer), a massif so massive it dwarfs mainland Australia’s Mt Kosciuszko by 500m.
Dillon’s film chronicles the 1963 expedition that first attempted to scale Big Ben — a venture so dangerous it nearly claimed the lives of the three-man team. But like Captain Ahab relentlessly pursuing his white whale, two of these men — Dr Grahame Budd and Warwick Deacock — couldn’t shake off their obsession.
Camera IconMichael Dillon. Credit: wearemovingstories.com/Supplied
Which is why the men decided to charter a yacht and set out to have another crack at it. The crew they assembled this time reads like a who’s-who of adventure and intellect, including legendary explorer and author Bill Tilman; future principal of Perth’s Christ Church Grammar Tony Hill; and Colin Putt, an engineering genius who could “fix anything with anything”.
But perhaps the most compelling character is John Crick, the “apprentice expeditioner” who, years later, would recount the adventure in song, adding a layer of epic balladry to an already larger-than-life tale.
Dillon, who already knew “this amazing, forgotten Australian story as I was one of many who volunteered to get the boat ready to sail on time,” also knew leader Warwick Deacock but none of the others.
He soon got to know them, discovering along the way that, amazingly, “most of them hadn’t even sailed before and one of them, the bravest, couldn’t swim”.
However, he also says, they were probably the brightest boatload ever to set sail. “Their combined IQ level was massive.”
Dillon, who recently celebrated 50 years of adventure filmmaking including no less than seven projects with Sir Edmund Hillary, was in 2022 awarded the Grand Prize for lifetime achievement by the International Federation of Mountain Film Festivals. This was the first time anyone from the southern hemisphere had received the accolade.
He talks of what was, for him, the “emotional climax” to the film. Perth orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Malcolm Hay, was on that voyage to Heard Island. Inspired by his adventure, he built the sail training ship, the now-famous Leeuwin, “so that young people could have an adventure at sea, just as he had”.
For the film, Dillon spent a week aboard the Leeuwin. He found it a moving experience, having begun his own life of adventure with the Scouts and through the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme — two organisations which use the vessel to help young people today.
“I felt my life had gone full circle,” says Dillon. Which is also why he insisted WA “should be the place where this film should first be widely seen”. And, one could add, heard.
Michael Dillon will introduce The Great White Whale and do a Q&A session at these cinemas:
+ August 8, Fremantle. Luna on SX, 6.30pm
+ August 12, Busselton. Orana Cinemas, 6.15pm
+ August 14, Albany. Orana Cinemas, 6.30pm
+ August 15, Perth. Luna Leederville, 6.30pm
+ August 19, Fremantle Luna on SX, 6.30pm
+ August 20, Perth. Luna Leederville, 6.30pm
Tickets are available on the respective cinemas’ websites. More information about Michael Dillon and the film can be found at michaeldillonfilms.com.au
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