KEY POINTS:
Peter Jackson literally led the audience up a garden path in the opening scene of Forgotten Silver - the now infamous homegrown mockumentary about a long-lost Kiwi filmmaking pioneer which screened on TV One primetime in 1995. It was the first of many clues that this wasn't a true story.
The film traces the life of (entirely fictional) Kiwi filmmaker Colin McKenzie who between 1901-1927 makes incredible cinematic advances years before their documented creation: inventing tracking shots, recording Richard Pearse's world-first flight, shooting the first colour film and sound feature, and filming biblical epic Salome, before falling in love with female lead Maybelle and upon her death leaving New Zealand forever.
The tale was so elaborately implausible that co-directors Peter Jackson and Costa Botes were astounded that many of the 400,000 Montana Sunday Theatre viewers didn't click to the hoax.
"The Forgotten Silver bullshit meter climbed incredibly high," recalls Wellington filmmaker Botes, who came up with and developed the film before Jackson got on board. "We'd argued backward and forward about which of all the absurd things in the first 15 minutes would tip people off and they'd go 'This has got to be a have'. And many people did."
But years before smash-hit The Office cemented the mockumentary as a familiar medium, others bought it, hook, line and sinker. When a journo discovered it was definitely a hoax, "all hell broke loose and it went on for weeks. It was just crazy," remembers Botes. "It wasn't our intention to fool people or to create pandemonium and ill-feeling, which was unfortunately what happened." Sure did. There were angry comments, complaints, letters and phonecalls on a scale never before seen for a New Zealand film. One anonymous phone call to Botes went along these lines: "Well, what a **** you turned out to be. Get some **** morals, mate!" But the most extreme correspondence was undoubtedly the letter saying Jackson and Botes "ought to be shot". Laughs Botes: "I've seen a few movies where I've wanted to shoot the makers - not because I've felt they were lying to me but because I thought their lies weren't good enough."
Many critics accused the film of pouring scorn on the treasured national myth of backyard ingenuity. Botes, who says the film was both tribute and criticism to this, understood the vehement reaction on one level but felt annoyed on another.
"People were saying if only if it were true but because it's fiction it's worthless'. That was the bit that upset me." Called on to defend himself at the time, Botes quoted Picasso: "We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realise truth." And Forgotten Silver is not all made-up - far from it. Incorporating early-film techniques and real events like the Gallipoli campaign, the film "folded in a lot of facts. We just happened to weave a fictional character through it." And no, it wasn't hard to convince the film's expert commentators (including actor Sam Neill and Miramax Films' Harvey Weinstein), the Listener (who ran a build-up interview) or TVNZ to take part. "There was no conspiracy to keep everyone quiet. Everyone just got into the fun and spirit of it." While TVNZ were excited about the film pre-screening, Botes says they "ran a mile" after the negative publicity. "I think it shocked them actually. People had this very cosy, paternalistic relationship with TVNZ and this thing in their living rooms: that it had a duty to them. They felt personally aggrieved that it'd told them a lie. That was a learning curve - to realise there's such an inbuilt propensity to believe the media."
Although negative publicity drowned out applause at the time, there's been plenty in the intervening 13 years, courtesy not just of a DVD (which includes a documentary about the mockumentary) but screenings at New York and LA cinemas, overseas channels and film festivals. Guinness World Records have also proclaimed it as "the greatest film hoax in history".
Late this month, Wellington-based Botes will hove north to Auckland for Forgotten Silver's DOCNZ Focus screening (the documentary-film society screens bi-monthly docos).
Afterwards, he'll head up an audience Q-and-A session about the drawcards and dangers of mockumentaries.
But first, he's putting the final touches to a visually remastered version for the big screen. During this process he's been watching Forgotten Silver again frame by frame and says: "All I could think was: 'how on earth could anyone believe this is true?"'
* Forgotten Silver screens Wednesday, November 26, 6.30pm, at the Academy Cinema, Auckland. Tickets at the door on the night or book by phoning (09) 360 0329 or www.docnz.org.nz.
