AUSTRALIAN FILM MAKER : HE BRINGS CLASH OF OLD, NEW SOCIETIES IN FOCUS

Were the intrepid explorers Stanley and Livingstone able to bring along a film maker to document their exchanges with native tribes, the pair might well have chosen one Dennis O’Rourke.

O’Rourke--an Australian “non-fiction film” specialist being honored with a retrospective at Anthropos ‘87, this weekend’s USC-centered documentary festival--has affixed his life’s work (seven films to date) on the initial interaction between “traditional” native cultures and the technological juggernaut of the West.

“Actually, in a sense, I’ve been making the same film over seven times,” said O’Rourke, sitting back and relaxing in his distributor’s office during an interview. “I’m trying to work on illuminating that shifting edge between the West and those traditional societies that remain in the world--New Guinea, the Australian outback, the Pacific Islands. When you go there and hang around a bit, both societies get brought into quite sharp a focus.”

O’Rourke’s reputation came into much sharper focus with the release of “Half Life” last year. Subtitled “A Parable for the Nuclear Age,” the feature-length documentary examines U.S. nuclear-testing policy in the South Pacific, and specifically the exposure of Marshall Islanders to lethal doses of radiation after the Bikini H-bomb test in 1954.

“Half Life” (screening at Anthropos tonight at 8:30 in the Norris Theater at USC) spells out the islanders’ suffering--and the American role in it--in no uncertain terms, which led the State Department to label the film “political propaganda.” But O’Rourke insists he had no ideological agenda going in: “I just ran across an old woman in the Marshalls who had been through the Bikini episode, and she started telling me things. I rushed for my camera.”

Indeed, although he’s variously listed as producer, director, writer and “shooter,” O’Rourke got into the film business in Australia as a photographer, and handling the camera--through the most inclement weather and uncivilized conditions imaginable--is what pleases him best.

“I haven’t made it easy for myself, that’s certain,” O’Rourke acknowledged with a laugh. “The toughest bit has been using a changing bag (for changing reels of film in daylight) in 95-degree weather and 100% humidity. Fine for losing weight, but I don’t really recommend it.” As for working with film hundreds of miles from any processing laboratory, O’Rourke merely shrugs. “I just carry the stuff around with me after I shoot it. I find I’d much rather run the risk of a 5% color shift than a 100% loss shipping it to Australia on some tiny Third World airline.”

O’Rourke’s thoughtfulness and playful intellectuality in conversation belie the bluff, rough-and-ready exterior he presents. Born in Queensland, Australia, in 1946, O’Rourke worked as a cattle-hand, a lifeguard and a gardener before landing an assistant cameraman’s job with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. He found himself in Papua New Guinea in 1975, working as an independent cameraman, when the project’s director quit and handed O’Rourke the reins. He wound up making “Yumi Yet,” a look into the tribal and colonial worlds of Papua New Guinea at the time of that country’s independence from Britain.

“From that point on,” O’Rourke said, “I became aware that all my films were rather Conradian, moving from ignorance through adventure into learning something. I prefer not to be tagged as an ethnological film maker--but then since that’s what I’ve been learning about for the last 12 years, I suppose that’s the name that fits.”

Anthropos-goers will have the rare chance (in the U.S., at any rate) to see more of O’Rourke than “Half Life,” which played in Los Angeles last year. In addition to “Couldn’t Be Fairer,” which screened Thursday, the festival has scheduled two O’Rourke double bills. “The Shark Callers of Kontu” (1986) and “Yap--How Did You Know We’d Like TV?” (1980) screen on Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Annenberg building’s Theater Two, while the same 60-seat venue hosts “Ilekshun” (1978) and “Yumi Yet” (1976) on Sunday at 8 p.m.

Also, a rough cut of O’Rourke’s newest effort, “Cannibal Tours”--dealing with tourism and how it impacts traditional native societies in New Guinea--will be shown at 4 p.m. on Sunday, also in Annenberg Two. O’Rourke himself will lead the discussion afterward. “I really want people to say what they think about it,” he said. “I’m not easily wounded.”