1960s After leaving university in the mid-1960s, he joined Sydney television station
ATN-7, where he worked as a production assistant on the groundbreaking satirical comedy program
The Mavis Bramston Show. During this period, using station facilities, Weir made his first two experimental short films, ''Count Vim's Last Exercise
and The Life and Flight of Reverend Buck Shotte''. In 1969, the founders of
Producers Authors Composers and Talent (now PACT Centre for Emerging Artists) attended a
Sydney University Architecture Revue, with sets by
Geoffrey Atherden and
Grahame Bond. They invited Bond, Atherden, Weir, and Weir's friend, composer
Peter Best, a chance to do a show at the
National Art School. Sir
Robert Helpmann saw the show and took it to the
Adelaide Festival. Soon afterward Weir and Best were commissioned to write a Christmas special TV show for
ABC Television titled
Man on a Green Bike.
1970s Weir took a position with the
Commonwealth Film Unit (later renamed
Film Australia), for which he made several documentaries, as well as one fiction film, a section of the three-part, three-director feature film
3 to Go (1971), which won an
AFI award. Weir's major breakthrough in Australia and internationally was the lush, atmospheric period mystery
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), made with substantial backing from the state-funded
South Australian Film Corporation and filmed on location in South Australia and rural Victoria. Based on the novel by
Joan Lindsay and set at the turn of the 20th century, the film relates the purportedly "true" story of a group of students from an exclusive girls' school who mysteriously vanish from a school picnic on Valentine's Day 1900. Widely credited as a key work in the "Australian film renaissance" of the mid-1970s,
Picnic was the first Australian film of its era to gain both critical praise and be given substantial international theatrical releases. It also helped launch the career of internationally renowned Australian cinematographer
Russell Boyd. It was widely acclaimed by critics, many of whom praised it as a welcome antidote to the so-called
"ocker film" genre, typified by
The Adventures of Barry McKenzie and
Alvin Purple. Weir's next film,
The Last Wave (1977), was a supernatural thriller about a man who begins to experience terrifying visions of an impending natural disaster. It starred American actor
Richard Chamberlain, who was well known to Australian and world audiences as the eponymous physician in the popular
Dr. Kildare TV series. He later starred in the major series
The Thorn Birds, set in Australia.
The Last Wave was a pensive, ambivalent work that expanded on themes from
Picnic, exploring the interactions between the native
Aboriginal and European cultures. It co-starred the Aboriginal actor
David Gulpilil, whose performance won the Golden Ibex (Oscar equivalent) at the
Tehran International Film Festival in 1977, but it was only a moderate commercial success at the time. Between
The Last Wave and his next feature, Weir wrote and directed the offbeat low-budget telemovie
The Plumber (1979). It starred Australian actors
Judy Morris and
Ivar Kants and was filmed in three weeks. Inspired by an account told to him by friends, it is a black comedy about a woman whose life is disrupted by a subtly menacing plumber.
1980s Weir scored a major Australian hit and further international praise with his next film, the historical adventure-drama
Gallipoli (1981). Scripted by the Australian playwright
David Williamson, it is regarded as classic
Australian cinema.
Gallipoli was instrumental in making
Mel Gibson (
Mad Max) into a major star, although his co-star
Mark Lee, who also received high praise for his role, has made relatively few screen appearances since. The climax of Weir's early career was the $6 million multi-national production
The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), again starring Gibson, playing opposite top Hollywood female lead
Sigourney Weaver in a story about journalistic loyalty, idealism, love and ambition in the turmoil of
Sukarno's
Indonesia of 1965. It was an adaptation of the novel by
Christopher Koch, which was based in part on the experiences of Koch's journalist brother Philip, the
ABC's Jakarta correspondent and one of the few western journalists in the city during the 1965 attempted coup. The film also won
Linda Hunt (who played a man in the film) an Oscar for
Best Actress in a Supporting Role. The film was again produced by
Hal and Jim McElroy, who had also produced Weir's first three films,
The Cars That Ate Paris,
Picnic at Hanging Rock and
The Last Wave. Weir's first
American film was the successful thriller
Witness (1985), the first of two films he made with
Harrison Ford, about a boy who sees the murder of an undercover police officer by corrupt coworkers and has to be hidden in his
Amish community to protect him. Weir directed Ford in his only performance to receive an
Academy Award nomination, while child star
Lukas Haas also received wide praise for his debut film performance.
Witness also earned Weir his first Academy Award nomination as
Best Director, and was his first of several films to be nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Picture—it later won two for
Best Film Editing and
Best Original Screenplay. It was followed by the darker, less commercial
The Mosquito Coast (1986),
Paul Schrader's adaptation of
Paul Theroux's novel. Weir's next film,
Dead Poets Society, was a major international success, with Weir again receiving credit for expanding the acting range of its Hollywood star.
Robin Williams was mainly known for his anarchic stand-up comedy and his popular TV role as the wisecracking alien in
Mork & Mindy; in this film he played an inspirational teacher in a dramatic story about conformity and rebellion at an exclusive New England
prep school in the 1950s. The film was nominated for four Oscars, including
Best Picture and
Best Director for Weir. It won
Best Original Screenplay and launched the acting careers of young actors
Ethan Hawke and
Robert Sean Leonard. It became a major box-office hit.
1990s Weir's first romantic comedy
Green Card (1990) was another casting risk. Weir chose French screen icon
Gérard Depardieu in the lead—Depardieu's first English-language role—and paired him with American actress
Andie MacDowell.
Green Card was a box-office hit but was regarded as less of a critical success, although it helped Depardieu's path to international fame. Weir received an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay.
Fearless (1993) returned to darker themes and starred
Jeff Bridges as a man who believes he has become invincible after surviving a catastrophic air crash. Though well reviewed, particularly the performances of Bridges and
Rosie Perez—who received an Oscar nomination for
Best Supporting Actress—the film was less commercially successful than Weir's two preceding films. It was entered into the
44th Berlin International Film Festival. After five years, Weir returned to direct his biggest success to date,
The Truman Show (1998), a fantasy-satire of the media's control of life starring
Jim Carrey.
The Truman Show was both a box office and a critical success, receiving positive reviews and numerous awards, including three Academy Award nominations:
Andrew Niccol for
Best Original Screenplay,
Ed Harris for
Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Weir himself for
Best Director. In addition to the Academy Award nominations, the film won the
1999 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.
2000s In 2003, Weir returned to period dramas with
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, starring
Russell Crowe. A screen adaptation from various episodes in
Patrick O'Brian's blockbuster adventure series set during the
Napoleonic Wars, the film was well received by critics, but only mildly successful with mainstream audiences. The film was nominated for
Best Picture and
won two Oscars—for frequent collaborator
Russell Boyd's cinematography and for sound effects editing. While it underperformed at the North American box office and grossed $93 million, it had grossed slightly better overseas, gleaning an additional $118 million. Weir had developed several other projects in the 2000s that never came to fruition, including an adaptation of
Jasper Maskelyne's
biography The War Magician with actor
Tom Cruise, an adaptation of
Robert Kurson's novel
Shadow Divers, early development of a proposed
Shantaram film starring
Johnny Depp, and an adaptation of
William Gibson's
sci-fi novel
Pattern Recognition.
2010s In 2010, Weir resurfaced with the historical epic
The Way Back, about escapees from a Soviet
gulag. The film, while generally well-received critically, was not a financial success. In 2012, it was reported that Weir would direct his own adapted script of
Jennifer Egan's gothic thriller
The Keep the following year and shoot in Europe. Weir described the project as, "Basically, ... a studio-shoot movie." As the years passed, however, without an official announcement, he started to be described as "retired".
2020s Speaking in July 2022, speculating about Weir's unannounced retirement, Ethan Hawke said, "I think [Weir] lost interest in movies. He really enjoyed that work when he didn't have actors giving him a hard time. Russell Crowe and Johnny Depp broke him." In November 2022, Weir received an
Academy Honorary Award from the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On the occasion of this award, he also gave his first interview in many years, to
The Sydney Morning Herald. In the interview, he said Hawke's quote "must have been taken out of context. I find it puzzling." However, Weir confirmed his retirement, saying that "for film directors, like volcanoes, there are three major stages: active, dormant and extinct. I think I've reached the latter! Another generation is out there calling 'action' and 'cut' and good luck to them." He stated that he has enjoyed visiting ancient ruins and battlefields and diving on the WWII shipwrecks of the
Truk Lagoon during his retirement. == Personal life ==