Geoff Murphy
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Geoff Murphy ONZM |
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|---|---|
| Born |
Geoffrey Peter Murphy 13 October 1938 New Zealand |
| Occupation | Film director, film producer, screenwriter, |
| Years active | 1977 – present |
Geoffrey Peter Murphy ONZM (born 13 October 1938) is a New Zealand filmmaker, as a producer, director and screenwriter best known for his work during the renaissance of New Zealand cinema that began in the last half of the 1970s. His second feature Goodbye Pork Pie (1981) was the first New Zealand movie to win major commercial success on its own soil.
Murphy directed a string of Hollywood features during the 1990s, before returning to New Zealand as second-unit director on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. The versatile Murphy has also been a scriptwriter, special effects technician, schoolteacher and trumpet player.
Murphy grew up in the Wellington suburb of Highbury, and attended St. Vincent de Paul School in Kelburn and St. Patrick's College, Wellington, before training and working as a schoolteacher.
Murphy was a founding member of legendary 'hippy' musical and theatrical co-operative Blerta, which toured New Zealand and Australia performing multi-media shows in the early 1970s. Blerta were later given the opportunity to make their own television series, which in turn spawned what is arguably Murphy's first feature film, the 75-minute-long Wild Man. A number of Blerta members would work on Murphy's films - including drummer and Blerta founder Bruno Lawrence, who had starring roles in Utu and The Quiet Earth.
Murphy made his name with road movie Goodbye Pork Pie (1981), the first New Zealand film to attract large-scale audiences in its home country. Made on a low budget, the film followed three people travelling from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island, to growing infamy along the way.
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