the headlines: the argentine navy says it believes there was an explosion in the ocean close to the last known location of a submarine which went missing off the coast of patagonia. the blast was detected around the time the submarine sent its last signal. myanmar and bangladesh have signed an agreement to return hundreds of thousands of rohingya muslims who fled a recent army crackdown. a statement from the bangladesh foreign ministry said displaced people could begin to return within two months. emmerson mnangagwa is to be sworn in as zimbabwe's president, following the dramatic departure of robert mugabe after 37 years of authoritarian rule. the former vice—president will be inaugurated at harare‘s stadium. now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk.

i'm stephen sackur. there are some film directors who strip things down, baz luhrmann made his directorial name with a wildly entertaining debut movie called strictly ballroom, which was theatrical, sentimental and sweet. and since then, he's continued to make larger—than—life film is based on epic stories. so, how did this kid from the aussie back woods get to make his celluloid dreams come true? baz luhrmann, welcome to hardtalk.

i'm very happy to be here, stephen. i want to start this interview in herons creek, this tiny little place north of sydney, where you grew up. mmm. it was a long way from anywhere, really. how come you there developed this incredibly vivid artistic imagination? mmm. you know, at some point, midway through my journey, i started to get quite self—conscious, about, you know, and you do when you're young and you're trying to be someone and be creative... and i gave up on the self— consciousness of going too deep into the, who i am, and tried to work that outjust by doing. having said that... having said that. . .! how are we going to keep these answers, short, right? i've never given a short answer in my life. but having said that, it never seemed exceptional or strange or unusual to me. i always imagined, when i was in that tiny little island, which was really a gas station and a restaurant and we had

a farm down the road, and... and your dad ran the gas station? my father ran the gas station. but what was crazy about it was that dad was obsessed that the isolation wouldn't keep us isolated. so, we had so many interesting people come and live with us, you know, painters and... he sort of had this idea that we would be the renaissance players of herons creek, really. so, was he an australian who felt out of tune with australia? because, you know, my perhaps stereotypical and cliched vision of the australia of your youth... yep. ..particularly in the non—metropolitan areas, would have been about a very macho culture, pretty much preoccupied with sports and maybe for the men, beer. yeah. and yet you gravitated to things including cinema and dance and a bunch of other stuff that were nothing to do with that stereotype? well, first of all the stereotype, right? because i think you're probably somewhat on point. but i would also proffer that one of the idiosyncratic qualities about australia, which is a tremendous thing, is that it's what i would call a flashes of lightning culture. meaning, you might look at sydney

and go, what a generic bunch of buildings — and then suddenly... the sydney opera house. you know? you might go, well, there it is, isolated on the edge of the world. along comes a gough whitlam, and our forebearrs who say, we must have a drama school. we must have a film school. this is in the ‘70s. mmm. and we, the government, will fund it. and had they not done that, that extreme action, i wouldn't be sitting here, all those well—known storytellers that you know wouldn't exist. so, let's go back to my father. he was all those things. he was a very... he was, you know, in the vietnam war, he was the equivalent of a kind of navy seal, that was his job. he was really disciplined, he really pushed us. it was such an extr...

i now realise it was an extreme existence. but...he was also a very, erm, he was a romantic, i think. so, isuppose, when... because i'm going to fast forward a little bit. yeah. you got into acting, you went to sydney, you got into lots of different creative staff. i was already doing a, stephen, i was making films. were you? yeah. i was always doing it. so, it was a new from a very early age? and i was doing ballroom dancing. and ballroom dancing for me was a kind of working—class escape into the theatre. you dressed up in costume, you performed, we travelled miles, you got very wrapped up with your partner. it was showbiz. and if you don't mind me saying, i don't mean this in any... i don't. camp, to a certain extent? ballroom dancing is camp? let me think about that! i don't know! it's camp, and i wonder if that appealed to you, too, the sort of gender fluidity, as we would now...? well, look, one thing at a time, i think. well, camp — let's define that. meaning... and i said this yesterday, i think i said, oscar wilde once said... and he probably didn't, maybe it was said about him. but that camp is dealing with something quite serious

but in a very silly, offhanded way. right. and the idea of using silly or theatrical or "cue the petal drop" to, as a device, to affect an audience, so that you're dealing with something quite serious and emotional or a big idea, that mechanism i guess is inherent in me, you know? and i think what's so odd is that when i started exploring that... i mean, i went to drama school and did brecht and minimalism. but when i started being honest with my own gestures, and that came into my way of expressing myself, what's so odd about it is that now, we live in a world where that particular sensibility, whether it's in fashion, cinema, music, is kind of de rigueur. it's hugely popular. hugely popular, yeah. yeah. so, i tell you what, for people who haven't seen strictly ballroom... right. let's have a look at at just a little clip... and see if it's camp!

yeah, see if it's camp. let's get a flavour of it, let's have a look. that's the future of the dance, sport, and no—one but no—one's going to change that! this, we should remember, was your first movie. it was indeed my first movie. in fact, that was my first day of shooting. and it was at a break in a real dance competition, and we said we'd get it done in an hour. and it took, as all things do, three. and everyone left and i... it was a crazy thing. but i mean it's kind of an outrageous success that making your first movie, you make something that not only

breaks the bounds of australian cinema, but gets shown at international awards, cannes, becomes big in america — it's just a massive international hit! that sounds great, but... and we haven't got time to go into the real story, but the real story begins with making the film, committing at some point to the knowledge, to the idea that i had to make a cinematic language that somehow reflected what it was as a play. i did it, i devised it as a play. you had written it as a play. i devised it with a group of actors i was working with at the national institute of dramatic art, where we were experimenting with how you make plays. and i took a subject that i knew, the world of ballroom dancing, and i also took the triumph, the hero's triumph myth, and i was really interested in splicing mythologies and the ugly duckling myth. yeah. and then it was political. we took it to a drama school in czechoslovakia during glasnost against all the soviet state theatres, thinking,

oh, this will be ridiculous. but at some point in that production, it was a bit more brechtian. we used to have tapes of like ronald reagan and maggie thatcher and stuff in it. so, it did have its sort of underlying political ideas... it was sort of about... this is important with your other movies, it was sort of about... yeah. one message in the movie is about breaking the rules, not being a conformist. absolutely. the australian dance commission had its own rules, and the girl in the movie says, i want to do something different, and she persuades the boy to sign up to just doing things different, breaking the rules, being yourself. correct. and hilariously, you could apply the undercarriage of that story to a popular revolution. i mean, overthrowing the incumbent generation and leaders who say there's only one way to cha—cha—cha. i've got the rule book, i'll give you the ticks. i'll let you know whether you're right or not. and then the youth say, no, we're going to step outside that rule book, and we're going to go up against it and then you meet another youth who says that, and then you go on and it's popular revolution. sounds heavy but that's where we're coming from.

it's interesting, you say sounds heavy, it sounds fascinating. but what it doesn't sound like to some people i think... yeah. ..is a baz luhrmann movie, because you've become so associated with the sort of over—the—top grandiose epic scale and the glitz and the glamour and all that. sure, yeah. do you feel that a lot of people haven't taken your movies seriously enough? er, yes, sure. and certainly critically. but what's so strange... because i'm quite old now, stephen, and i've seen the miracle of, like, one of the great critics like owen gleiberman, who's a huge critic in the states, who absolutely slayed moulin rouge! just went, like, here we go again. and there was a time when you could take the reviews for strictly ballroom and apply them pretty much to moulin and so forth! but owen gleiberman, i've never seen this happen before — in his book, he rewrote his review for moulin rouge! ten years later. because i actually met him, and i was really... of course, you're really happy that someone finally liked... you mean he decided ten years on that actually he'd missed the point? his language was, "there was a method to the madness and i could see that actually,

this wasn't actually like campery for the sake of it, it was employed in the pursuit of a slightly bigger idea." but i suppose my question then would be, do you ever reflect and think, you know what, maybe i got a little bit seduced by the fact that hollywood was flinging money at me... no. so that by the time you made the great gatsby, i don't know how much that cost, probably $100 million roughly? yeah, around that. i'm not good with numbers! check with the studio! but you see where i'm going. no. you were spending more and more money, you were using the biggest stars from hollywood, making an enormous splash, taking i think i'm right in saying, years to make these movies. yeah. maybe you got a bit sort of overwhelmed with the money, the glitz, the glamour and the power. maybe.

it sounds like that, but that didn't happen. i mean, never does someone come at you, nobody in hollywood comes to you and say, "you know that ioo—year—old book the great gatsby, you know, that period piece..." they say the opposite. "can't you, like...? when i made strictly ballroom and then i wanted to do a shakespeare, a modern—day shakespeare and they said, "look, look..." and i was in an overall deal with fox and they were like, "can't you just do like strictly ballroom ii, more of that?" and then when i did moulin rouge! it was like, why do you want to do the gatsby? please! there was no, "hey, here's $100 million, go do gatsby." there's cajoling, convincing, convincing yourself, convincing others. leonardo being a great partner in that process, toby being a great partner in that process. dicaprio and maguire, we should say. yeah. getting them on... a—list hollywood people. yeah, but also artists that want to make sure they're making something different. and so what i'm saying is, i mean, you know, let me just say, all that stuff you identified... yeah. gatsby, rightly, whether you like it or you don't, and whether i made the right choices or not, it's a very quiet internal narration about a very noisy time,

about a very brightly coloured, noisy time. so i, rightly or wrongly, exploited that. which is a great cue just to have a little look, another flavour of your movie—making, by having a look at one of the memorable scenes from the great gatsby. let's have a look at this. thanks. i cannot find anyone who knows anything real about mr gatsby. well, i don't care. he gives large parties, and i like large parties, they're so intimate. small parties, there isn't any privacy. if that's true, what's all this for? that, my dear fellow, is the question. are you ready? # little party never killed nobody... # right here right now... as i'm watching that...

yeah. ..i‘m actually thinking about you the director, and it seems to me there is something extraordinary about the hollywood director, the amount of resource you can call upon, the hundreds of actors and extras... yeah. right. the vast stage sets. there is a power to being a director that interests me. do you think there's something potentially difficult, maybe even potentially dangerous, about the power that comes with being a director? look, i think we're living in a world where the subject of power, and the danger of power and the corruption that comes with, you know... i didn't write... i didn't write that fantastic line about parties — i wish i did. yeah. and i didn't write "absolute power corrupts absolutely". but it's certainly topical right now. and when you do what i do, the responsibility of power

is absolutely forefront in your mind. i mean, i thought you were going to look at that and go, oh, that must be the friday night dinner at baz‘s place, because everybody thinks that that's how i live, right?! i don't think that's how you live, but i am very interested in the answer you've just given me. all right. because you've alluded to what we've just seen in hollywood and the movie business in recent times, which is the fallout from harvey weinstein. yep. and here's what another director, judd apatow, said in the wake of what we learned. yeah. he said, "people in our industry were and are willing to ignore violent crime to line their own pockets or protect their careers. and that's what this weinstein thing is about. right. i mean, that makes it sound like there is something very sick at the heart of... well, i didn't. and i knew harvey. harvey had strictly ballroom. and early on, i had a power play issue with harvey, about the way he dealt with strictly ballroom.

so, i never worked with him again. and this is... getting into harvey is too detailed. i think where you're going, though, is this. is that i do think, when i am directing, the question mark for me in terms of the entertainment world, but we're not just seeing it in entertainment, we're seeing it at every level, in governance, in every level where power sits... agreed. and what i am very focused on is that when you're trying to make something like... i mean, who's not attracted to...? you can be attracted to... you can have your attractions, right? but in the creative space, the fear and vulnerability of performers, i mean, that... the power that you have, but also yourjob is to remove that fear. it's called "play" acting. they're players. you're meant to help them be playful. work — yes, work. but to take away the fear, and to play. now, if in any way you're muddying the waters with your own politics or your own sexual desire, and all of that, then you're corrupting the art itself. so...

and obviously it's wrong. imean, it's... you know, profoundly a misuse of power. and i think what we're seeing is, it's probably being an old... i mean, let mejump right in there and say, i think it's bigger than that. i think we're sitting in a moment where the tectonic plates of history are squeezing like this, and the old period... i don'tjust mean old guys — we're old guys, right? but the old period has got its snails and it's trying to claw back to making things the way they were. to quote gatsby, you cannot repeat the past. and yet the new and the young and the forward movement want to go that way. so, it's causing a sort of rupture. i mean this point, and the point is that i think there is an old school of thought... were you part of it? no! listen, are you changing the way you work?

0h. well, look, i can honestly tell you, i can honestly tell you that when i'm in the room, i am so worried about making it work... mmm. and i see it as myjob to take on everyone else's fear, but there is absolutely no way how i might feel about someone when i'm anonymous and meet them in the street, i just can't feel like that about a cast and crew member. i'm just too completely responsible for making sure everyone does their best to serve the greater thing, and that is what we're trying to make. you've just talked about our sort of age—group, and ageing and... the old guys. yeah, and a new generation who are looking to do things in different ways. just one quick question about your future, and your intent. yeah. you did make one netflix box set—style big budget tv series, the get down. yeah. yeah, i loved doing it.

didn't get recommissioned. i wonder in your future, do you see yourself moving more into tv, because that's where a lot of the money and creativity is? or are you absolutely in your mind a movie—maker? i have to say, two things. one, we could have done another season. but just. .. it cost an awful lot of money, though. yeah, and for that reason, it required me to be at the centre of it — that was the requirement. and contractually, i'd already made arrangements whereby i owed creativity somewhere else that had been deferred. ijust wondered whether you needed a big screen notjust a small screen? d'you know what? let's get back to the other point — i don't see myself necessarily as a film—maker or music maker or a television maker or a... or... we've worked on a hotel, and we might do another one. you know — we made stuff. ideas and storytelling. affecting culture. leaving an imprint on culture. as to the medium, the size,

the scale, what it might be, what's the right thing, they're such secondary thoughts. and it's not like, i mean it might sound arrogant, but it's not like we need it. i'm not going, like, wow, i really need...something. there's one project we haven't talked about... yeah. and i want to finish by bringing you to it, because it raises lots of interesting issues for me about you as a person, and that's your movie australia. yes. because in a way, it's kind of unusualfor a director to make a movie so clearly about where he's from. yes. and you named it australia, and it's epic and it weaves a lot of australia's relatively recent history... how foolish can you be? yeah. yes, and it did pretty well, but some critics liked it and some didn't like it at all. yeah. but was it very personal to you? totally. what were you trying to...? what was i thinking? was it a love letter to australia? was i crazy?! by the way, look, it's... none of my films in my view are complete. none of them are everything i imagined them to be.

all of them get to a place where i go, well, it's kind of working now. and it's like a child — it has to go out in the world. are you telling me it wasn't actually finished? i don't think any of my movies are finished. never. there's an old saying — you don't finish them, they take them away. you know? i'm not one of those parents who go, like, "oh, they're not ready to go off to school yet," you know? but let's come back to why i did it. absolutely, we had our children, we had been living... we've lived around the world, australians are great travellers. and i wanted to make sure that there was an early period when my two kids were connected to their homeland. mmm. that, and i also... yes, i do have a great love of my homeland. and it probably was... i don't know if it was a love letter, but it was definitely a way of getting into the myth, but also the facts. one of the things about australia, by the way, and by the way, whether it's a good film or not, is the biggest film i've ever had in europe.

it was number one for five weeks in spain — and that was a surprise to even me, right? so, it had a different life in the us — it went nowhere. and here, not so much. yeah. and it has themes in it, including the massive injustice done to the aboriginal peoples of australia. yes. and might i say, and i've never said this, and ifeel like i should say this — i remember germaine greer, i was on one of these shows, came on, and she spoke... i mean, i never push back on stuff. well, of course we did the research, and of course we lived it. and everything... there's a justifiable factual reference for everything in that movie. and when in the press germaine greer came out and attacked an actual stolen generation aboriginal academic, i just thought, like, you know, i'll let time answer that. but what i do want to say is, nothing that we do do we research lightly. but the thought in my head was that the arc of your career took you away from australia to the united states,

and that's obviously where you spend most of your time. but in a funny sort of way, you could make an argument that australia is moving towards you. i obviously don't mean geographically. come over here, australia! just in terms of what is happening in that country today. for example, we speak just after a nationwide non—binding referendum... yeah, about time. ..which has seen australians overwhelmingly approve the idea of gay marriage. mm—hmm. yeah. do you see your australia changing, becoming more tolerant and open and progressive, or is that too simplistic? first of all, for the first time in my life, i've not been back to my home country for over 18 months, maybe even longer. i'm going back at christmas. and it's really important. i mean, i think, flashes of lightning, i think the country's always had tremendously open—hearted vision. but it also pulls itself back into a sort of conservatism, and it jostles between the two things. so, i got great... i shouldn't... i'm not in a position to speak with great information.

i'm going back to reconnect. but i think australia, and australians, they really believe inafairgo. and they're really open—hearted. and i have... i'm looking forward to being energised by their kind of positive uplift. a last and really unfair question — a lot of people, critics... mm—hmm. ..i think feel that your first movie was your best movie. mm—hmm. do you think that your best movie is yet to be made? i think probably mickjagger probably has the same problem with satisfaction. it's like, you know,... and i... ithink... but that the answer to your question, and i'm not very good at staying on track — you see my movies, right?! the answer to the question is, you've got to believe that. otherwise don't do it. and sometimes i think, oh, you know... but recently i've been going, like, i'd really like to do at least one more, and see if i could, you know, make it better. great way to end. baz luhrmann. .. lovely.

..thanks for being on hardtalk! i really enjoyed it! thank you very much indeed! hello there. no sign of the mild air returning anytime soon. it is going to stay cold to end the week into the weekend and the start of next week as well. now, overnight, there will be more cloud and rain across southern and south—eastern areas. so less cold to start friday here. whereas the northern half of the uk, lengthy clear spells so it will be cold and frosty but wintry showers will affect northern and western scotland, in particular. where we get the showers there will be some ice patches to greet us first thing on friday morning. probably the best of the sunshine across sheltered eastern parts of scotland. north and west, though, plenty of showers around. wintry in nature, with significant snow

falling over the higher ground. a few showers for northern ireland. a few into north—west england as well. but east of the pennines and southwards, a largely dry start to friday morning, with some sunshine around. quite chilly too but across southern britain there will be more cloud around. one or two showers so a little less cold here. temperatures around 7—8 degrees at about eight o'clock in the morning. that is how it is looking to start on friday. through the day, we lose the showers for many southern areas. actually a good portion of england and wales, a fine afternoon to come with lengthy sunny spells and sunshine becoming more wisdespread across the south—east. for much of scotland, particularly northern and western scotland, northern ireland, the far north—west of england, further wintry showers and it's going to be windy, particularly in the far north, with gales and severe gales. temperatures of only 3—10 across the south—east. that leads into a pretty chilly weekend. we'll see overnight frost as well. there will be further wintry showers, particularly on saturday in the north and the west. but emphasis will be on dry and bright and sunny weather. so this is saturday's picture there and a run of fairly

strong, cold north—westerly winds. feeding showers into the north and the west of the uk, again, wintry in nature. the best of the sunshine and the shelter will be across southern and central and eastern parts, staying dry all day. four celsius in glasgow potentially on saturday. 7—8 across the south—east. so you'll need to wrap up if you are heading out. there's our area of low pressure bringing those north north—westerly winds. but this ridge of high pressure promises to move in for sunday. what that will help do is kill off some of the showers. so we should see fewer showers on sunday. slightly lighter winds as well, though, will still be a fairfeature. one or two showers across northern and western areas. best of the sunshine again, across central, southern and eastern parts and again another cold day again on the cards. we have a weather system pushing in off the atlantic on sunday night that will sweep across the country to bring a spell of wet and pretty windy weather. eventually clearing from southern and eastern parts of england on monday. and then we are back into the cold run of north—westerly winds with some sunny spells and showers. this is the briefing.

i'm samantha simmonds. our top story: a new era for zimbabwe, emmerson mnangagwa, is to be sworn as president at a ceremony in the capital, harare. hope fades for the crew of the missing argentinian submarine. a bitter blow to britain, as brussels rules it can no longer host the european capital of culture in 2023. in business, let the bargain—hunting commence! retailers prepare for a record black friday. but has the smartphone put an end to fighting in the aisles? also coming up in the business briefing, i'll be speaking to hrant kostanyan from the centre for european policy studies about today's eu summit, and what it might mean for brexit negotiations.