“He had his own style going on as a teacher: meandering, very cynical, with a lot of deadpan humour,” recalls Wright. “He emphasised the importance of action in movies, he held up Dirty Harry and Mad Max as the perfect examples of what audiences wanted from an anti-hero, characters with simple, clear motivations expressed through kinetic action on the screen.”
But the French New Wave-influenced films he made were altogether different.
“He made slower, talkier, more idiosyncratic films,” says Wright, who recalled Buesst moving about the film school “with a cup of tea in his hand, shuffling from room to room, speaking slowly and in a hilariously long-winded way”.
“Nigel was never one to get to the point quickly in a conversation. I can still hear him answer simple questions like, ‘Is the Arri [camera] still busted?’ with a wistful, ‘Wasn’t it Truffaut who once said …’ as he began a 10-minute monologue.”
Speaking with The Age’s Jake Wilson in 2003, Buesst admitted to a fondness for “idiosyncracy” in storytelling.
“Like jazz, another of my passions, there was unity in discord,” he said, in reference to some of the movies covered in Carlton + Godard = Cinema. “Emerging from their apparently aimless meanderings came an essential truthfulness, a revelation of how things are.”
His interest in, and love of, film never dimmed.
Film historian Ross Campbell remembered how the “much-loved” filmmaker and lecturer earlier this year hosted screenings “on his still-operating 16mm Steenbeck editing machine” for a couple of his old filmmaking colleagues.
That was typical of the man, Campbell noted. “His generosity towards fledgling filmmakers at Swinburne Film and Television School, and beyond, remains legendary.”
Mousoulis agreed. “He meant a lot to me personally,” he said. “He was always ready to help me with my films, with advice, or with his editing suites, or even crewing for me.”
Remembering her father as “an amazing man who brought so much love, wisdom and laughter into our lives”, daughter Amanda Falvo said the family was planning a memorial “to celebrate his life”, details of which would be shared in the coming days.
