The Marlborough Man

Cinematographer Michael Seresin is more intrigued by life's great mysteries than he is by great dreams for himself. Yet his achievements in Europe and at home in New Zealand are significant, as ArE his disappointments.

Words: Kate Coughlan  Photographs: Paul McCredie

MICHAEL SERESIN'S MOTHER told him she knew even when he was a small boy that he would not stay in New Zealand. “She said I was ‘different’ and predicted I’d leave as soon as I could.” She was right. Michael first left New Zealand as a 22-year-old heading for Rome via a boat to Sydney, a train to Melbourne, a boat to Naples and a train to Rome. It was the 1960s when going overseas literally meant that. And he’s been sort of leaving, over and over again, ever since.

“It was a pretty flimsy decision to go to Rome actually. At the time I was an assistant cameraman [trained by John O’Shea at Pacific Films in Wellington], I’d seen a bunch of Italian films, I loved them, so I wanted to go to Italy and make films. A totally emotional decision ... Deirdre [Michael’s wife at the time] had a friend who’d gone to Rome and married an Italian businessman who was a friend of the brother of [Italian film producer] Dino de Laurentiis. I thought ‘great, I’ll go and get a job with de Laurentiis’.”

Europe wasn’t as foreign a concept to Michael as it was to many New Zealanders at that time. His father was a White Russian Jew, though born in Riga, Latvia, who came to New Zealand in 1939 when he was 19. His mother was the daughter of a shoemaker who had returned with his family from England after the 1st World War, having previously emigrated to New Zealand.

Michael’s leaving might have been inevitable but it is his coming back, again and again, that is most intriguing. Consider the following things about him and his life: he is one of the world’s most highly regarded cinematographers, sought after by leading directors; he has close relationships with ex-wives, lovers and former girlfriends including the mother of his youngest and much-adored son Misha; he also has close relationships with all his five children (aged eight to 41) and with his six grandchildren; and he owns a substantial home in London’s Little Venice and a long-term lease on a very beautiful 11th-century watermill in a village in Tuscany that is the Seresin family holiday home.

West-facing view of the 12m-high entrance to the house; wooden hand collection was found “in a decrepit antique/junk store run by a very beautiful and gentle Vietnamese lady in North Carolina. They were in a dusty box and I bought the whole lot – 37 in total. When I asked where they came from she smiled enigmatically – no answer”; a shelf along the glassed-in bridge between the living area and Michael’s bedroom holds a collection of heart-shaped stones; Michael’s studio is furnished with Arne Jacobsen ‘Egg’ and ‘Swan’ chairs,  a Robin Day rug and an ‘Akari Horn’ lamp by Noguchi.

All of this rich family and working life is firmly rooted in London and Italy where Michael says he feels, and has always felt, most culturally at home.

And here’s some of what he thinks about New Zealand: “It’s a raw and vigorous nation and fundamentally not that sophisticated. Having an espresso machine doesn’t make a culture. A lot of the stuff that passes here for culture is crap. They’re trying but fundamentally it’s not a cultured society.” Yet Michael returns time and time again to this place, the New Zealand he was so desperate to leave, and to a society that drives him to fabulously dyspeptic outbursts. This is what makes him so interesting and such great company.

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