Parenting & Family Quote by Phillip Noyce

Noyce is talking like a director who knows the fastest way to ruin a “natural” performance is to start treating children like puppets. The line is a defense of restraint: don’t over-rehearse, don’t over-explain, don’t paste adult psychology onto kids who already move through the world with their own logic. “Just letting them be” is a craft choice, but it’s also a posture of humility - a recognition that the camera can do harm when it demands clarity, polish, and control.

The subtext gets thornier when he moves from performance into culture: “in touch with nature and traditional aboriginal culture” and, especially, “unique spirituality.” That phrasing carries a double edge. On one hand, it signals respect for an interior life Hollywood has historically ignored or caricatured. On the other, it flirts with a familiar romantic frame: Indigenous children as inherently spiritual, closer to nature, usable as vessels of authenticity. “Capture” is the giveaway verb - tender, but extractive-sounding, as if the film’s job is to harvest something ineffable and present it for an outside audience.

In context, Noyce’s comment reflects a broader era of Australian and international filmmaking that wanted to correct past erasures while still operating inside a market that rewards “authenticity” as a feeling. The intent is protection and truthfulness; the risk is turning lived culture into aesthetic atmosphere, where spirituality becomes something the film collects rather than something the community defines.