Salt of the earth

Roger Donaldson has remained fascinated by Munro.

It's a long way from New Zealand to New Orleans, but for nomadic film director Roger Donaldson, it's all part of a long and winding road, which may eventually see him return home.

With houses in Los Angeles and Auckland and a vineyard outside Queenstown, Donaldson is reaping the rewards of life as a successful Hollywood film-maker. This week he started shooting in New Orleans for his new movie The Hungry Rabbit Jumps, starring Nicolas Cage and Guy Pearce. But his thoughts are never far from home - and a particular fascination that has shaped his life.

His latest thriller, about a man driven to vigilante action after a brutal attack on his wife, will see him living in the famous city for the next 10 weeks.

But even while immersed in the hothouse of a film shoot, 64-year-old Donaldson has time to talk about the character who has fired his imagination more than any other since the 1970s - Southland motorcycle racer Burt Munro.

It's four years since his film The World's Fastest Indian premiered in Invercargill, but Donaldson is clearly not finished with Munro. He has now compiled a photographic "scrapbook" of the racer's colourful life, including transcripts of interviews with friends and family, motor-racing colleagues and the man himself.

Lavishly produced, and littered with snapshots, postcards and newspaper clippings from Munro's own scrapbooks as well as stunning images from Utah's Bonneville salt flats years of the 50s, 60s and 70s, the book is a personal glimpse into the life of the man who lived to ride fast.

Some of the most revealing stories come from Munro himself in interviews Donaldson recorded for his 1973 documentary Offerings to the God of Speed. Munro describes his early experiments in building and exploding bombs and the construction of a cannon, which he used to blow holes in trees, packing cases and to dispatch an old cattle dog.

"I don't remember Fly's funeral," Munro recalls. "But she died awful fast."

Some of the tales will raise eyebrows about this man who lived life very much on his own terms.

"He was a bit of a wild man," Donaldson admits. "But it was a different time. Even I remember when the hardware stores would sell blasting powder to kids."

Donaldson reckons Munro would have been a character best experienced in "small doses".

"But he was a very entertaining and talented genius, and also a great raconteur. Those things which I found captivating about him were his enormous sense of optimism for life. He was never cynical and he was very proud of where he came from and how much he had achieved with so little."

Donaldson has met some interesting characters in his more than 30 years as a film-maker, but none has fascinated him as much as Munro.

"There was a philosophical side to him it seems to me, although he didn't seem to be a philosopher. If you are looking for the meaning of life, Burt Munro seemed to have found it."

Despite losing a lot of material when his original house burned down, Munro's life is still remarkably well-documented. Does Donaldson believe he was aware of his own legend?

"It was pretty contained," says Donaldson, of the circles Munro moved in. "They were an exclusive bunch that not many knew about. The movie opened up the world to who Burt Munro was, plus being inducted into the American Motorcycle Association's Hall of Fame." Among the many great pictures in the book is a 1969 snapshot of Donaldson himself in a leather coat and Doc Marten boots, astride an Army Indian with sidecar. He understands the allure of motorcycles and speed, although regrets he doesn't have a bike anymore.

His riding days may be over, but the thrill of making movies, since the early maverick days of Sleeping Dogs and Smash Palace, has never waned.

"The excitement of making those early movies, I remember it vividly. I haven't grown cynical."

Although firmly established in Hollywood, Donaldson says the year or so he spent in New Zealand making The World's Fastest Indian gave him a yearning to work in this country again, and to make "more personal" films. So, is there any particular New Zealand story he'd like to make?

"The Ed Hillary story," he says.

"That's one real-life character - you could clearly make a film of his life. He was amazing." Donaldson isn't saying much more about it, but the prospect is a thrilling one. The World's Highest Beekeeper? You read it here first.

* The World's Fastest Indian: Burt Munro A Scrapbook of His Life by Roger Donaldson is out in stores now; RRP$55 (Random House New Zealand).