Rusty Miller (left) and Stephen Cooney

The year was 1971. The place Bali. Two men stood on a reef, holding their surfboards, facing the ocean. They were about to surf a break no-one had ever surfed before. Its name: Uluwatu.

The surf beyond them was a heart-stopping eight to 10 feet and it seemed, at first sight, that the waves just kept coming.

The scene, which later graced the movie poster for Morning of the Earth, would become an iconic image for thousands of surfers across the globe. It would also become the calling card for Bali and begin Australia's love affair with the island.

As they stood looking seaward, the man on the left, Rusty Miller, recalls that he was captivated, but at the same time aware that he had a much bigger task at hand: "I was thinking, how do we get out? I mean, I knew how we'd get out, but keep in mind there was no duck-diving and no leg ropes."

To his right stood 15-year-old Stephen Cooney with a board not much bigger than himself at five feet, nine inches. Cooney's head was also full of thoughts, as he explains in his autobiography Unearthed: "The villagers who gathered on the cliffs made clear their concerns about us going into the waves citing bad spirits and dangerous waters."

But talking to Cooney about the situation, he clearly wasn't going to be put off.

"All I ever wanted to do was surf, that was my whole mantra," he says. "So the idea of paddling out in these conditions was really exciting for me — and Rusty was there, so he was great company, particularly on those bigger days."

He pauses at this point and then goes on: "In big waves, you're always a little bit edgy. And I'd have to admit on that day, that first big day, I was definitely a little edgy."

Lots of surf, but no surfers

There was a lot at play here. Above them on the cliff stood filmmaker Albe Falzon. He was the man who had brought them here. With luck this would form a key segment for the film he was shooting.

Why did he choose Bali? "Bali found me," he says, laughing.

"Asia was off my radar. I was a surfer, my focus was on Hawaii. David Elfick [his business partner] ended up with a couple of tickets.

"He'd met a surfer — Russell Hughes — when he'd come back to Australia after a trip through Asia. [Russell] ended up in Bali and what he saw was no surfers and all this surf … next thing, we were on a plane."

It didn't take Falzon long to be converted to Bali. "Within a day or two, I said, 'This is amazing'. The people, the land, the ocean — It just blew me away."

As Rusty Miller and Stephen Cooney paddled out through the gap in the reef and the breaking waves, Miller was taken by the amount of life in the water.

"The ocean was literally teaming … there was a lot happening," he says. 

"There were dugongs, sharks and whales and there were all these fishermen. There were Balinese fishermen coming out past us in their boats."

Was Falzon worried about the surf and the two people making their way out?

"No, I was totally exhilarated," he says. "Stephen in his youth was totally capable, and with Rusty, he was in good hands."

For the Balinese standing on the cliffs, this must have seemed like magic. Cooney recalls taking off on a wave and hearing a noise coming from the cliff tops.

"They were very excited," he says. "At times they'd be on the cliff, and when you took off on a wave they'd start yelling and then they'd yell for the period of time you were on the wave and then there was dead silence."

The sequences Falzon captured of the two surfing Uluwatu were coupled with slices of Balinese life onshore. There were fishermen pulling sharks up on the beach at Kuta and locals betting on a cock fight.

All of them added to Bali's allure. And what an allure the island had.

Surfing's Garden of Eden

In 2019, the last year before COVID-19 made it practically impossible to travel internationally, 1.23 million Australians visited Bali. 

For the past two years, the pandemic has left the Balinese — particularly those who relied on surfing and tourism — in a bad way. Falzon hopes the situation will change when borders reopen and people will have work again.

The surfing sequences were cut with scenes showing Balinese life onshore

As the 50th anniversary of the movie's release approaches, does he ever have second thoughts about exposing Bali and changing so profoundly the way the people live?

"Ultimately it was going to happen," he says. "It was only a matter of time before it happened. Surfers are travellers. I don't see it in a negative or destructive way, however, I had no idea how expansive it was going to be."

The movie, of course, would focus not just on Bali but also on the north coast of New South Wales and Hawaii. In the words of the film, this was "a fantasy of surfers living in three unspoiled lands and playing in natures oceans". 

Falzon was very clear about the message he wanted the film to convey.

"You'll notice if you look at the movie there are no cars, no power poles, no sense of man-made intrusion," he says. "That was quite deliberate."

In that sense, it was an idea ahead of its time. It focused on the environment and the natural beauty it displayed. It showed surfers to a Garden of Eden, unspoiled by human hand.

What you also see is a film without a narrator. For anyone used to American surf films with corny voice overlay and humorous sketches, this was something quite different.

A soundtrack for the surf

The music in the film tells the story. Falzon and Elfick had heard a song produced by G. Wayne Thomas. They went to see him at Warner Brothers Records and asked him to create the music for their film.

For what would become one of Australia's best selling soundtrack albums, Thomas enlisted a who's who of Australian and New Zealand artists to celebrate the idea of leaving the city, living simply and surfing.

The opening scene depicts a massive rolling wave filmed in slow motion at Winkipop in Victoria as the movie's theme song, Morning of the Earth — sounding like a secular hymn — tells the story of earth's creation:

"The forces of the universe and the elements of space, conjured up your beauty your size, your style, your shape."

How much interaction was there between the filmmaker and the musicians? Well not as much as you might think, says G. Wayne Thomas.

"I saw some of the sequences that were going to be used to open the movie and those sequences inspired the words for the song," he says. 

Of course, back in late 1971, as the movie was being edited and coupled with the songs, there were still questions. How would they get the movie to its imagined audience and how would the audience react?

Falzon explains that they went to the major film distributors and offered them the movie. Rejections followed. Instead, they hired the Manly Silver Screen themselves.

Then came a major poster campaign to let people know a screening would happen on the night of February 25th. It was a major gamble and on the first night Elfick, Falzon and Thomas held their breath and watched the crowd arrive at the theatre.

"I looked around and I had family, friends and every surfer I knew. It was a pretty amazing moment. The lights were going off but going on at the same time," Falzon says, laughing at the memory.

"That was a moment for me about how important film was. I didn't need to stay there. I went outside and G. Wayne was there [smoking], full of anxiety."

Inside the theatre, Cooney was sitting in the aisle. As the movie played he watched spellbound. His eyes, though, were giving him trouble after a day of surfing.

He found trying to focus his eyes made him cry. When the credits rolled his friends took one look at him and thought he'd been overcome with emotion. He laughs about it now.

"Watching it, I had absolutely no doubts about the quality and the artistic value of Morning of the Earth," he says. "Before I saw it, I didn't have any doubt whatsoever that it was going to be good."

An enduring legacy

Looking back at the scene and watching the movie today, it's hard to know how anyone doubted its impact.

Surfers enjoy the surfing, but the celebration of being at one with nature has a universal appeal. It consistently ranks in the top five surfing movies of all time.

The experience had a profound influence on all the people involved.

Rusty Miller, having witnessed the Balinese Hindu spirituality, says it forever changed the way he experiences nature.

"Their Hinduism is animistic — so that trees and animals are alive with a spiritual quality. As a result of Bali, I really do believe in magic," he says. 

Stephen Cooney, who would later become a journalist at Tracks and witness the surf industry become big business, looks back fondly on the film — both then and now.

"I'm flattered to still be involved in the whole exercise. I was just one of the characters in the film. It was a real honour," he says. 

The final word about Morning of the Earth, though, should go to its creator, Falzon. He believes its message is still relevant: "It is about the earth," he says.

"We are at a critical point. The end result is it's about the planet that we live on. We have to tread lightly because it's our home. It's a beautiful planet and I want to keep it that way."

© Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.

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