David Stratton is one of Australia's most
respected film critics. He has served as
President of the International Critics Jury
at Cannes, and was awarded Commander
of the Order of Arts and Letters by the
French government – the country’s highest
cultural honour. In 2015 he was appointed
Member of the Order of Australia for his
service to the film industry as a critic and
as a promoter and ambassador for
Australian cinema. With Margaret
Pomeranz, he co-hosted the long-running
and very popular Movie Show on SBS and
At the Movies on ABC.
You teach a course in history of world cinema at
the Sydney University Centre for Continuing
Education - what inspired you to initiate this
course?
I've been teaching film history in the continuing
education program at Sydney University for about 25
years. It's a very strange course, that basically lasts 10
years. The idea is to attempt to look at cinema from
around the world in a chronological order, from the
very early moving pictures in 1894 to - well, we're
not going to get to the present. The last time I did the
10 year course we finished at 1980. This time we're
going a bit slower than that. We've done, I think this
is the 6th year - and we've only got to 1954 - so it's
taking a long time. But I'm trying to talk about and