be shown, on a big screen in darkness, so you don't
have the distractions you would have at home. The
phone's not going to ring, the dog's not going to come
and want to be taken for a walk, all those sorts of
things that happen when you're watching a film at
home... That doesn't happen to me because I close
off, I have a dedicated area, nobody's going to come
in, and its projected, so it's the way it should be seen.
I don't count my own experience, but for many other
people I imagine, you could be sitting down and
watching it on television, and there's all kinds of
distractions - for one thing it's not really dark...
But having said that, going to the cin ema these days
can be a trial, because of mobile phones. I think
people have become so rude, and so selfish in the way
they use mobile phones. Even if they're not actually
talking on them, they're texting on them, and the light
is shining, and it's incredibly annoying. Don't tell me
you can't wait for an hour and a half or two hours to
send your text until the film is over... I think half the
time they're actually texting oh, I'm watching this film
and there's this terrible scene... STOP IT! I hate that,
I just hate that with a passion... Maybe it is better to
see films at home sometimes...
Is there any film that you've reviewed that you
later changed your opinion about when you
watched again?
No. Not changed my opinion, maybe seen in another
way... the film Australia was shown to the media a
few days before it opened, and there was just one
media screening at the Event cinemas in George
Street. It was crowded with people, it was all a big
deal, they took away your mobile phones... and I saw
its qualities but I didn't really warm to it. It was a bit
embarrassing, because I came out of the cinema, and
Nicole Kidman's publicist was waiting there. She said
I've got Nicole on the phone, and she wants to ask
you what you thought of the film (because I was
interviewing her the next day) ... then maybe nine
months later I got the Blu-ray, and I watched it at
home, where the projection is fantastically good, it's a
big screen, the sound is fantastic, I was seeing it with
just a few friends at home - and it was a hundred
times better... it actually looked and sounded much,
much better.
It's sometimes said that Australian critics are too
kind when they review Australian films. Do you
agree with that?
It's an accusation that's often made, it was made all
the time when we were on television. I think there's
some truth to it. I would defend it by saying that the
Australian film industry is a small and a struggling
film industry, and basically, I would be more
concerned about being very, very critical of
Australian films than I would be about an American
film, or a French film, or whatever, so I would really
think deeply about it... I have to do that sometimes, I
mean there have been a few Australian films lately
that I haven't liked... there's one I have to write a
review of for the Australian in a couple of weeks
time, which I wish I liked more than I did, but I don't
like it all that much...
I think Australian cinema needs support, because it's a
struggling cinema. I also enjoy hearing Australian
accents, seeing films in Australian settings, because
we see so many American films. It's nice to have our
own stories, to feel at home when you're watching a
movie. That makes me fool good, to watch an
Australian film. But on the other hand there's a
danger, because it's such a small industry that you
tend to know people. It's very hard to be in this
industry without knowing - I don't say knowing them
really well or intimately or anything like that - but
you know film directors and you know actors. You
might have known them for years, and you basically
like them, so you don't want to attack their work,
because you know that for the most part what they've
made they've really struggled to make. It's not like
Hollywood where it's relatively easy, Australian films
are made with a big struggle usually. So for all those
reasons I think maybe we do, we are more tolerant of
Australian films, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
See further details on David Stratton's course,
A History of World Cinema at the Centre for
Continuing Education, the University of Sydney
at:
www.cce.sydney.edu.au/course/AHWC
Special thanks to Jessica Khoury of the Lebanese
Film Festival:
www.lff.org.au