Screen time
Film critic David Stratton tells Nicholas Fonseca the move from cinemas to streaming services has simply broadened our choices
LIKE any good movie critic, David Stratton is adept at taking notes – it’s part of his job, after all, given he has spent more than 50 years as Australia’s best-known film historian, lecturer and reviewer. But no doubt the most personal of all the notes he has kept across a lifetime of watching and enjoying the art form are the simple ones he jots down to remind himself when and where he would first see a film.
“I was nine or 10 when I started making note of the place and date,” Stratton says.
“I don’t know why. People have different interests and hobbies, and that was mine. It’s a fun thing to do, to look back and see the amazing variety of places where I saw these films: Prague, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Los Angeles, New York…”
Stratton’s vagabond moviegoing history is indeed a global story – one that he weaves through his latest book, My Favourite Movies, as he writes about the 111 films that are nearest to his heart. It starts with Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent masterpiece Metropolis (first seen “projected at home [on 8mm], 29 May 1961”), ends with Alfonso Cuarón’s 2018 epic Roma (“Venice Film Festival, 30 August 2018”), and features everything from old Hollywood hits like Singin’ In The Rain to blockbusters like Jaws and Aussie classics such as Picnic At Hanging Rock and Animal Kingdom in between.
In the book, Stratton recalls long lunches, chance encounters and fascinating correspondence with some of the world’s most acclaimed directors and actors, much of it facilitated by his worldwide adventures at film festivals and on movie sets.
And while his obvious love for the cinema-going experience has hardly dimmed, the 82-year-old has also come to embrace the streaming revolution, which now provides movie-lovers with more choice than ever through services like Binge, Foxtel Go, Netflix and Google Play.
“I’m hopeful that people will return to the cinema,” he says.
“It is obviously the best way to watch films that were made with an audience in mind, meant to be seen on a big screen, and enjoyed with the reaction of other people in the audience.
“Having said that, it’s possible to enjoy films on streaming.
I have a home cinema that has a screen as big as many theatrettes in town, with surround sound… so for me, a streaming film almost is a cinema experience.”
Streaming, of course, has also resurrected consumer access to thousands of old films that were lost to the ether when the era of the video store ended, and owing to the pandemic it has also meant our own home TVs are now the site for day-and- date movie premieres. Most notably, Disney’s long-awaited Marvel movie Black Widow, first set to hit cinemas in May 2020 but delayed several times owing to the pandemic, bowed July 9 on Disney+ and in cinemas (where open) around the world, just weeks after Cruella did the same here.
“You can speak in favour of both things,” argues Stratton.
“[The] Black Widow [release] – that is the future. That’s the way it’s going to be. And it gives people an opportunity, however they want to do it.
“There is a choice, and I’m in favour of the widest possible choice. The more choice, the better.”
MyFavouriteMovies by David Stratton (Allen & Unwin, $32.99) is out now