David Stratton Says Film Can Be Very Cumbersome And Expensive

“I’m so grateful that films like Lawrence Of Arabia and 2001 will be shown in cinemas, where they were meant to be seen."

“When it comes down to it, it’s basically just a lot of films I like,” Stratton admits of the festival. His particular predilections, in the program, come with an obvious love for the Powell-Pressburger partnership, of which he’s selected four films: Black Narcissus, I Know Where I’m Going, The Red Shoes and The Tales Of Hoffman. There’s also Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, a film much-maligned and career-damaging on its release. “I was living in England in 1960, and I very well remember that Peeping Tom and Psycho came out at almost the same time, within a couple of weeks of each other,” Stratton recounts. “The British press, who had revered Michael Powell and Alfred Hitchcock as ‘Great British Directors’, were appalled that these two great men would make these two films that they saw as sleazy and sordid. And Peeping Tom, because it came out second, got even worse reviews.”

Another “interesting sub-section” are those films — Fred Zinnemann’s A Man For All Seasons, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, James Ivory’s A Room With A View, Ang Lee’s Sense And Sensibility (“You never would’ve picked [him] to be someone to adapt Jane Austen based on his Taiwanese films”) and Robert Altman’s Gosford Park — made by foreign filmmakers. The idea of what constitutes a ‘British’ film is up for discussion (Slumdog Millionaire was largely shot in Mumbai), especially given that assembling the program proved easy because, Stratton explains, “the great irony is, all these British films, these days, are owned by a French company. At some point, Studiocanal, bought them all up”.

While the death of celluloid projection has many worrying it’ll mean the death of repertory cinemas, Stratton isn’t mourning the change (“Back when I was running the Sydney Film Festival, having to carry the bloody things in my hands, I’m all too aware that film is a very cumbersome, expensive thing to deal with”) and feels grateful that a festival like his can still find a place in theatres. “I’m so grateful that films like Lawrence Of Arabia and 2001 will be shown in cinemas, where they were meant to be seen. You can’t really say you’ve seen those films unless you’ve seen them on the big screen. I think it’s important that you still have the opportunity to do that, and we have to be grateful that we still do have that opportunity.”