Summary
An examination of the relationship between Australian film and culture, even if this particular documentary struggles to find a balance between a subject and his passions.
“I can’t imagine a life without film,” muses David Stratton. The opposite is true as well. Having been on our screens since the 1980s, it’s hard to sit through a local release without wondering ‘what would David think?’ Indeed, for those of us who attend regular media screenings, he’s a familiar face in a suit who takes meticulous notes in the dark.
As with his 2008 autobiography I Peed on Fellini, this documentary is both an overview of Stratton’s life as a young British immigrant who fell in love with Australian cinema and an exploration of those films that inspired him.
There’s a tension at the heart of DAVID STRATTON: A CINEMATIC LIFE, a film that is both narrated by Stratton and ostensibly about the titular critic. His to-camera pieces are witty and natural, as are the series of interviews with the likes of Gilliam Armstrong, George Miller, Sigrid Thornton, and the late Paul Cox. It robs the film of some level of objectivity, as a string of people are wheeled out to praise the critic (with the possible exception of Romper Stomper‘s Geoffrey Wright) in between his own narrative recollections.
The piece is at its strongest when it is a potted celebration of the cinema of Stratton’s adoptive home. A tireless champion of Australian film, filmmaker Sally Aitken’s documentary also acts a potted history of Antipodean films. From The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), through Jedda (1955), Mad Max (1979) and more modern fare like Samson and Delilah (2009). A baffling amount of time is spent on 1988’s Evil Angels, arguing against it going down as one-line joke in cinema history.
The documentary depicts a man who is happy to be stuck in the past, from his regularly updated card catalogue to his sense of style that former co-host Margaret Pomeranz teases incessantly. A comment from actress Jackie Weaver included in the film for laughs, that “these days…too many bozos give their opinions” on the Internet implies that this documentary endorses this opinion too. It’s a shame because there is a discipline to be learned from Stratton’s life story, just without the air of condescension that shines through from this approach.
There’s a three-part version of this documentary set to screen on the ABC in May, and this may overcome some of the issues present here. As it stands the theatrical version of DAVID STRATTON: A CINEMATIC LIFE doesn’t give either a complete picture of Stratton’s life nor a thorough examination of Australian cinema. At the very least, it will have you scrambling to watch more Australian movies.
