This kind of thing seems to represent a low ebb in Australian cinemas... I don't know why I thought that, because the more I look at it the more amazing it seems.
The Adventures of Barry McKenzie is
the only just one of the really interesting films here (in terms of its context, and the way it's promoted) though it is most unusual to consider what the promotion of an Andy Warhol film in a mainstream cinema might mean.
Although I should not make pronouncements on
Family Life* which I've never heard of and it's surprising to think it lasted 6 months at the Rivoli Twin 2, but that's nothing compared to
Bedroom Mazurka's extraordinary success. And look at the late shows.
So I guess essentially the Village Cinemas are finding most profit in either porn or films that some can take for porn, and in the case of
Barry McKenzie, bawdy satire. They should have a
40th anniversary of 1973 day at Village, and rerun all these films for one day only at whatever of the cinemas still exist... except I just looked through them again and almost none of them do... where the hell was the Albany?!**
This is interesting in context of the above.
* It's either this or this (probably more likely the second one, a Ken Loach film).
**220 Collins Street, apparently, but I still don't remember it at all.
1 comment:
Appositely, this blog post came to mind when I was at the cinema the other day.
I was attending a Jean Luc Godard retrospective. I had come for Alphaville, but the ticket included the following JLG short and 1975 film Numéro Deux.
I don't mind an 'art' film, I don't mind a film with lots of innovation despite its inherent incongruity, but I do not have time for film to be used as an excuse to slather and demean intimacy across the screen for gratuitous thrills.
Call me old fashioned, but we walked out. It seems, however, that the majority of the audience found this type of on screen behaviour palatable. They would probably be interested in some of the items on your blog post. Perhaps little has changed, or perhaps people lose sight of beauty for salacious material hiding behind the guise of Nouvelle Vague. Vague art indeed. Hardly a new wave, in this case, at all.
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