Laurence Barber 

David and Margaret – the head and heart of Australian film culture

They’ll be missed. Stratton’s long career gave him enviable knowledge and Pomeranz could strike to the core of a film
  
  

Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton
Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton: There’s a good reason they are known to all by their first names – their criticism never sought to alienate viewers. Photograph: AAP

The news that At The Movies hosts Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton are retiring, announced by the ABC on Tuesday, is a huge blow to the Australian film industry, and to film lovers.

Their partnership began with The Movie Show on SBS in 1986, shifting to the ABC in its current form in 2004. Starting with a tiny budget and no audience, The Movie Show was built almost entirely on the back of its presenters’ personalities and reputations (not to mention the hard-working crews they have always been quick to credit).

Many Australian filmgoers will find it difficult to remember a time without Margaret and David on television. Their weekly presence in lounge rooms has always emanated warmth and familiarity. There’s a good reason they are known to all by their first names – their criticism never sought to alienate viewers. First and foremost, their hope was to engage audiences with the art of cinema.

If film is part of the cultural connective tissue that binds us together, David and Margaret were our head and our heart. Stratton’s long career as a critic and journalist gave him an enviable knowledge of film, cemented by his incredible stint as director of the Sydney film festival from 1966 to 1983 (during which time he was, hilariously, monitored by Asio for showing Soviet films). It was easy to forget this when watching him on television, even in his more lovably high-minded moments.

Pomeranz, on the other hand, more than readily acknowledges her contrasting role of the lay person. Having started out as a producer, Pomeranz’s reviews often favoured a more emotional, gut-level and notably feminist perspective. She has the ability to strike to the core of what a film is about and offer it to audiences in a way that can help them unlock it. Her inimitable sense of fashion and glorious laugh became her trademarks.

But it was their partnership that made them a force of nature. Almost everyone might describe themselves as “more of a David” or “more of a Margaret”, and there may never be a running joke in Australian film culture as endlessly fun as trading ratings back and forth in faux-Margaret and David banter: “I’m giving it two stars.” “Oh, I disagree. I’m giving it four.”

It was often a game in itself to guess which side of any given film the duo might fall in disagreement. But for the cause of Australian cinema they were most often united. At the Movies has long been considered incredibly valuable to filmmakers and distributors for shedding light on homegrown and niche foreign productions that might otherwise struggle to find an audience.

The pair’s tireless campaigning against censorship has been a huge boon to Australian film culture. Pomeranz made headlines in 2003 after helping to organise a screening of the banned film Ken Park, with Stratton joining in her slamming Australian censorship bodies and then attorney general Daryl Williams for refusing the film classification (a practice which, sadly, still occurs).

The accessibility of At The Movies is one of its greatest qualities. As newspaper film criticism has declined in breadth and reach, the internet has allowed film criticism to become more diverse, but none of it will ever attain the singularity of Margaret and David.

I – and many other film critics in Australia who have found their voice in the past few years, or even decades – would be lying if we said we had never aspired to a chair on the set.

Watching the show was an enormous part of what inspired me to become a critic.

That the ABC is ending the show is both understandable and a crushing shame. All the disparate elements that comprise the Australian film industry, from regular viewers to the biggest stars, owe a little something to Margaret and David. It’s impossible to think of anyone taking their place, and our cinemas will feel awfully empty without them on their thrones.

 

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