Life and Career
Born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England in 1939, Stratton was sent to Hampshire to see out the war years with his grandmother, an avid filmgoer, where he was taken to the local cinemas regularly and saw a diverse range of movies. He saw his first foreign film at Bath in 1955 – the Italian Bread, Love and Dreams. That was soon followed by Akira Kurosawa's Japanese classic Seven Samurai tracked down in Birmingham. At the age of 19, he founded the Melksham and District Film Society. David arrived in Australia in 1963, and soon became involved with the local film society movement. He directed the Sydney Film Festival from 1966 until 1983.
A highly regarded expert on international cinema, particularly French cinema, Stratton was President of FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) Juries in Cannes (twice) and Venice. He was also a member of the jury at the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival in 1982.
Stratton worked for SBS from 1980, acting as their film consultant and introducing the SBS Cinema Classic and Movie of the Week for 24 weeks a year. From 1986 onwards Stratton co-hosted the long-running SBS TV program The Movie Show with Margaret Pomeranz. Stratton and Pomeranz left SBS in 2004. From 2005 Stratton and Pomeranz have co-hosted the ABC film show, At the Movies.
Stratton has cited on numerous occasions that his favourite film of all time is Singin' in the Rain. He currently writes reviews for The Australian newspaper and formerly did so for the US film industry magazine Variety. He also does film reviews for TV Week, where he has been for a number of years. He lectures in film history at the University of Sydney. In 2008 he released his autobiography called I Peed on Fellini, a reference to a drunken attempt to shake Federico Fellini's hand while using a urinal.
Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz have played an important role in challenging the often heavy-handed decisions of the Australian Classification Office throughout their career.
Read more about this topic: David Stratton
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