Sydney August 2015, in conversation with Jessica Khoury for ArtView
Distribution is incredibly difficult, and it's still really
up in the air about ways of seeing films. There is an
increasing situation at the moment where some small,
niche films are not getting a regular release at all, but
they're being shown in special screenings, maybe with
a Q&A, and in that way they hope they might get a
big crowd along, and maybe they'll only show it twice
like that in Sydney and twice in Melbourne, and that's
all it's going to get, without a normal release. More
people might see it like that than if it went into a
cinema for a week or two. So it's a very difficult time
for distributors.
Do you watch any television series?
I don't. I would like to in principle, because people
tell me there's a lot of good things happening in
television at the moment, but I really don't have time.
Because I have to pretty much keep up with the new
films, and then working on lectures as I tend to do
most weekends, I'm re-watching all the films that I'm
about to discuss in the lecture. With all of that I don't
have time - however, because I like Jane Campion, I
did watch Top of the Lake - and I was deeply
disappointed, deeply disappointed... I'm sure all
television series are not like that, but Top of the Lake
seemed to be a film of let's say roughly an hour and
three-quarters stretched out to six hours... I couldn't
believe it! I mean Jane Campion is a terrific
filmmaker, and this was so sluggish, and so boring,
and so... incredibly disappointing. I have no real
desire to watch, because I think they're just padded
out to stretch out to... but maybe they're not, I don't
know. That's the only one I've seen.
There are some TV series that have had a lot of
critical success, including a personal favourite of
mine, Breaking Bad...
So they tell me. I've got it sitting on my shelf at home,
and I haven't watched it. One of these days, when I
have time...
Do you think it's still important for people to view
films in the cinema, rather than at home?
I do, because films are made to be seen by an
audience. I think nothing beats seeing a film with an
attentive audience projected in the way it's meant to