ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE

I had a poster in my bedroom, a photo taken at the time of “The Last Movie” (Dennis Hopper, 1971). I was unaware of this film, all I saw was an angry bearded man in denim, smoking a cigarette and holding an automatic rifle. He reminded me of Karl Marx and Charles Manson.

The by-line copy at the bottom of the poster, “Dennis Hopper is THE AMERICAN DREAMER and the camera is the weapon” triggered something, but I was unsure what.

I needed to soak up some film culture and Chris and I went to see the original Tobe Hooper “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” at the Barrel cinema in the city. The theatre was like a smoky bus inside, one claustrophobic aisle with three seats on both sides, the screen a two-metre postage stamp. If a tall patron entered, his head blocked the screen. I was told to “Get out of it” by some film buff.

The Barrel had been a strip joint/flicker palace and rub shop. Some entrepreneur had gone cultural and decided to screen real films, but with the reels looped, so there was never a break in the session. The film just played on and on, you bought a ticket and walked in, watched until the end and then kept watching through the beginning, up to whatever point you got bored.

You could stay there all day and watch it six times.

I went alone to see “Sweet Movie” at the Valhalla in Victoria Street, Richmond. It was a grand edifice that some hippy had taken over to screen golden oldies like “Lost Horizon” and “Casablanca”, animation festivals, surfing docos and head movies like a Jodorowsky epic or a Fellini marathon.

“Sweet Movie” is a weird ass French saga of a deranged cult of regurgitating murderers that live in a barge along the river Seine, led by a woman who sleeps in a box of sugar and abducts children with candy. Sounds like a film shoot to me.

The movie had started when a guy with a huge Afro haircut came in and sat right in front of me, when there were hundreds of empty seats and hardly anyone else in the theatre. I had to move. The Valhalla survived for decades on their eternal Saturday night screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. 

Put your hands on your hips! No thanks.

Anthony Kitchener took me to see “Eraserhead” (David Lynch, 1977). The image seemed very dark because the projector globe was dim, and we left after fifteen minutes of the scariest film and sound I’d ever experienced. Anthony took me back a week later and it had the same impact in all its black and white glory.

After completing my graphic design diploma, I opted to transfer to the post graduate film course.