John Colin Monash Bennett (1929 – 23 February 2022) was an Australian film critic, best known for his long tenure at ''The Age'' newspaper. He was a critic at ''The Age'' from 1955 until 1980 and was thus very influential in cinema culture of Melbourne. Bennett played a key role in the

Melbourne International Film Festival The Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) is an annual film festival held over three weeks in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It was founded in 1952 and is one of the oldest film festivals in the world following the founding of the Venic ...

and

Australian Film Institute The Australian Film Institute (AFI) was founded in 1958 as a non-profit organisation devoted to developing an active film culture in Australia and fostering engagement between the general public and the Cinema of Australia, Australian film indu ...

Biography

Bennett started his career as a cadet at ''The Age''. He worked for a number of years in England where he began reviewing films. When Bennett returned to Australia he resumed work at ''The Age'' and became its film critic. After leaving ''The Age'' Bennett set up a riding school with his wife.

Australian films

Bennett was highly critical of Australian films throughout his career. He called ''

Dust in the Sun Dust is made of fine particles of solid matter. On Earth, it generally consists of particles in the atmosphere that come from various sources such as soil lifted by wind (an aeolian process), volcanic eruptions, and pollution. Dust in hom ...

'' "barely competent technically and dreadfully leaden in its pace" and said "as the only feature film Australia can show in years, it will not do." Bennett took part in a famous feud with

Tim Burstall Timothy Burstall AM (20 April 1927 – 19 April 2004) was an English Australian film director, writer and producer, best known for hit Australian movie '' Alvin Purple'' (1973) and its sequel '' Alvin Rides Again'' (1974). Burstall's films f ...

where he criticised Burstall's debut feature '' Two Thousand Weeks''. Fellow critic

David Stratton David James Stratton (born 1939) is an English-Australian film critic and historian. He has also worked as a journalist, interviewer, educator, television personality, and producer. His career as a film critic, writer, and educator in Austral ...

wrote Bennett's "attitude was unbearably righteous and helped create a climate in which a good film could be destroyed." Bennett wrote that ''Wake in Fright'' was "the strongest and most savage comment on Australia ever put in film" but felt it "had no finesse, few nuancies or subtleties." Bennett called the film ''Don's Party'' "very funny" but felt "there was nothing very much at its centre" in which the characters "emerge largely as types." He admired the "professionalism" of ''The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith'' but qualified, "one is still left questioning this particular story's relevance today, apart from the spreading of guilt and self loathing amongst its white audiences."

Appraisal

Fellow critic

called Bennett "inflexible in his standards and makes few allowances for the specific problems of Australian film making". Anthony Ginnane called him "very much a proponent of the ''Sight and Sound'' school of English criticism which pre-dated ''Movie'' and the auteur theory".

David Williamson David Keith Williamson (born 1942) is an Australian playwright, who has also written screenplays and teleplays. He became known in the early 1970s with his political comic drama '' Don's Party'', and other well-known plays include '' The Clu ...

wrote that Bennett "dislikes intensely anything vulgar, escapist, ocker or entertaining, and wishes he hadn’t been born in Australia, hoping that we'll all transform ourselves as rapidly as possible into small-'l' liberals like himself so that he can cease being ashamed of his origins... There is such a strong correlation between a good Colin Bennett crit and disaster at the box-office that certain Australian film producers get very nervous if he views their product favourably."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennett, Colin Australian film critics Australian journalists Australian male journalists 1929 births 2022 deaths