Overview
The Melbourne film community was shocked and saddened last week by the news that The Astor Theatre will soon be closing its doors. Failed negotiations between cinema owner George Florence and landlord Ralph Taranto led to the heartbreaking announcement, that The Astor will cease operations in early 2015. A representative for Taranto has since stated that the heritage-listed venue will continue to operate as a single-screen picture palace, presumably under different management. Whether this occurs, and in precisely what form, still remains to be seen.
Regardless, it seems as though The Astor we all know and love will soon be no more. With that in mind, we reached out to a few local film buffs for their memories of the iconic Melbourne cinema. The response was overwhelming. From critics and programmers, academics and film students, to the average Pulp Fiction fan, if cinema is your passion, The Astor has inevitably played a part.
From Keaton to Kubrick, no shortage of classics have lit up the giant screen since The Astor first opened in 1936. But as of the anecdotes below reveal, The Astor is about more than the films you see there. It's that distinctive calendar blu-tacked to the back of toilet doors. It's biting into the thick layer of chocolate that encased those iconic choc ices. It's catching a glimpse of Marzipan, the beloved Astor cat, now roaming the aisles of some beautiful theatre in the sky.
We're not giving up hope on The Astor just yet. The theatre has survived closure scares before, thanks in no small part to dogged community support. With a bit of luck, perhaps it can survive this one as well. If this really is the end though, consider this our eulogy.
Mel Campbell
I first went to the Astor in the mid-'90s for a double bill of Flesh Gordon and Barbarella. As a suburban teenager I felt very knowing and sophisticated to be seeing such risqué fare in public, rather than at home on VHS. What instantly impressed me was the grandeur of the place — the gorgeous carpets and interior fittings, and the huge cavern of the auditorium.
Yet the Astor simultaneously has a sense of community that's got nothing to do with the building. It's about the idiosyncratic candy bar, where choc tops are called 'choc ices', and home-style cakes and slices are sold alongside the usual cinema fare. Throughout my university career, every sharehouse worth its boho credentials had the Astor calendar on the back of the kitchen or toilet door. There's a sense of goodwill, and an electric atmosphere. Everyone is here because they love movies, not just to kill an afternoon.
And I must mention the dear departed Astor cat Marzipan. I always had a kind of starstruck celebrity crush on Marzipan, whom I'd see snoozing at the laundromat next to the theatre, or stalking around the upstairs foyer with a throng of eager fans in tow. I tried to be cool with her, like you would when meeting your favourite movie star, but whenever I patted her she had a long-suffering expression, as though enduring the downside of stardom. RIP.
Mel Campbell is a journalist and cultural critic, who has written for the likes of Junkee, Crikey and The Guardian. She's also the author of Out of Shape, a recent book about fashion and body image.
Rhett Bartlett
I met the grand lady in 1996. At that stage, she was in her 60th year and still a towering figure. The matriarch of cinemas. For a school excursion we went to experience 2001: A Space Odyssey in 70mm. You don't see films at The Astor. You experience them. I remember my English teacher was adamant he would finally be able to read what was written on the wall in the zero-gravity toilet. He couldn't.
Subsequent visits included a screening of Rear Window introduced by Hitchcock's daughter, Patricia, over the telephone. Viewing Blade Runner with my work colleagues, we called ourselves Enhance 57-19 — a line in Blade Runner when Deckard is viewing the photo of Zhora. And then, The Perfect Storm, where my mate Jeremy Mitchell pointed out to us that the helicopter rescuer identifies himself as 'Jeremy Mitchell' as he plunges into the water. We all cheered when that moment happened.
More recently, during Cinema Fiasco (a live commentary of B-Grade films) I experienced Empire of the Ants — a film about gigantic mutant insects that terrorise Joan Collins. That's the thing about The Astor. Every visit was big.
Rhett Bartlett is a critic and film historian who reviews film on ABC Radio Melbourne. He is also the classic movie trivia buff behind Dial M for Movies.
Jemima Bucknell
My first trip to the Astor was for a double feature of Al Jazeera doco Control Room and Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. It was an extra-curricular excursion for my Year 11 English class and my friend and I had arrived fairly drunk. Control Room sobered us up and Elephant brought a different sort of intoxication.
I saw the 4K master of Lawrence of Arabia in 2012 (first-time watch for me) and thought I could have fallen from the dress circle balcony into Lean’s deep frame. At intermission, I sprinted out of the theatre and across the road to try and exhaust my exhilaration. I was, for some reason, wearing a linen dressing gown.
My friend placed his hand in mine throughout Altman’s Nashville; a fleeting romance mapped out in Astor retrospectives just a couple of years ago. We talked all the way out of the theatre and the long drive home about the spiritual hypocrisy of country music.
Many thanks to the Astor team for their inspired programming. I will be back for Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and many more films in the coming months.
Jemima Bucknell is a freelance film journalist whose work has appeared at The Essential, Film Blerg and Roger Ebert. When she isn't writing about films, she's showing them as part of Screen Sect, a weekly cinematic collective at Bar Open in Fitzroy.
Al Cossar
One of the first places I lived in Melbourne was in a sharehouse a couple of blocks away from the Astor on Dandenong Road. Seeing the calendar for the first time, on the back of our toilet door for the most practical kind of perusing, argued the fact to me that where I had chosen to pack up and move was a city with a cultural lifeblood, a filmic personality, and one quite literally on my doorstep.
It had that stateliness that makes going to the movies feel like an occasion and not a transaction; programming that looked back and forward and to the side with a curious eye; the roving cats; that agreeably olden time grandeur that took you out of the wall-to-wall retail mank of adjacent Chapel Street; and yes, that Wild Berry choc ice, which is pretty much local ice cream royalty in my book.
I do remember a few nights spent there as part of the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival. They had charity galas at the Astor over several years and being in that space in a really formal way, suited up with a glass of something, hobnobbing with those more appropriately glammed up than you, always felt like [the right] way to be there in a space like that... refined and old-timey, like playing at the past.
Al Cossar has his fingers in about half the film festivals in Melbourne. As well as being a programmer at MIFF, he's also on the board at HRAFF and has previously worked for Underground Cinema, Flickerfest, and Portable Film Festival.
Richard Haridy
It's only when I really stop and think about my most influential cinematic experiences that I truly understand how important The Astor was in my development as a budding film nerd. From my first encounter with 70mm and Kubrick on the big screen with 2001, to the period I saw the restored version of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil three times over two weeks, the Astor was a profoundly important destination for me over the 1990s.
My number one most exciting memory was as a teenager experiencing my first Buster Keaton film, The General, with a live score, and truly understanding how much fun a communal shared theatrical experience can be. As well as triggering a lifelong obsession with Keaton and silent comedy, the experience affirmed how important these unique filmic moments are. Now as The Astor closes, I can only hope a younger generation can find a way to gather these memories without this wonderful picture palace around.
Richard Haridy is the Chair of the Australian Film Critics Association. He reviews film for Quickflix and ABC Radio.
Zak Hepburn
A gleaming memory of my Astor patronage over the years includes a visit for a '70s sci-fi double feature of Soylent Green and Westworld. Both presented on new 35mm Cinemascope prints, this was a chance to witness some key slices of '70s future paranoia cinema on the big screen. From memory, only a small crowd of true believers showed up, but for me, Westworld remains a key title in my filmic lexicon.
The story of a futuristic theme park where the attractions begin attacking the guests, it's lean, mean and has a nihilistic nasty streak that few major studio releases have today. Being able to view a pristine celluloid presentation of mechanical humanoids going insane and murdering holidaying yuppies is a rare gift — one that I know I will remember fondly.
Perhaps one day, a group of scientists might create a futuristic theme park for nostalgic film lovers, featuring a single screen picture palace. It could be a place for fans to reminisce on what we are losing; a place for our cinema-loving hearts to feel safe; a place, to quote the famous tag line of Westworld, where nothing can possibly go worng.
Zak Hepburn is a critic and programmer who can be seen discussing the latest releases on ABC News Breakfast, or at any one one of the numerous film events he programs around town.
Diana Sandars
Memories of The Astor are inextricably bound up with memories of love. Love for my partner Damian; love of my first car, especially its fins; love of our art deco furniture; love of being in favour with the tabby cat who lived there; love of the thrill of watching film noir in a theatre older than the film itself; love of the candy bar ads from the 1930s; love of the reassuring sound of Damian’s feet as he returned to our seats ready for the next film to commence; love of the homemade choc tops which made the mass-produced cones of chain cinemas look like an embarrassing misunderstanding.
But one night, a man appeared seated five seats down from me in the front row of the balcony. For the entire film I was overwhelmed by the scent of lavender. I couldn’t concentrate on the film because I was obsessed with where this smell was coming from. I kept pestering my mum and Damian, seated on either side of me, so I expect they couldn’t concentrate either. At intermission my mother went to the snack bar for us and eventually bounded back with an older man in tow, and announced, "Mystery solved! I found where that lavender smell was coming from."
Dressed like Humphrey Bogart in a trench coat, but bearing no further similarities, the very unassuming man reached out his hand and introduced himself, "Hello! They call me the Lavender Man, because I always smell of lavender." He eagerly explained that he spent hours in a lavender bath every day. Oh yes, he did! He explained that he lived down the street from The Astor and did not own a TV, so he would buy a book of tickets and come every night to watch two films. The Astor was his lounge room. Big screen movies every night with the same family members behind the box office, projector and candy counter.
Dr Diana Sandars lectures at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and is an honorary fellow at the University of Melbourne where she teaches a course on Contemporary Film and Cultural Theory.
Lee Zachariah
There are too many great memories associated with The Astor. Repeatedly seeing Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in 35mm and then 70mm. Marzipan, the late but beloved Astor cat, unexpectedly jumping up onto my lap in the final, tension-ridden scene of Antonioni’s Blow Up. Attending the staple Dead Man / Lost Highway double at 16 and being unable to sleep for the next three days.
As Australia’s greatest repertory cinema, it cared not for release dates and the box office: only for playing the best films from history in the best format possible. Its beautiful art deco surroundings only enhanced the experience, as it mixed the best parts of the old with the best of the new: technology and history mixing in the most perfect balance ever. The prospect of the building and the business decoupling is a horrible. The Astor was and is Australia’s most important cinematic institution.
Lee Zachariah is one half of The Bazura Project and one half of the Hell Is For Hyphenates film podcast. He has also written for the likes of Vice, Junkee, The Big Issue, and a little publication called Concrete Playground.
Photo credits: ginnerobot and Khánh Hmoong via photopin cc.