Man of the Cinema – A Tribute to John Flaus at 90

This program celebrates one of the true legends of Australian screen culture, John Flaus, who turns 90 in April this year. It also marks a little over 70 years since the start of Flaus’ involvement in “cinema” in Australia. His life in cinema demonstrates his extraordinary contribution as a scholar, teacher, poet, cinephile, actor, broadcaster, mentor, writer, script advisor and much in-demand voiceover artist. He has also been a significant influence on several generations of Australian film scholars, film buffs, cinephiles and filmmakers. A great friend and supporter of the Melbourne Cinémathèque, Flaus’ peripatetic career across the Australian film and television industries is, inevitably, very difficult to document and describe. For many of us in Melbourne he is most fondly remembered as the host, with Paul Harris, of the legendary Film Buffs Forecast on 3RRR throughout the 1980s.

John has also been a constant presence on television and cinema screens in Australia for 50 years – making over 100 appearances in films and TV shows like Newsfront (1978), Palace of Dreams (1985), Traps (1985), The Castle (1997), Tracks (2013) and Jack Irish (2012–2021) – a significant mentor to actors and filmmakers, and quite simply one of the great talkers about movies. Following on from our 2014 program devoted to films that were particularly important to John (marking his 80th birthday), we are celebrating his 90th by screening a program that brings together his key featured performances across three quintessentially Melbourne-set films, all completed during the first decade of his acting career, after leaving Sydney in the early 1970s. This includes his wonderfully nuanced and physical performance in the central role of John Ruane’s Queensland (1976), his turn as a professional criminal returning to old haunts in Chris Fitchett’s Blood Money (1980), and his iconic, self-referential appearance as cinephile Steve in Dave Jones’ profoundly meta, Yackety Yack (1974).