In 1928, under the influence of Canon Joseph Cardijn, the Young Christian Workers (YCW in English-language countries) were inspired to establish Catholic associations of the press, of cinema, radio (later to be joined by television).
In the US, in 1930, the Motion Picture Code was written, with significant contribution by Catholic layman, Martin Quigley, and Father Daniel A Lord SJ which, from 1934 onwards, imposed the norms for American filmmaking, especially in areas of morality. It was administered by a Catholic layman, Joseph Breen, from 1934 to 1953. At this time, a group of the alumnae from Catholic Girls Schools, began to look at the movies and classify them. However, several American bishops did not approve and started to make judgments themselves, sometimes forbidding their flock from going to a film under pain of mortal sin. The result was The Legion of Decency, which classified films as appropriate, objectionable, condemned.
While this activity was going on in Europe and in the US, there seems little evidence that it had any major influence on the Australian church. Australian Catholics liked to go to the pictures and, until the end of the 1950s, into the 1960s, there was no official guidance from the Australian Bishops Conference.
FR FRED CHAMBERLIN
Fred Chamberlin was ordained in 1946 at the age of 24. One of his early appointments was as chaplain to the Young Christian Students movement in Melbourne (YCS). He had an interest in films, which developed into something of a passion. Early evidence of his interest came in a 1948 letter to the editor of the newly-established film magazine from the Catholic Church in Britain, Focus. He was enthusiastic in welcoming the new magazine and its approach to films. The effect of this interest was the preparation of two pamphlets on an approach to appreciating films, Films and You and You and the Movies, which were published in the early 1950s. Fr Chamberlain was also aware of the movement that had been established in the countries of Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, in 1928 –The International Catholic Organization for Cinema (OCIC).
In 1951 he attended an international meeting of the OCIC, paying his own way, with a side visit to Hollywood. Over the next 20 years, he attended several OCIC meetings, getting to know the organisation. In the 1960s he wrote to the OCIC about membership of the Australian church.
In 1971 that he was named the Catholic Film Officer and in 1976 the Australian Catholic Film Office was established, with Fr Chamberlin as director.
In 1972, Peter Malone was transferred to Melbourne and worked with Fr Chamberlain (who had been appointed the censor deputatus for his first book, The Film) for the next 25 years.
THE MOVIES TO WATCH
Fr Chamberlin reviewed films in the Melbourne Catholic paper, The Advocate. Week by week, for more than 30 years, he reviewed the films and printed the classifications from the US, those of the Legion of Decency. He changed the classifications of Objectionable and Condemned to ‘To Be Avoided’ and ‘Advised Against’. As might be expected, there was often the tongue-in-cheek remark that when one looked at The Advocate classifications, the films to see were those that had been marked to be avoided or advised against.
Melbourne psychologist, Ronald Conway, a film buff, also contributed reviews to The Advocate during the 1960s. Fr Chamberlin also sponsored a young reviewer, Anthony I. Ginnane, from Xavier College. He wrote reviews in The Advocate as well as participating in educational panels with Fred and Peter in Catholic schools. Ginnane was to move quickly to being a producer, mainly of what became called Ozploitation films, mid-Pacific productions with overseas stars and local cast and crew.
Fr Malone began to write film reviews in the magazine of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, The Annals, in 1968. He wrote the reviews as well as articles on movie culture, morality, censorship, until the end of 1998 when lay reviewer and political commentator, James Murray, took over the reviews. He worked with Fred Chamberlin at various times when there were meetings on media, consultations from the Vatican about media, and establishing an annual award for Australian film that best dramatised human values. Film reviewer, commentator, musician, Ivan Hutchinson, was part of the panel. Fr Malone wrote the citations. The award has continued to the present day.
As Australian Catholic Film Office director, Fr Chamberlin also became president of the Catholic Film Offices of the Pacific region, and attended the annual meetings throughout the Pacific in collaboration with Unda, the International Catholic Organisation for Radio Television. Generally, the Pacific Offices focused on radio and emerging television. They were supported by Father Kevin Burton from the Sydney office for radio and television and Bishop John Heaps, the representative from the Bishops Conference for Media, which meant in practice that the Sydney focus was on radio and television, while the Melbourne focus was on cinema.
CONTROVERSIES
It seemed that often the biggest controversies would occur when Fr Chamberlin was attending OCIC international board meetings in Europe. There were objections to The Life of Brian (1979) with complaints to the local papers, including The Advocate, but when Fr Chamberlin returned from Europe he said that he went down to the Russell Centre one Saturday morning to see the film ‘and laughed unashamedly’. Another time there was an anti-clerical Spanish film. When a journalist from Truth, rang Peter Malone asking for a comment, he responded that he would see it in the usual round of press previews. The subsequent article said that Peter was expecting to vet the film for the Church, the heading: ‘Church Row Brews Over Sadist Film!’ Fred’s comment on return, ‘Better you than me’.
The main controversy occurred over The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). Screenings were held in each state, with Peter Malone representing the Catholic Office in Victoria. Federal Liberal parliamentarian, Peter McGauran, told Peter Malone on air that he was the kind of priest who was emptying the churches. He had not seen the film and refused to enter any into any religious discussion about the person of Jesus as portrayed in the film, saying that he was ‘a simple Catholic’. Talkback didn’t happen because all those phoning in were in support of Peter McGauran.
Fr Chamberlin was involved in the controversy about Jean-Luc Godard’s Hail Mary/ Je Vous Salut, Marie (1986) when demonstrators protested outside the State Theatre in Sydney. He could sometimes be very blunt and just simply said the film was ‘boring, boring, boring’. (In some of his comments when he did not approve of a character’s behaviour, he mentioned that they needed a swift kick up the backside. ‘Bloody nonsense’ was another of his comments, actually quoted by Archbishop Denis Hart in his homily at Fred’s funeral in 1996.)
1990s ONWARDS
In 1990 Fred resigned from the OCIC International Board and Peter Malone succeeded Fr Chamberlin as President of OCIC Oceania (later changed to Pacific), as member of the International Board and director of the Australian Catholic Film Office in 1993.
On Peter Malone’s election as president of OCIC, Richard Leonard SJ became director of the Australian Catholic Film Office (later adding for Broadcasting). The film reviews from 1999 onwards were written by Peter Sheehan, Callum Ryan, Jan Epstein and Peter Malone.
At the end of 2020, the Australian Catholic Film Office was closed. The film reviews continue under the auspices of Jesuit Communications, publisher of Australian Catholics.