Hes the raconteur behind the racks and shelves in one of the last proper DVD rental stores in the country; a champion of a bygone era whose vocation is very much a contemporary endeavour.
Richard Swainson, who owns and operates Hamilton store Auteur House is both a consummate cinephile (a fan of cinema) and cineaste (a fan of cinema with academic leanings). It is ridiculously easy to get him opining eruditely and extensively on any area devoted to the craft of filmmaking or, for that matter, any other subject area you felt like waving a stick at.
Its expertise that led to him becoming one of the regular film reviewers on National Radio and a Stuff columnist, high profile gigs that have now come to an at least temporary end.
For now, he is back to doggedly pursuing his passion for film on the home front: standing in the ruins of his industry, yet still living his dream.
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As befits the non-mainstream nature of the bulk of the titles he hires out to this day, Auteur House is slightly off the beaten track on Victoria St, tucked away next door to and up the stairs from another of the citys retail icons, Mark One Comics.
Swainson is quick to point out he not achieved any sort of riches from his venture, and the stock on the shelves is, at least partially, the result of the largesse of his loyal clientele.
I always put on a brave face. We knew when we opened in 2007 … that in a general sense it was a dying industry. We have never really made any money, so this is a labour of love.
We are lucky we have generous landlords. We are lucky the rent is reasonable. Im personally lucky that I have a wife who is employed. In a sense she keeps it going.
Shelf life: If you are searching for a certain film, Richard Swainson is your guide.
We still have good regular customers. We have good days. We have quiet days. In terms of profitability, well, we havent been a raving success at that … [but] theres still somewhat of a market.
The ease with which he can eloquently rattle off obscure facts about obscure films and plenty of well-known ones too makes him a handy guy to have a chat with before, say, deciding which of David Lynchs oeuvre one should introduce oneself to first.
Currently, Swainsons filmic expertise is an untapped resource aside from the voluminous treatises on the stores acquisitions and film-related news on the Auteur House Facebook page and some witty asides as part of his regular Wednesday night gig as quizmaster, across the road at the Londoner pub.
The knowledge didnt come from nowhere. His mother grew up with an aunt who owned a chain of cinemas in England in the 1930s and 40s and he inherited a lifelong love for film from them.
Another Kubrick in the wall: The Auteur House collection is arranged by filmmaker, as opposed to the alphabetical titles of the films.
In 1987 Swainson enrolled in the first film and television courses offered at Waikato University and after graduating with an arts degree he stuck around, becoming a tutor and working on some post-graduate papers.
In 1996 he became the first scholar from what had become the universitys screen and media department to earn a PhD, with a thesis titled The Vietnam Combat Film as a Contemporary Genre.
It focused on the pivotal role of Oliver Stones Platoon (1986) a film that triggered a veritable bombardment of stories set in Nam, including Stanley Kubricks Full Metal Jacket, Born on the Fourth of July, Hamburger Hill, Casualties of War and Good Morning Vietnam.
An aside: Hollywood made only one major Vietnam War-themed film the John Wayne vehicle The Green Berets when the war was at its height.
Richard Swainson runs Auteur House, a cornucopia of cinema culture in Victoria St, Hamilton.
Although the setting for that film was the war-torn South-East Asian country, it was ostensibly a World War II film: a continuation of the sabre-rattling tales of adventure that had been steadily produced since the US jumped enthusiastically (albeit belatedly) into the earlier conflict. It was not until the late 1970s that depictions of Vietnam that matched the horror experienced by the actual combatants began to emerge in films like Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter.
But we digress.
Around the same time he earned those letters behind his name, Swainson scored a job at Video Ezy Hillcrest where he remained for nine years, eventually becoming the stores manager.
After the death of that stores owner, Alan Hart, Swainson ventured out on his own. In January 2007 he opened Auteur House, a boutique DVD rental store that concentrated on but is not solely devoted to arthouse and avant garde films, foreign language films and those created by directors with a distinctive style.
There’s more than just movies on display at Auteur House. Cameras are everywhere.
The collection has grown slowly but steadily over the years and the vast majority of titles are in the DVD format. Recently, however, there has been a change on that front with the addition of some Blu-Ray discs.
Its a belated expansion, given that Blu-Rays came onto the market a decade ago.
One of our most loyal customers is a very generous gentleman. He started donating Blu-Rays to the store. One or two you could quietly accept, but when it got up to 20-odd or 30-odd you had to make a decision: Do I set up a section or do I not? I thought, well, Id better do this.
So this is the new format, he says somewhat ironically.
Swainson also managed to buy up some stock from the second-to-last DVD store in Hamilton, which is the one I used to manage and work in, which was Video Ezy Hillcrest, which has recently stopped renting but is selling all of its stock.
I found myself in the happy position of turning up there unannounced and unknown to new management, buying up stock that I myself had ordered for that store 20 years earlier.
Much of the stock has my handwriting on it, because I had a peculiar organisational style [at Video Ezy] that was the forerunner of what we see here today, he said, gesturing around at the packed shelves.
In some ways when Auteur House opened it marked a schism from that store, because I was a little peeved I hadnt been able to buy it, as the estate of the late owner first suggested I should. But now it feels like a continuity between my first foray into DVD rental and this latter expression.
Which title is his most prized acquisition? Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, the notorious 1975 film created by Italian auteur Pier Paolo Pasolini that fused elements of the Marquis de Sade with Mussolinis fascist regime and was released not long before the director was murdered in murky circumstances.
It was the most I ever paid for a title $75, about 10 years ago until I got the Twin Peaks box set. Its got an absolutely unique and handwritten censors rating.
I knew it would rent and it would be fair to say I have made a hefty profit from it, at least until a cheap-as-chips region four copy was released a few years back.
The business got an unlikely and unexpected recent boost from the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to an influx of customers seeking cinematic substance in the lead-in to the lockdown.
As people came to realise they would be required to be at home for at least three or four weeks, they considered their entertainment options … I think its a little altruistic because we have a very generous customer base, some of whom dont use us on a regular basis but think well of us so Im not saying it was pity money or pity custom.
Some people genuinely looked upon it as an opportunity to watch material that you cant easily get online, and they took it away by the armloads.
It reminded me of the glory days, the period in the late 90s to early 2000s when we were genuinely busy and there were more than two people in the store at a time, and we had to work a little bit harder. I didnt begrudge that in the least.
One of the reasons that people rented in such bulk is that I did waive all return requirements … Bar one DVD, everything that got rented did come back to us.
The outstanding title is The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: The Extended Edition, although Swainson said he was happy to cut the borrower some slack, seeing as he was a former volunteer at the store who had put many hours of time into the enterprise.
The assistance of the Governments wage subsidy and some compassion from the landlords also provided no small succour.
It was a good way for us to go psychologically into the lockdown and also financially, because we genuinely had some money in the bank … it reinvigorated me as a small businessman and gave me some belief in the enterprise.
Swainson maintains a close association with Waikato Universitys Screen and Media department.
I still feel like I have a social connection to the place. The staff members have, over the years, been extremely generous in promoting Auteur House to the students.
Thats the good news. The bad news is very few of them have taken advantage of what we have to offer. There are many reasons for that, some of them involving technology, many of them involving finance.
Ive got a bit of perspective on this though. I was a student at Waikato University. I was a young film enthusiast. I was a rarity in my day and I think that the true film enthusiasts, even if they are studying in that field in a dedicated sense are few and far between.
For several years he had a dedicated column in the pages of the student union magazine Nexus, in which he did his best to promote the store in between providing critical analyses of recent releases.
Im always thankful if any students do track us down [but] this lack of interest is not unique to Auteur House. You dont traditionally see too many students at the International Film Festival. You dont see too many students, unfortunately, as members of the Hamilton Film Society.
Im going to sound like an old man saying this, but I was young once too, and there were very few of my peer group involved in those activities. So theres a consistency there.
Thats why when I discover someone who is younger who has an enthusiasm for film, its very encouraging to me. They do exist, but they dont exist en masse.read more
You auteur know: Living the dream in one of the last DVD stores still standing
