My father was one of those kids who went to the movies throughout the 1930s and 1940s - and that's where I got my love of movies from - but he never really knew a director and he certainly wouldn't have known what an editor did, but the emotional connection to the films was far greater then.

PF: There's a surprising lack of interest in any ideas or in the moral content of a film, or what would make a film worthy of discussion, worthy of provoking ideas, having some direct influence upon society, or upon someone's own spiritual development. There are films like that, but on the whole they aren't the films that, as you say, are particularly popular.

This obsession with prizes is part of the whole celebrity culture in which we live, which has taken over the movies. It is having a deleterious effect on British cinema as well. I think that Bafta has taken them too seriously and has set out to compete with Hollywood, without ever having either the resources or the industrial clout to match Hollywood. And the same thing, even more so, has happened with the failure of the Euro awards that have been going on since 1989, 1990, which have made very little impact and attract very little attention.

This is reflected in the more general culture. I've just heard part of the Bafta shortlist, the main actor and actress, announced on the Today programme. Forty years ago Today had reviews, serious reviews, two or three times a week, of major movies. I remember once, in 1960, somebody came on Today and spoke for four minutes, giving a very serious appraisal of Visconti's Rocco and his Brothers. That would be unthinkable today, they would say that's a very boring thing to do, boring compared with talking about who is being tipped by the bookmakers to win the Oscars, to win the Baftas.