One Response from a Screenwriter

Tff W In the most recent issue of Impulse tern, consistently the most successful nf magazine, one of the editors takes a American films woridwide ?) And final broadside swipe at the Canadian film ly, no writer or director makes a film he industry, suggesting we throw out the or she doesn't want to - especially in baby with the bath-water and start Boom! Canada, where to make a film you L., once again. "There is no longer an want very badly to do it. What Dunn indigenous cinema in English-speaking eeally means heee is that we should Canada. Canadian cinema is dead.." (2) make the films he wants to make, but and on and on. Scriptwriter Arthur doesn't peehaps because he hasenough beains not to sink a cent into such a ven- Fuller responds to the author in the tuee. article which follows. That's the bottom line. Film is the I don't know who James Dunn is except most expensive art in history, and ihe One response money has to come from somewhere that his name appears on the masthead of Impulse and that be authored an He doesn't like dentists, bureaucrats article entitled "Some Notes on an Essay (though I notice Impulse takes money About the Death of Canadian Cinema" from two levels of them) or producers, from a screenwriter or presumably theie money 1 wonder if (summer, 1982). But I do conclude after reading the piece that a) he is no logi he has any id'eas on alternative sources cian ; b) he has never invested a cent in a of money or on how to talk the unions film; and c) romantic that he is, he by Arthur Fuller into letting theie members work for would rather fill four large magazine nothing, or on how to persuade the pages with laments than solutions. To owner of a fifty-thousand-dollar camera give Dunn his due, though, I am seldom obscures his point. Would he prefer that swipe at dentists (some novice must to loan it to a rookie without insurance, provoked to respond to articles I read. we dislike Canadian cinema for all the have hurt him very young) before find or on how to get the film into the Some comments: eight reasons? That we like it for the ing in Gain' Down the Road a clarifica theatres once its made, oron how to gel the people into the theatres to see it First off, the bourgeois-nationalist wrong reasons ? That we occasionally tion that "their tragedy is not born of schtick Dunn is doing offers up four dislike it foe the wrong reasons? Or, their inability to survive, but of society's I say all this not because I like all the points on a continuum: "authentic" finally, that we cut our preferences inability to provide them with access to bad movies Dunn hates, but because as Canadian cinema, CanAmerican cine loose from the leash of reasons? Youe the means for survival. First the eats, a screenwriter my interest lies in proving ma, American cinema, and a category guess may be bettee than mine. then the morals,' Bertolt Brecht always Dunn wrong - Canadian cinema is not unnamed and, for convenience of argu Dunn next tells us Canadians why we said. Some societies never learn." Some dead. Granted, the CFDC bent overfronl- ment unacknowledged-good American liked Ticket so much : it looked, felt film critics too, I might add. It was Roger wards to take what certain producers cinema (A Woman Under the Influence, and sounded like an American film. Gorman who gave Martin ScorseSe his were giving it from behind. Granted, The Godfather, The Black Stallion... add Curiously, American critics didn't think first shot I don't see Dunn coming forth Bay Street's inflation of film budgets your favourites). so and liked it anyway - but what do with money for Owen or Shebib. nearly killed film. Granted too thai We started out making Canadian pic they know about American film? As Closing his discussion of A Married American actors (no actual star has tures, Dunn argues, then turned to Can- Dunn defines it: slick, grossly Techni Couple, Dunn writes : "In the final shot appeared in a Canadian film to date) American cinema. Not only producers color visuals, slick invisible editing, and of the film King cuts from the one to the neither prove their worth in audience turned their backs on Don Owen and slick, multi-track, modulated voices many, telling us the problem is one of draw nor lead to the grooming of Cana Sbebib, Peter Pearson and Robin Spry. with unobtrusive background music. environment and not of human nature." dian stars. But to go back to no-budget Face it; we all did, and for the same Think about this for a moment Me What is the environment but millions of shooting is senseless. reason that many of us feel embarrassed Dunn. Against Taxi Driver, Ticket is other humans, past and present ? On While I do not pretend to have all the that we once were hippies. As some wag maekedly unslick in its visuals. In fact, another level, are the bacteria in Dunn's answers, I do have an idea or two. First, put it money is the long hair of the my eye, at least detects a continuity stomach part of the environment or of put film back into Ihe hands of directors Eighties. Or hasn't Dunn strolled through with peecisely the filmmakers Dunn him ? To some of us, such issues are not and writers, by restructuring CFDC the Ontario College of Art lately ? champions (Owen and Sbebib), As for instantly clear, but blithe distinctions financing so that money goes directly to Next Thomas Hobbes as author of the soundtracks, would Dunn prefer noisy- seem to be Dunn's forte. viriters and directors rather than to pro vision of man-as-beast: Dunn should location, single-track, unmodulated Just before carving his inscription on ducers who have hired the former Pro leaf through a slightly earlier work voices? Music so obtrusive that it our tombstone, Dunn takes yet another jects would be submitted anonymously called the Bible. threatens to become foreground music ? poke at dentists, this time poking pro to a review board, whose sole options Third, we are all afraid of needles, And what is it with this invisible editing ducers and bureaucrats too. Regarding would be yea or nay- no edilorialization Jim, but don't let it colour your view of fetish? Would Dunn prefer sloppy, these last let me point out that the - and could be killed after any of several dentists. One I know, having seen Skip visible editing jump-cuts and freeze- Canadian Film Development Corpora stages (outline, first draft, etc) (Money Tracer on the tube one night saidthaf s frames and other horses Godard flogged tion tends to regard overtly commercial would flow to writer and director to the kind of movie he'd like to have to death 20 years ago? One can only projects as unneeding of assistance. finance each subsequent stage - lo a money in, because its quality assured wTite "fuck' on a wall so many times Thus they lend to get into projects with maximum, say' of $30,000. The resultant enough TV showings that it would without growing bored. Artistic issues problems. scripts would comprise a script bank eventually break even. affect all the arts, self-referentialism Just what Dunn means by "they want Only then would producers be invited Ralph Thomas and I had seen Ticket included, and though filmmakers came us to corporatize our reality... our in to read - lax benefits being depen to Heaven together (peior to its release) to it late they also moved beyond it deeams," I have no idea. He thinks its dent on the making of a film from a and discussed it at considerable length. sooner, while certain novelists, painters opposite is to personalize. The irony is script in the bank At no time did he hint that his intent was and critics linger on. that only rookie filmmakers waste time In this way, $2 million could finance to feed "our infantile fantasies of victim Next Dunn blithely asserts that if a trying to anticipate the wants of an the writing of 70 scripts to completion, ization at the hands of American cultural film director's heart is in the right place, audience two years hence (which is and since not all will go thai far, the imperialism. It ana/ogizes Canadians as it matters not what merde he or she about the fastest anybody can write,' actual number might be over 100. Any poor lambs at the sacrificial altar of makes. The right place, as Dunn sees it, shoot and eelease a film, even when it's script chosen for production would American films and television" (my is a belief in the innate goodness of all going your way). Who goes with his then be bought by the producer for4 per emphasis). The aforementioned infan people. As I intimated earlier, that belief own obsessions more than Coppola or cent of the film's budget, that amount tile fantasies are Dunn's alone, not mine. is singularly un-Cbristian, and there is Cronenbeeg ? being split between screenwriter and And it is Dunn rather than Ticket who rather a lot of Christian art in the world. Then comes Dunn's variation on the script bank Out of 100 scripts there are does the analogizing here. But perhaps Certain others have chosen to disbelieve artist-in-a-garret theme: "We must go bound to be a couple of great ones and a he believes, contrary to what the con it too, Feanz Kafka among them.

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