Self Portraits

Self PortraitS Self PortraitS THE CINEMAS OF CANADA SINCE TELEFILM Edited by André Loiselle & Tom McSorley With a preface by Piers Handling The Canadian Film Institute/Institut canadien du film Ottawa, 2006 ISBN 0-919096-41-7 Published by The Canadian Film Institute, 2 Daly Ave. Ottawa, Ontario CANADA. K1N 6E2 [email protected] www.cfi-icf.ca Tel: 613-232-6727 Fax: 613-232-6315 Printed in Canada by Carleton University Graphic Services © 2006 The Canadian Film Institute/Institut canadien du film and individual authors. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface. Piers Handling 7 1. Introduction. André Loiselle & Tom McSorley 13 Part 1. Art versus Commerce . 2. Film Policy/Film History: From 29 The Canadian Film Development Corp. to Telefilm Canada. Peter Urquhart 3. The Decline…and the Rise of 55 English Canada’s Quebec Cinema. André Loiselle 4. Genres and Variations: 93 The Audiences of Quebec Cinema. Pierre Véronneau. 5. Air Bud and Stickgirl Share Leaky Condo: 129 The Changing Landscape of B.C. Cinema since the 1980s. Diane Burgess. 6. Surfing the Toronto New Wave: 167 Policy, Paradigm Shifts and Post-Nationalism. Brenda Longfellow. 5 Part 2. Regional Aesthetics 7. Made in Saskatchewan! 203 Christine Ramsay. 8. Strange Frontiers: 237 Twenty Years Of Manitoba Feature Film. Brenda Austin-Smith. 9. The Centre Cannot Hold: 271 The Cinema of Atlantic Canada. Tom McSorley. 10. A Typically Canadian Cinema: 297 Filmmaking in Alberta, its Institutions and Authors. Jerry White . Appendix 321 Notes on Contributors 325 6 PREFACE Piers Handling Toronto International Film Festival In the mid-seventies a French publisher approached Pierre Véronneau and Cinémathèque québécoise to pro- duce an introductory text on Canadian cinema. Twelve writers were commissioned from across the country to write on key aspects of our film history. Two years later I edited, and the Canadian Film Institute published, an Eng- lish translation of Les cinémas canadiens. Two new articles were added and one was dropped (at the request of the au- thor). We were forced to change the name of the book for its English translation, sadly in my eyes. Cinémathèque québécoise had come under withering criticism from its Board of Directors for publishing a book with a title that both dared mention Canada in its title and which also im- plied that there was indeed something called a Canadian cinema, even if the title was slightly more ambiguous than that. But, in 1980, Quebec could not be subsumed into Canada. And, thus Self Portrait was born. As Peter Urquhart points out in one of the essays in this volume, we had no idea in 1980 what changes lay just around the corner. Whether we knew it or not, we had 7 chosen to publish at a key moment. Hitherto, the Canadian cinema had had a checkered past. After a series of starts and stops, a feature film industry had lurched into being in the early sixties, almost despite itself. Fueled by the any- thing-is-possible mantra of the sixties, interesting films started to appear. Quebec filmmakers emerged from the deep sleep of the Duplessis years stimulated by the province’s nationalist sentiments. Toronto and Vancouver stirred and shrugged off years of lethargy. When Self Portrait appeared the Canadian Film De- velopment Corporation that sustained the feature film dream was just 13 years old. Quebec was the only province that had a film agency designed to finance and support the sector. The nascent film coop movement was struggling to find its feet. It was early days. 1980 fell in the middle of a very divisive period in our film history. The CFDC began to radically shift its pri- orities. After a decade of supporting auteur-style films, few of which had done well commercially, it was decided that a more significant return on investment was required. Commerce would be privileged over art, the producer over the director - and the Capital Cost Allowance made its (disastrous) appearance as a funding mechanism. Something was nipped in the bud, and in reality, a generation of filmmakers simply stopped making features between 1977 and 1984 (Arcand, Forcier, Pearson, Darcus), radically altered their production practice (Carle, Beaudin, Jutra, Shebib, Spry, Kent, Fruet), or disappeared into the margins (Lefebvre, Owen). Self Portrait was published against this backdrop. And, if commentators have, accurately, pointed out that the articles of the time were more like pieces of advocacy – “hortatory,” “prescriptive” and “moralistic” (Dorland) – they were. We felt there was something to be defended 8 that was being threatened, and much of the critical writing of the period was designed as an intervention. Now here we are, a quarter of a century later, with a new volume of writings. What has changed? Certainly, the critical writing has evolved, becoming more sophisticated, rigorous and analytical. Cultural theory has made enor- mous strides, providing a theoretical framework within which to approach cultural products. Film theory has been replaced by postmodernist theories that mine questions of race, gender and ethnicity. Bazin/Heath/ Screen has given way to Jameson, Wiens and Shields. The writing about place yields much of great value in this volume. The binary oppositions of centre/margin, hinterland/heartland, urban/rural, national/transnational provide points of access that tease out understanding and reveal complex patterns at work. Traditional clichés (the prairies) are here replaced by contemporary reality (Al- berta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba), as Christine Ramsay notes (although, curiously, the Maritimes do not receive the same treatment!). As an organizational mode, approaching the messy, heterogeneous, promiscuous assemblage (to paraphrase David McIntosh) of Canadian cinema by way of the provinces/regions seems to me as appropriate as any other in 2005. It certainly gives the reader an effective snapshot of the state of the filmic nation. It is, after all, the way that the country is organized politically, regionalization and an in- creasing devolution of federal power to the provinces being a reality of the last quarter of the last century. (Sadly overlooked in this volume is a region that has produced a landmark film of our cinema, the Nunavut region respon- sible for the remarkable Atanarjuat ; as well as the aborigi- nal cinema of Obomsawim, Cardinal and others.) 9 But I was also struck, reading the essays, how little the debate had changed. The central issue, raised by many of the writers, is the dynamic between art and commerce that has informed so much of both the practice of Canadian cinema in the last decade, as well as the policies that un- derlie that practice. After the disastrous interlude of the CCA years, there followed 15 years semi-golden years. If the years 1963/65 ( Le chat dans le sac, Nobody Waved Good-bye, Winter Kept us Warm, The Bitter Ash, La vie heureuse de Leopold Z.) to 1978 saw the birth of our modern cinema, the period from 1984 to 2000 was a moment of regeneration. In those 15 years the Toronto New Wave rose to prominence, Quebec rediscovered its voice, British Columbia forcefully began producing distinctive work, Manitoba tickled our funny bone, and production in Alberta and the Maritimes began to simmer with flashes of imagination. A distinctive Canadian cinema: esoteric, diverse, and multifaceted, began to travel overseas, often through festivals. Our cinema appeared to have found a voice that was as powerful as our literature. Cronenberg, Arcand, Egoyan and Maddin stood shoulder-to-shoulder with At- wood, Ondaatje, Martel and Richards. In hindsight, 2000 may be as important to our film history as 1978. That was the year that Sheila Copps set Canadian cinema a target of occupying 5% of our domestic market. A modest goal to be sure but it would have seismic repercussions. The art-commerce debate returned with a vengeance. To be fair public policy in the mid-nineties prepared the ground. The introduction of the tax credit system was an economic, not a cultural, initiative. Its effectiveness was measured solely in terms of economic activity, and certainly Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver benefited enor- 10 mously. It stimulated production, much of it American “runaways”, but people were working. Copps’s an- nouncement, which Telefilm turned into its policy mantra, inevitably privileged the commercial over the cultural. So here we are in 2005, and is the view out the win- dow much different than it was in 1980? Quebec, alone of all the provinces, has an industry that makes films that are seen by audiences in a significant way. We are still writing about “an invisible cinema” as Peter Harcourt described it. Even Cronenberg (curiously under represented in this col- lection) and Egoyan’s films are only seen by a small per- centage of the population. They are celebrated in film festivals, and then viewed by a select few in urban centres. As Brenda Longfellow points out, these two are better known outside this country, which explains not just the sources of their financing, but also the distinctive anonymity of the films themselves. The outspoken resistance of many English-Cana- dian filmmakers to the 5% target led to a stand-off. Film- makers heckling bureaucrats, and bureaucrats dismissing the films that are being produced, has not led to good cinema. Yet, Quebec shines by being the exception. The only lesson that can be taken away from this, I think, is linguis- tic. Quebec films appeal to a relatively homogenous culture that shares a common language and culture and that wants to see itself. Ironically, this limits the appeal of their production internationally – a fact not lost on filmmakers like Arcand and producers like Frappier and Robert. On the other hand, English-Canada is caught in a double-bind.

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