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My American Cousin Is the Sequence After the Fight When Butch Her Mother

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My American Cousin Is the Sequence After the Fight When Butch Her Mother REVIEWS • • be suffering from doing without all that. creating its special rhythm. When the Margaret Langrick, Wilson has created Sandy Wilson's And it seems that Butch has found Major (Richard Donat) decides to ex­ an amazing female character for which something he's been missing to prompt plain the male-female facts of life to his both must be commended. his wistful remark that it's so nice up daughter Sandy (Margaret Langrick), a This may sound as though My Amer­ My American here he wishes he didn't have to go combination of edits make the se­ ican Cousin is the Great Canadian Film back. In fact, it's the American, Butch, quence different from what would we've all been waiting for. Well, it isn't, Cousin who seems to be doing without, rather normally be done in a father-daughter/ but it is a very special film - because it than Sandy, her family or her friends. son talk, playing up the humour of the has managed to be both an unabashed The isolation of the Canadians in My dialogue. We start out close-up, outside pronouncement of its nationality and American Cousin is not an isolation the Major's pick-up truck; then it stops fun at the same time, two things that amounting to a lack, but rather isolation and we move inside where the conver­ don't seem to have previously come to­ he outstanding characteristic of from the gloss, showiness and ultimate sation begins, the truck pulls away again gether. It will be most interesting to see Sandy Wilson's My American falseness of another, not greater, only and the camera now moves to a distant where the talented Wilson goes in her TCousin - and the reason it has gar­ different culture. overhead shot as the Major tries to ex­ next project. nered so much attention and all those Aside from these thematic and plain the idea of the male's "uncontroll­ Genies - is its sense of humour. ideological elements, Wilson has pro­ able urges", using the example of a bull Jan Teag. Wilson has achieved that very special duced a technically interesting if errati­ who knows there's a cow around. double trick of bringing enjoyment cally flawed work. There are unfortu­ Sandy's response, as the truck disap­ back to movie-going and leaving the nately problems with the film's con­ pears around a distant corner, is to ask audience still chuckling as it files out of tinuity. The most obvious example is whether her father was like that with the theatre. My American Cousin is the sequence after the fight when Butch her mother. This distancing adds poig­ MY AMERICAN COUSIN d Jco.pJsc. Sandy Wilson p. fun without being stupid - entertaining jumps in his car and roars off with blood nancy to the humour. Peter O'Brian assoc.p. Phil Schmidt p .man. Tom in the style developed when people still Braidwood p.coord. Gabriella Martinelli unit man. on his mouth. The next shot sees Sandy In the fight scene on the beach, edit­ (Pentlcton) Nikos Theodosakis p. Ualson CornJee made an event of going out to see films. climbing from the back seat to join ing and camera combine quite success­ Testar p .acct Joanne Jackson 1st a.d. Edward Folger This is a considerable achievement for a Butch in a head-on shot but the traces fully to give the feeling there really is a 2nd a.d. Matthew O 'Connor p .a. Orest Hoba, Greg blatantly Canadian film from a national of blood on his mouth have disap­ lot happening when, in actual fact, Coyes p .Iabourer Kellie Benz sc.sup_ Candice Field d.o_p. Richard Leiterman 1st asst-cam_ Harvey La cinema often noted for its bleak and peared. Details like this should not be movement is · kept to a minimum. The Rocque 2nd asst-cam. Trig Singer stills Kirk Tougas ponderous productions. And, My allowed to slip by; we have to see him camera swings back and forth from the art d. Phil Schmidt asst- art d. Dave Roberts set dres­ American Cousin is quite decidedly a wipe the blood off or, at least, there be two fighting boys to the crowd, swirling ser Joey Morgan props_ master Barry Kootchin asst-props Stewart Bradley sd.des. Bruce Nyznik sd. woman's film , without those yearning some trace he's been hit. Although it rapidly around the circle as they push mixer Garre ll Clark boom op. Daryl Powell sd.ed. looks and long empty silences (read in­ may have been the quality of the print, and tussle with each other. Only one Gord Thompson. Tony Currie, Alison Clark activity) artistically associated with the there is also what appears to be a jump­ punch meets its target, yet the viewer asst.sd.ed. Susan Lindell. Anke Bakkar key grip Bill Mills best boy Nick Kuchera gaffer Malcolm feminine coming of age. cut in this scene that jolts the viewer, feels there has been a real fight. Kibblewhire best boy Dean Bennett cost-des. Philip Though My American Cousin is in suddenly creating distance, and de­ The film is ftIled with some beauti­ Clarkson, Sheila Bingham asst.cosLdes. Barbara the same genre that has recently be­ stroying our flow with the action. fully creative and unabashedly feminine C1ayden cost-buyer Kay Jackson seamstress Lynn come so . popular at the box-office, touches that portent a real talent in the Kelly. Valerie Andrews dresser Larry Forsyth make­ The use of the camera varies from up artist Jayne Dancose asst- make-up Pearl Louie loosely termed "puberty" films, it is the very wide and long shots that make use making. The red lipstick Sandy picks up hair Eileen Dezouche assLhair Anne1iese Lueder, only one known to this reviewer, aside of the incredible natural settings to very from her mother becomes a symbol - as Berta Michel barber Gary Leschlliok caterer Tam from the Australian Puberty Blues, tight close-ups that bring the viewer to it is for most girls: lipstick equals matur­ Tocher, Ann Bentley carp. Patrick Kerns labourers Chris Sloan, Cam Forman driver Salmon Harris, Dale that is from a female perspective. Im­ an almost touchable closeness with the ity. It is passed around among her Johnson mech. Peter Dancose ed. Haida Paul asst-ed. portantly, Wilson doesn't fall into the characters. Some interesting angles are friends when they go riding in Butch's Debbie Rurak cast- Maria Armstrong, Ross Clysdale, traps of that genre - unlike the male used though they are mostly traditional. car, creating the image of these young Stuart Aikins Lp_ Margret Langrick, John Wildman. Richard Donat, Jane Mortifee, T.j. Scott, Camille Hen­ considerations, tits-and-ass-style, or The voice-over in many sequences girls with identically red lips bobbing derson, Darsi Bailey, Alison Hale, Samantha Jocelyn, female considerations, marked by seri­ gives the film a particular feeling and around in the back of the car. One of Babs Chula, Terry Moore, Brent Severson, Brian Hagel, ous and painfully emotional scenes. My unique rhythm, that, combined with the the best sequences of the film is where Carter Dunham,Julie Nevlud, Alexis Peat, Micki Maun­ sell, Kitey Wilson, Jake Van Weston, Ritchie Hobden, American Cousin is filled with mo­ varying visuals, allows a sense of almost Sandy's little sisters dress up in their Unda Geggie, Nikos Theodosakis, lisa Nevin, Jac­ tion, colour, music and laughter, all of continuous motion. One moment we mother's clothes and jewellery and tot­ queline Conrad, Tom Braidwood, Gabriella Martinelli, which audiences enjoy and respond to, are inside the big red Caddy as it winds ter around on high heels while Sandy's Nicola Cavendish, Rob Wylie, Sergei Ryga, Dave Sher, making for a successful movie no matter its way around the dirt roards and the brother appears in one of her bras over Unda &. Lisa Wiebe, Kellie Benz, Lome Davidson, Larry Forsyth p.c. A Peter O 'Brian Independent Pic· what its themes, subjects or perspec­ next we are high overhead looking his T-shirt. There is an honesty and tures Production in association with Borderline Pro· tives. down on it, with the voices still at the bravery in Wilson's approach to re­ ductions Inc. and Okanagan Motion Picture Company The situations and the conversations, same pitch and level. creating all these female childhood fan­ Ltd. Produced with the participation of TelefiJm Canada, in association with the Canadian Broadcasting complete with cliched lines, of the film The editing in My American Cousin tasies and games that is unique and re­ Corporation dist. Spectrafilm. CoL, running time: 92 must be familiar to every adult, but Wil­ adds to its overall humourous tone, freshing. Together with young lead mins. son remembers them with the humour we all lacked at the time of the actual experience. In making a very personal film , she has somehow arrived at the heart of the universal, but with a Cana­ dian touch. The difference between us, the Cana­ dians and them, the Americans is a pre­ dominant theme of the film, made perhaps too large in its use of pointed statements: that Butch Oohn Wildman) comes from a good family, American unfortunately, but nonetheless a good family, or that hfs car is so American. Underlying these direct statements is a sensibility that comes closer to a reali­ zation of the undefinable difference be­ tween the twO nations than might be expected in a movie of this sort. The Canadians in My American Cousin are outsiders, isolated in many ways from an "America" where 'They' have bigger, faster cars, more kinds of candy, rock'n roll 24 hours-a-day, and can send people to the moon.
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