Of the Cri the Canadian Film Awards Give Us the Opportunity to Take Stock and Judge the Qual Ity of the Annual Production
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Canadian film a^vards the pidi of the cri The Canadian Film Awards give us the opportunity to take stock and judge the qual ity of the annual production. In the public mind, the future of the industry is linked with the creation of a feature film industry, and it is not surprising that the features receive the most attention. The following article mentions those in competition. Overview sociations of Canada, the Directors Guild of Canada, the So This year, 41 films have been preselected to be judged by ciety of Filmmakers, the Motion Picture Distributors Asso a strong international jury at the Canadian Film Awards: Jo ciation (sic), the Canadian Film Editors Guild, ACTRA, the seph Losey, Sidney J. Furie, Gordon Pinsent, Luce Guil- Canadian Association of Motion Picture Producers and the beault, Les Wedman and Martin Malina. American Federation of Musicians. This year, neither of Eight of the films are fictional features (cut down from the last two associations sent jurors. the 17 submitted to the preselection jury), and the rest - As was the case last year, representatives from the East 33 - are non-fictional features or shorts. Of the 33, 18 come and West were absent. When Mr. Taylor was asked whether from the National Film Board and 3 from the CBC. or not the CFA should think about including the British Co The awards present us with the opportunity to take stock. lumbia Film Industries Association, for example, the re If this year's preselection is any measure, one conclusion sponse was, "They can come if they want, but we're not pay is that the public sector is alive and well. No films from the ing their expenses." Why not? How else will highly compe private sector were chosen for either the animation catego tent judges from across the country be lured into taking on ry or for the TV drama category. Nevertheless, no NFB the job of the pre-selection? films were selected in the experimental category. (R is in teresting to note that in the "Draft Film Policy", p. 22, the The Schlock author states "There will continue to be a need for the NFB What are the criteria of the preselection anyway? In the to produce, as in the past... experimental or innovative feature category, the international jury should have had a films.") crack at Death Weekend. The features which are prese The Awards are hype, a chance for a collective party and lected should be those which have made a major impact in the honoring of certain members of the industry for a job the industry and on the public, or a major artistic impact on well done. Nat Taylor, this year's president, is banking the critics. The pre-selection should eliminate only the in everything on an awakening of the public through the na significant films. It's for the international jury to tell us tional broadcast. He has the co-operation of the Famous that the films are good or bad. Players and Odeon theatre chains which show the CFA The preselection jury swept Death Weekend under the poster, hand out the program and run trailers about the carpet like a shameful thing. Nevertheless, it - along with televised awards. its less effective cousins Clown Murders, Point of No Re turn and Shadow of the Hawk - represent a major current Pre-selection in actual feature production. These films are being made The Awards are as valid as the pre-selection, and the because Shivers and Black Christmas brought money back preselection jury — unpaid and unfed - sits for a full week, to the producers. It is not up the pre-selection jury to con sifting through the 158 films entered to choose the films demn the makers of schlock; the quality of our films should which will be in competition. The jury consists of one mem be judged by that highly competent international jury which ber of the participating organizations: the Council of Cana is brought to Toronto. The CFA preselection should at dian Filmmakers, the Canadian League of Composers, the least offer that jury a fair choice of the kinds of films being Canadian Society of Cinematographers, the Canadian Film made. How else are we to come to terms with film produc and Television Association, the Motion Picture Theatre As tion in Canada? Connie Tadros 26 / Cinema Canada them and this time it's not a bird. Once again she has the necessary strength and control to deal with it Partners and this time the partnership is dis Director Don Owen solved. I suppose it is rather unfair to criticize Owen for being a filmmaker d. Don Owen, asst. d. Tony Thatcher, sc. his directionless energy, like his gun who deals within the context of the Norman Snider and Don Owen. ph. Marc shot in the air, inexplicably hits middle class. All his films have evolv Champion, ed. George Appleby, sd. James home. With the killing of the bird. ed around characters whose plights McCarthy, sd. ed. Ralph Brunjes & Ellen Heather is expected to deal with it are individual and creative without Adams, sd. re-rec. David Appleby, p. de and in doing so she is strengthened reference to a larger political con signer Seamus Flannery, set dec. Gerry Holmes, m. Murray McLauchlan, cost. and the ties of the partnership are text. But with Partners, Owen is Patti Unger, choreo. Frank Ruffo, l.p. weakened. moving into a subject matter which is simply a question of which national Denholm Elliott (John Grey). Hollis McLa In the male-dominated world of busi ren (Heather Grey), Michael J. Maigotta group of capitalists control Canadian (Paul Howard), Lee Broker (Philip Rudd), ness and male-female partnerships, resources and this question centres Irena Mayeska (Aunt Margot), Robert Sil the character of Heather is a study on the style of opportunism. of growth. Her attraction to Paul's verman (Hayes), Robert Warner (Gordon), But in this analysis of style. Part Delroy Lindo (Caleb). Heath Lamberts (Pia exotic aggressiveness seduces her no Jimmy), exec. p. G. Chalmers Adams, into becoming a helpmate in a dope- ners is brilliant: John Grey's relaxed p. G. Chalmers Adams and Don Owen, running intrigue; the love scenes, manner, his soft British accent, his assoc. p. Robert Linnell, p.c. Clearwater some of the most beautiful I have seen familiarity with many forms of pleas Films Ltd., 1975, color, 35 mm, running on film in their fluid explicitness, are ures listening to music, talk of time 93 minutes, dist. Astral Films (Ca central to Heather's forgetfulness of duck hunt ing in Manitoba, the physical nada). her true interests. I spoke of Heather's exertion and joy in rebuilding his dilettantism; with Paul, she adopts a d(X'k - all this is attractive and in cavalier attitude toward her money, direct contrast to the nasal-accented, Partners is a film about a series her family and its historical position. blue-suited American, Gordon, and of partners: Canada and America are hi.s hardnosed henchmen who use partners of sorts - unequal partners, While initially Paul ha.s the power threats, guns and have maps of Can with the weaker one often expressing to draw her away from her true ada hanging in their hotel rooms. reluctance to move to the stronger's interests, he, paradoxically, reveals Grey's money is time-worn, the result rhythm; Heather Grey and Paul Howard to Heather her need to hold onto and of land grants given to loyal Sir George are partners — naive and youthful part perpetuate theiu: "You're hooked into Adam Grey in the name of a grateful ners in an exuberant and fantastic thi.s this history. I'm outside - I monarch. And because Canada is a dance; the Canadian businessman, want to be inside." Paul's imaginative, country whose predominant resource John Grey, inheritor of Canada Pulp on-the-ruu opportunism pales beside is land; because Grey's sensitivity and Paper, is involved in a wary dance this cool creature of careful breeding to this resource is a real aspect of of opportunity and consolidation with - "The thing about people like me" his character (he talks passionately the president of an American multi says Heather "is that we really are about reforestation and "the special national. Don Owen's fourth feature together." By the middle of the film. privilege of this country - untrammel is a sophisticated thriller/romance/ Heather has Paul working for the led nature"); because Grey is involved fantasy partnered with indigenously Grey interests - but his actions have in the preservation of the past, his Canadian sensibilities - a fine mar produced reverberations which neither opportunism is less pragmatic, less riage of form and content. can control and, by the end of the hvtrried, less brutal - the slow strangle film, they have another death between Co-authored by Owen and Norman as opposed to sudden death. Snider, the story evolves around Heather Grey, the dilettante heiress of well-managed old Canadian money, and Paul Howard, a free-wheeling, rather sloppy American "freelance entrepreneur", as he calls himself. Heather discovers Paul in the act of stealing key papers on the state of her father's business for a multina tional looking to expand into Canada, and - while the first image of Heather is one of detailed precision as she peers through a microscope - her lack of direction allows her to pro tect Paul from further detection. She thus becomes a partner in a takeover plot - a plot in which even Paul is a disinterested patsy. Perhaps that is too strong an expression; it does not give the flavor of his attractive energy and vivid imagination which Heather from her conservative position finds so appealing and inspiring.