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 . 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. But finally Transferring heroin in the elevator

November 1976 / 27 In the final analysis, this difference maple leaf and examining it under a one killing and relies, generally, not is theatrical (or cinematic) but un­ microscope; and does the fact that so much on sensation as on a tense essential. It would, however, be naive it's bright orange-red, in the last cleverness worthy of Hitchcock at to think that Owen did not understand richness of fall, mean anything? As times. When the young man (Michael the weakness of his position on Cana­ Heather harbors Paul in the rec room Margotta) breaks into a hotel room, dian nationalism; the historical flash­ they circle around a globe and, with he is surprised by a maid who polite­ backs of the Loyalists fighting off the the question "You're an American, ly inquires if he needs clean towels! Americans are set to a reading of Sir aren't you?", Paul touches that globe. The story is a bit casual about Grey's diary: "We were surprised And let me mention too the marvellous drugs - which I think we should be in the clearing by American irregulars scene when Paul, who has helped to reminded are dangerous to health - and it was difficult to differentiate our betray John Grey's business interests, but refrains from unduly glamorizing militia from the Americans" and even finds himself, smartly dressed, in its confused pair of young people, when he could differentiate, he found the water beside Grey and at the feet whose edgy attraction to each other himself "pursuing Thomas Benton, of the American businessman who is based on opposition. (He's a social a good friend these many years." The has paid Paul for informaton and climber, she belongs to an establish­ diary also speaks of the difficulty of wants more. ment family, presided over by Den­ knowing at which point the territories Partners is an excellent film - holm Elliott, in an immaculate per­ were indeed separate. And so, in spite fast-moving, totally involving and formance of comfortable but threat­ of the differing styles of the Amer­ excellently shot by Marc Champion. ened privilege.) icans and , those styles are Eleanor Beattie In terms of "commercial appeal" not foreign to each other, both reach­ versus serious intentions - which are ing for the same end. not really incompatible, but often seem The quality which has struck me to be - Partners places plenty of ac­ most forcibly in Partners is its veri­ Don Owen's new Canadian film tion at the beginning and end and similitude in the midst of a fantastic Partners uses its title in two dif­ leaves a central section free for some plot and setting. The sets are gor­ ferent ways. The young man and wo­ thoughts about American domination geous and generous and even the man at its centre meet and become of Canadian industry and how our self- foot-loose Paul ("I like to keep mov­ partners - in crime of a sort and also regard may be affected. This is inter­ ing - no address, no bills") lives in passion. A second partnership ex­ esting, though thematically under­ richly and with expensive taste. The plored is the cultural and business developed, and allows for a relaxed characters too are fantastic and bold, relations of Canada and the United interlude among the autumnal splen­ but Owen's skill is in supplying all his States. It is an entertaining film, if dors of Niagara-on-the-Lake. Part­ characters, large and small, with life- overall disappointing as the first ners, then, is a film of some merit giving details. The three main charac­ feature from Don Owen in several but it leaves open the bigger question ters are good, their growth a source years. Looking like a frank attempt of where exactly Don Owen, who hit of real interest to the viewer, but at a commercial property. Partners a national nerve with his Nobody where Owen reveals his consumate doesn't put itself out of critical court Waved Goodbye a dozen years ago, skill is in the minor characters - by being excessively violent or far­ is "at" today. the dope dealer and three plainclothes fetched (like Breaking Point and police officers waiting to bust him and others). It is a "thriller" with only Clive Denton his contacts, the wonderfully con­ trolled aunt and her interchange with John Grey at the peopled northern garden party, the Pinteresque tea- time conversation - all these people and minor situations add a richness to the film fabric, details and spaces Goldenrod for interesting speculations. Director Harvey Hart

d, Harvey Hart, asst. d. Tony Thatcher, about the movie has to be given credit sc. Lionel Chetwynd, dial. ed. Ellen for this embarrassing state of affairs Adams,ph. Harry Makin, ed. Ralph Bruajes - a state all the more remarkable (CFEG), Peter Shatglow, Ron Wisman, sd. when you consider that for half of the Karl Scherer, sup. sd. ed. Ken Heeley- movie's length I had been shifting Ray, a.d. George Holmes, set dec. Fred about in my seat and muttering 'Oh Geringer, cost. Patti Unger, Lp. Tony Lo- bianco, Donald Pleasance, Gloria Carlin, shit!' loud enough to be heard. Will Darrow McMillan, exec. p. David Perhaps the surest stimulus for Susskind, p. Lionel Chetwynd, Gerry Ar- tears, in art, life, and the movies, is beld, assoc. p. Duane Howard, p. manager. the spectacle of reconciliation - when Timothy Rouse, p.c. August Films and Ta­ two people yield to a prompting they lent Associates, 1976, coL running time 90 min. dist. Ambassador have long resisted, and acknowledge Don Owen, director, and Marc Champion, that they love each other after all and cinematographer, talk about a shot will try again. It's a good place to end the story, because as often as not, Owen has also mastered a symbolic At the conclusion of Goldenrod nothing much comes of this lovely level which is totally integrated into there were tears in my eyes. Not purifying moment, and all the old the fast-moving storyline. The first overflowing down my cheeks, you thorns come poking through within a shot of Heather shows her cutting - understand, but ready to do so if I few days or weeks. That the joyful one wants to say "dissecting" - a blinked incautiously. And something flow of healing reconciliation will re-

28 / Cinema Canada a moral transformation into an un- oppressive, tender, liberated bronco- buster, who respects Shirley's person- hood and tells Ethan, 'Son, there's more than one way to be a man.' Message. Each time the screenwriter pre­ sumes to improve on Harker's writ­ ing, the result is lamentable, tending towards sentimental moralizing. Thus, for instance, Jesse-on-screen mumbles a pre-suicide prayer in the "Gee, God, I guess what I'm doing is wrong, but don't punish my boys" vein; Harker's Jesse would have died first! Towards the end of the film, when the boys are coping with a dirt ranch they've bought, and

Harvey Hart

Jesse is in hospital with a broken leg, Shirley visits him and brings out a pack of cards. In the book they play The joyful flow of healing in GoldenrodT cribbage, but the film has to give us a game of rummy, and a meaning- deem all the years gone by is a dream The screen adaptation of Goldenrod laden conversation about needing one of the highest art - like Lear and The (by Lionel Chetwynd) is a travesty of more card to complete the set. And Winter's Tale and Dombey and Son the original. Why start with a novel on the level of trivial but telling - and of the quite low, like Harvey at all, if you're going to pull it out of detail, these Alberta ranchers are Hart's production of Goldenrod. shape so crudely and insensitively? said to go into Estevan for their The strength and emotional power Harker's Jesse Gifford is a sadly Saturday night boozing - a round trip of Goldenrod are in Herbert Harker's demoralized man, a champion bronco- of several hundred miles, to the far novel, which the film version does buster put out of action with a broken side of . The film was its damnedest to sabotage at every pelvis. Shirley, his wife, has given up made for U.S. television. turn. I know there's a school of thought on their slide into the rural under­ When it comes to acting, the most that says you should treat a film in class, and gone off with big Keno Mc­ pervasive distortion of Harker's novel "filmic" terms, whatever that means, Laughlin, leaving Jesse with the two can be described as a shift of accent. and not apply literary standards to it. boys, Ethan (12) and little George. Imagine the incongruity of a Quebe- Bullshit. A film begins as a screen­ Descending even to a suicide attempt, cois movie with Parisian accents, or play - a screen play - which means Jesse is slowly restored, through the of Mean Streets in Cockney. Tony a structured progression of dramatic courageous loyalty of Ethan, to faith Lobianco, the Italo-American star of episodes, and the revelation of char­ in himself, to a comeback on the Goldenrod, brings Arkansas to acter and relationships through dia­ rodeo circuit, and to the winning back Alberta, and calls his son 'Bowah!' logue and behavior. And when a pre­ of his wife. Chetwynd's conception of Gloria Carlin as Shu-ley contributes existing work has furnished the gov­ Jesse, elaborated in several newly the voice and acting style of country erning imaginative and moral con­ written scenes, turns him into a hol­ and western movies, while the canny ception to the tale, that work inevi­ low, bullying brute, vain, noisy, and old J.T. Jones speaks in a strange tably stands as a point of reference. stupid. His recovery is rendered as and unstable dialect invented by Do-

November 1976/ 29 nald Pleasence. This confusion of determination in winning the boys' repressed love for each other, finally accents is not merely a superficial prize at the stampede and fighting to release their feelings in the icy waters flaw, but expresses the central save the ranch, Ethan's tearfully of that familiar lake. Off come the falseness of the movie. These people loving fidelity to a wayward father longjohns and the petticoats while have nothing to do with each other, puts him in the place of Cordelia and she and he tread water. and nothing to do with Alberta. Florence Dombey. He imparts a The love-making is prolonged and Ethan and George (Will Darrow greater sincerity to all the scenes in passionate and the bluer they turn in McMillan and Ian McMillan) steal the which he appears, and creates the the water, the more frantic the action, show - George with his stubby-nosed moving power of the final moments of until, like a couple of exhausted fish, cuteness, and Ethan with a strongly Shirley's return home. The spectacle they climax and everything is over but felt and affecting performance as of reconciliation works its magic the laughter. It was at this point I de­ Jesse's faithful daughter and sweet­ once again. cided Ms. Wieland really did have a heart. Yes, truly. For all his gutsy Robert Fothergill sense of humor. But she did not have an artist's vi­ sion of the cinematic canvas she was attempting to cover with realism. Al­ though Richard Leiterman's cinema­ tography brings to the screen a color­ ful recreation of the rugged beauty The Far Shore of painter Tom Thompson - about whom The Far Shore is supposedly Director Joyce Wieland concerned - Ms. Wieland's direction is romantically uncertain. She also has cast in black and white. The her­ d. Joyce Wieland, sc: Bryan Barney from in another, dodging and backtracking oine's husband is obvious from the an original script by Joyce Wieland, ph. through scenic Canadian countryside start, a snob and a bore, a business­ Richard Leiterman, ed. George Appelby, to the accompaniment of finger-trip­ man who buys what he needs and needs Brian French, Judy Steed, Joyce Wieland, ping piano straight out of nickelodeon nothing he can't buy. So there's never sd. ed. Marcel Potier, Rod Haykin, Mel beginnings. I was ready to believe this Lovell m. Douglas Pringle, l.p. Celine Lo­ any doubt that there'll be trouble when mez, Lawrence Benedict, Frank Moore, to be the most embarrassing sequence his Debussy-playing wife and poetic Sean McCann, Cosette Lee, Don le Gros, in a film from which better things hermit Tom find themselves on the Leo Leyden, Murray Westgate, Charlotte were anticipated due to its advance same wavelength. Yet there is no real Blunt, Susan Petrie, Aviva Gerson, David reputation. struggle. The conflict is basic and Bolt, Colette Sharp, Dianne Lawrence, Jill simplistic, not even imaginative. Galer, Janet Doherty, Rachel Barney, Keith But then came an even more shat­ Craig, special appearance: Jean Carignan, tering scene, one from which I wanted Even so Ms. Wieland delivers a exec. p. Pierre Lamy, p. Judy Steed, p. to hide, even in the darkness of the beautiful picture whose flaws show up man Marilyn Stonehouse, Louise Ranger, Vox Theatre in Cannes. Ahead of me only when one gets too close. The p.c. The Far Shore Inc., 1975 col. 35 sat two German critics whose laughter most attractive image in The Far m.m. dist. Astral, running time 1 hour at everything I was trying to take Shore is Miss Lomez, whose dark 37 minutes. seriously had annoyed me immensely. sensuous features are reminiscent of But now I found their reaction was both Genevieve Bujold and Carole contagious as Ms. Wieland threw non- Laure. If The Far Shore does nothing obligatory sex into The Far Shore in else, it brings to the screen another the most far-fetched coupling ever Canadian actress whose talent still Until her heroine dove into a north- dreamed up for the screen. has to be measured but whose star em lake, fully clothed in bil­ quality already is evident. lowing chiffon and Sunbonnet Sue cha- Celine Lomez and Frank Moore, peau, Joyce Wieland had an intriguing their blood boiling hot after months of Les Wedman love drama going for her in The Far Shore. The lady in the lake struck out for the far shore and her artist lover and made it, but the movie sank just about then with no hope for rescue be­ cause director Wieland decided to change forces in mid-stream. Instead of continuing a tense, un­ easy suspense in the story of a woman reaching out for freedom from a domineering, insensitive husband. The Far Shore suddenly turned into a farce. It became a silent movie com­ edy with a chase scene that Mack Sen- nett - as a Canadian - could have been proud of, but which Ms Wieland should not be unless she really intended it to be funny. I don't think she did. It just turned out that way as husband and friend in one canoe chased wife and her lover Joyce Wieland

30/ Cinema Canada eanadiun Brethren film aiKurds Director Dennis Zahoruk To be reviewed in Cinema Canada issue no. 33 For Canadian Film Award freaks. Cinema Canada offers a bound vol­ ume of nos. 21-30 to the person sub­ mitting the most correct answers to our CFA Quiz. Answers must be sub­ mitted before Dec. 5, 1976 and will be announced in issue no. 34. Good luck! Cinema Canada, Box 398, Ou­ tremont Station, Montreal. La tete de I.The first Canadian Film Awards were held in 1948. Normande What filnn was chosen Film of the Year? 2. What former provincial St-Onge premier has won an Etrog? Director Gilles Carle 3. Three actresses have twice been chosen Best Ac­ Reviewed in Cinema Canada no. 24 o en tress. Can you name them? by Ronald H. Blumer 3 4. What year did Claude Ju- o tra first win a Film Award? 5. Only one man has won Film Lies Awards both as an Actor and for Film of the Year. Who is he? My Father 6. Only one man has twice won Film of the Year. Who Told Me is he? 7. How many Film Awards Director Jan Kadar have Crawley Films won? Reviewed in Cinema Canada no. 22 8. Name the 4 films which by Connie Tadros won Awards and later went on to win Oscars. 9. In 1966, a film based on Partis pour the making of a film was chosen in the General In­ formation category, while la gloire the original film was se­ lected in the Travel & Director Clement Perron Tourism category. What were the films? Reviewed in Cinema Canada no. 25 by Carmel Dumas 10. Why is the Etrog so named, and what year was it first presented? 11. How many years has Ge­ rald Pratley been Chair­ man of the Film Awards Second Jury? 12. What two prominent Euro­ Wind pean directors subsequent­ Director Don Shebib ly came back to Canada to make films here, after Reviewed in Cinema Canada no. 27 having served on the juries by Clive Denton of Canadian Film Awards? 13. Who are the people in the photo p. 9 and what are they doing when?

November 1976 / 31