Film Reyiewf

FILm REYIEWf T.e. McLuhan's THE THIRD WALKER d: T.C. McLuhan, sc: Robert Thorn, ph: Robert Fiore, ed: Ulla Ryghe, sd: Richard Lightstone, sd. ed. Ken Heely Ray, a.d.: William McCrow, m: Paul Hoffert, l.p.: Colleen Dewhurst, William Shatner, Frank Moore, Monique Mer cure, Tony Meyer, David Meyer, Andr~e Pelletier, Diana LeBlanc, exec. p: Melvin Simon and Quadrant Films, p: T.C. McLuhan, Brian Winston, p.c. Wych wood Productions (1977), col: 35rnrn, running time: 93 minutes. The Third Walker may fmd a few enthusiastic defenders. More likely it will get the bloody bludgeon; savage wit rather than fUm criticism. The movie is an easy target for all those middlebrow reviewers who have no tolerance for any fUm outside the mid dleground and who customarily treat the work of Resnais, Pasolini, Warhol (to say nothing of more radical direc tors) as if it were an illegitimate use of celluloid. In this case the close spi ritual relatives of The Third Walker are those eccentric Canadian movies - Gordon Shepherd's Eliza's Horo Waiting for the operation to establish which of the three boys are the twins... scope, Paul Almond's Journey, Don (Colleen Dewhurst and Monique Mercure) Owen's The Ernie Game, Joyce Wei· ture weighing in between $600,000 mass culture originating in New York land's The Far Shore, among others - and $1 million, requiring the atten and Los Angeles. in which it seems the material is far tion and support of millions of fIlm By now, after so many Canadian more meaningful to the director than goers to break even. The other (or film underdevelopment flops, one would it is to anyone else. additional) explanation for our long expect any director to realize a few There are two explanations for this list of idiosyncratic fIlms is that there basic rules of the business: (a) the odd form of fIlmmaking; one prosaic - is so little sense of artistic community general public doesn't like elliptical, they are often the handiwork of some in Canada we don't know what the non-linear forms of film story-telling one who wrote , produced and directed common language, or the meeting and no such fIlm is ever as popular as the whole thing, so that there is little grounds, of our culture should be. In those with a straightforward narrative. opportunity for internal criticism. By this view, the directors of these fUms Moreoever, few stories benefit from a the time the movie is finished , it's had no inkling that their mms would fragmented structure. For every Blow way off the deep-end, as subjective strike many as being unintelligible. Up, If... or The Servant that can jus· as an Elizabeth Smart novel or a Sylvia They want to establish a distinctive tify their obliqueness, and which did Plath poem. It takes a monumental film culture. They want to break with become major hits, there are dozens obtuseness not to recognize the dif American mass-tastes. But they have of obscurantist muddles - confusing ferent latitudes permitted a literary great difficulty creating something that mms about nothing vital - that reo work with its far less-costly economic is distinctively Canadian and passion gularly die at the box office and cer· base , and a supposedly-commercial fea- ately interesting to replace the dynamic tainly are no model to follow. (b) Any 38/Cinema Canada FILm REYIEWf film that doesn't have much to offer sometime in the 1950s, twin brothers jealous, insecure and possessive . He in the way of interesting characters or were born to a Scottish family and asks her to decide what he should do compelling observations had better were accidentally separated at birth with his life and gives her all the money lay on the sensationalism (witness through an error by a maternity-ward he has saved over the years (about Brian de Palma's current success with nuse. One is sent home to a French $6,000). He tells her to place all of it The Fury) so that fJ.1mgoers get some speaking family, the other to his real on a racetrack bet (Andrew is a jockey) thing for their time and money. A family along with a "twin" who is not so that he can double it by winning common error in Canadian movies is a blood-relation. Monique Mercure the next race and buy the boat he that, not being Bergman, Antonioni portrays the mother of the misplaced wants - if she thinks that granting him or Fellini, our fantasist directors start twin, Etienne; Colleen Dewhurst, the freedom is a wise course. Otherwise out aiming at Art and end up looking true mother of the twins, raised his she is to keep the money and they'll silly, having given their shallow ima brother, Andrew. The brothers (de get married. She keeps the money, he ginations free reign to putter about in picted by real twins, Tony and David wins the race. Then she realizes he a cinematic sandbox. Surrealists have Meyer, from the Royal Shakespearean will resent her for the rest of his life. to be willing to probe their psyches Players in England) are in their early Whereupon parting-brother James, in a deeply - boldly and crudely, at the 20s when the fIlm opens, and haven't gesture of largesse unmatched since the very least, like Alexandro Jodorowsky, seen one another for about 15 years. all-for-love sacrifIces of Greta Garbo or with the consummate skill of Bunuel; We later learn that Dewhurst became movies, gives her all the money he otherwise it is a mode of filmmaking suspicious of a possible error in the has, so that Andrew will think that she best left to the realms of 16mm where hospital when the boys go to school did trust him and placed the bet after high-risk experiments don't lead to and are frequently mistaken for one all. Then James goes to Andrew and financial disaster. With a few excep another. She undertakes legal action apologizes for having nothing to give tions - David Cronenberg, Richard and a court order for all three boys to him for his wedding, and leaves with Benner, Murray Markowitz come imme have skin-graft tests to determine their stoic heartburn. diately to mind - the redeeming impor parentage. The results prove, we are If a man had made thIs movie he tance of sensationalism is not much told (the court judgment is rendered would probably be accused of being appreciated by Canadian fIlmmakers . by the voice of Marshall McLuhan) anti-feminist - at least - if not fur Maybe, as I have argued elsewhere that Etienne and Andrew are truly tively homosexual. None of the female in "Inner Views", there are too many twins while pseudo-brother James (Frank characters ar~ humanly appealing - conservative areas in Canadian society Moore) is of no fIxed genetic address. Dewhurst is ruthless, reducing her hus to create and support a vigorous fJ.1m The court further orders that Etienne band to alcoholism, and rebuffmg culture; if true, that lllaves us in the and James should be swapped but the affection of James while pursuing paradoxical position of trying to sell Etienne's mother apparently runs away her obsession of getting Etienne; Pel naive fIlms to sophisticated markets. with him to prevent this from hap letier portrays a possessive cow to Two provinces have recently banned pening. "Apparently," because when whom "love" means total ownership; Louis Malle's Pretty Baby - you have the fIlm opens, she lives in the same Mercure is required to do a shrewish to be a cultural backwater (like Ire small community as everyone else, and number at the top of her voice. The land, South Africa, Australia) to sup (there's no explanation why the bro boys alone are shown to be warm, port the censorship practices of English thers have never run into one another generous, affectionate - and fascinated Canada. The question is, if we live in over the years) and the father of the by one another. a place that prides itself on its conser twins (William Shatner) has no diffi On the psychological level, the mm vative control of passion and imagina culty locating them both, just before doesn't wash. On the political-symbo tion, what is there that the outside he dies. It's at his funeral that the twins lism level, it doesn't make sense (as world should take an interest in? What meet again, and The Third Walker suming that the French-English divi is there to celebrate? More basically, is ready to begin. Phew. sion in the movie is supposed to make what is there to sell? What we have next is a second wave any comment at all). In The Third Walker writer-direc of psychological complications set in Yet, . occasionally, more in the re tor Teri McLuhan seems only to have the present. Etienne returns to his true sonance of the acting than anything considered intermittently that movies mother's household (the twins, in twin that is said, The Third Walker acquires are something that have to be marketed. beds, have long talks at night. They a haunting quality. In the main, how It has a saleable cast - Colleen Dew do a lot of deep staring at one an ever, the fJ.1m is a wistful mystery about hurst is especially good, William Shat other.) Step-brother James (who looks imaginary lives that ultimately has no ner and Monique Mercure are frne in to be about 30) decides it's time to thing to say.

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