Of a Canadian Cinema

• F E 5 T I v A L 5 • FESTIVAL' OF FESTIVALS by Michael Dorland though, there was no such context at lesson is plain. There are no longer any Timing. (But as Pat Thompson notes in the Festival of Festivals. Or rather the neat boundaries. Film crosses into tele ssue, Canadian shorts, the category In this great future, you can forget the context was that of 36 Canadian entries vision which crosses back into film." in which this country wins Oscars, were past - Bloor St. graffiti of various lengths often forlornly adrift But it was precisely the absence of on the whole in fine shape.) For all of us, the consequences are amid some 200 other selections, mainly "neat boundaries" - namely context - If the process of working through the grave. The very success of the Broadcast features, of the best and brightest of that was most striking about the Per burden of feature film belatedness Fund is putting in jeopardy the raison world cinema, past and present. And in spective Canada program this year. could be greatly eased by a clearly de d'etre of Telefilm Canada. For Canada, that context, the Canadian section re Measured against the stronger film in fined context for Canadian cinema, the as a nation, without feature films, the vealed a cinema still labouring against dustries - and, more importantly, fact that there isn't one - that it survives brightest and the best will simply extraordinary cultural handicaps. stronger filmic traditions - of other somewhere between the domination of leave... This was only reinforced by the Per countries, Canadian cinema is still very international cinema on the one hand - Peter Pearson, Telefilm executive spective Canada program's domestic uncertain not just of what it is trying to and television on the other - only com director context. In a stunning example of cul say, but how it is to say it. There is an pounds it. The difficulties of style that t was perhaps to be expected after last tural myopia, this was also the week in oppressive belatedness to Canadian appear in the work of experienced di year's triumphant Canadian Retros which CBC chose to go 100% Canadian cinema in content and in style that sim rectors like Ted Kotcheff or Claude Ipective that the Festival of Festivals' content, heightening the political com ply has to be worked through - and is Jutra only illustrate how real a burden second Perspective Canada program petition currently going on as to the fu being worked through. Successfully belatedness is:Joshua is Kotchefl's first would suffer somewhat by comparison. ture orientation of Canadian images and with films like 90 Days or Canada's Canadian film since 1974 and it shoWS; After all, there is an enormous differ the means of their delivery. Sweetheart; with considerable promise Jutra's La Dame en couleurs is his first ence between a retrospective that can If Perspective Canada is to become a in My American Cousin, Jacques et French-language film in nine years; both select from 60 years of Canadian film 's serious showcase for Canadian cinema, Novembre or John Paisz's work-in-prog films struggle against a literariness that up-and-down history, and the much that vocation is not helped by taking ress Crime Wave, but also with. varying preoccupies them to the detriment of narrower perspective of the '84-'85 film place in a domestic environment where degrees of diffiCUlty, ranging from their qualities as cinema. The reverse crop. But in that difference lies all the Canadian cinema itself appears like tele Joshua Then and Now or La Dame en side of that belatedness is that the brunt difference, namely a context. Last year, vision's poor cousin. This was the ftrst couleurs (to mention two films by vet of the burden has to be carried by those current Canadian film - and this for the year in which it was possible to actually eran filmmakers) to badly flawed fea least equipped to do so - ftrst-time di very first time - could be seen within see the effects on Canadian cinema of tures by nearly-new directors (laur rectors. Telliogiy six out of 14-feature its own larger filmic context, that web the redirection of policy, money and ence Keane's Samuel Lount or Claude length entries in this year's Perspective of situation, association, and memory production towards broadcasting. "For Gagnon's Visage pale), to outrightly Canada program were first-features. But i that mak~s up a culture. This year, us," says Telefilm's Peter Pearson, "the amateur efforts like Eric Weinthal's if the Sandy Wilsons, Jean BeaudryS, p e rs pee t v e can a d a 10/Cinema Canada - November 1985 - • F E 5 T I v A L 5 • Fran,<ois Bouviers and John Paizses of budget film production - no vistas, no young Canadian cinema do clearly have immensity of acting, no staggering cam something to show for themselves, em techniques - that would be lost in what sort of judgment does one render seeing it on the tube. The necessIty on films like Bachar Chbib's Memoirs Given the enormous difficulties in which, whatever its other faults, is at raising the $6- 7 million required to .of a Canadian cinema least properly photographed and has make just one Joshua Then and Now, energetic music, or Weinthal's Timing where indeed is the money to come nel and facilitieS are available here. w by 'ted Kotcheff which has no visible qualities what from for' the 30 Joshuas a year that So we have the technical ability soever other than being unabashedly would be needed just to begin to recap What folloWS has been slightly ab now to make great films here. But set in Toronto? (If it's any comfort to ture Canada's cinema screens? But ridged from a speech given by Ted having achieved these levels of profi the weaker first-time directors, this when Canada's prime minister is widely Kotcheff at the Festival of Festivals ciency, where do we find ourselves? year's award for worst film would have quoted as saying "We've been trying to Trade Forum lunch in Toronto on Once again, Canadian cinema is in to be evenly shared between Timing tell you for some time this country is Sept. 5. an unstable state and uncertain con and a third stab at a feature, Claude Gag bankrupt," one wonders what priority 've made two Canadian films sepa ditions prevail. And the sad news is non's Visage pale, another exercise in Canadian film carries with a govern rated by 11 years. Duddy Kravitz that a film like Grey FOx, Joshua or non-filmmaking.) ment whose national leader defines his I in 1973 and Joshua in 1984, and The Boy in Blue just couldn't be If, to indulge in the Perspective country as "bankrupt." the thing that struck me most forci made this year because government Canada program's wishful thinking, this But the problem of the cinema in bly about the two experiences was financing is going into 1V produc was "the year of the young filmmaker," Canada - or to call it by its American this: When I directed Duddy Kravitz, tion. those young filmmakers face bleak fu name: free-trade - is what Canadian it was difficult to find a decent We all know why. Millions of dol tures in terms of making another film. cinema had always had to struggle cameraman. (Producer) John lars of feature-film p£oduction never As Pearson laid it out before the indus against. Last year, the wide perspectives Kemeny and I used a British camera got distributed and ended up unseen try Trade Forum, the commitment of ofthe Festival of Festivals' Canadian Re man. The proouction manager was by anybody. So government tied the broadcasters to the Broadcast Fund trospective showed us, that, in spite of eager but inexperienced, the ctew financing of features to obtaining a makes television programming the top everything, Canadian cinema did pos was raw and post-production TV license so, if all else failed, the priority. But the industry itself has al sess a distinct and distinguished history., facilities were miserable. Post-pro films would at least be seen on TV. ready made giant strides in conf}ating This year, Perspective Canada offered a duction personnel were non-exis- Well, we all know that films and film and television production into much narrower focus on the present tent. The sound track was atrocious, 1V are totally different aesthetically some sort of halfway genre that is and its difficulties, aesthetic and other. the post-synch was post but not in and in content. 1V by its very nature neither film nor television, and, if any synch, and Bellevue Pathe delivered has to be timid and safe, cautious in thing, more a hybrid between dull • an answer print that I was never its depiction of sexuality and vio theatre and bad film. The risk is very happy about. lence, careful in its language. Films real that the Festival's Canadian section, "Nothing ever happens" Eleven years later to the making deal in levels of realism that are just if it is to endure, will soon consist - My American Cousin of Joshua and the situation was en not pOSSible on TV. So whereas ror mainly of made-far-TV programming. tirely different. The Montreal film me, the system of yoking was iucon-. The television streamroller was visi anadian cinema, to the extent it has crew was world-class. Franc;ois Pro venient and a bit wasteful financially, bly in evidence this year, both in the 36 existed, is a cinema of belatedness.

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