The King Chronicle
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CINEMA CAN A D A • Donald Brittain's The King chronicle t first glance, the life of Mackenzie King might seem to offer a wealth of material for a fascinating, if quirky, story - 22 years as prime minister of Canada while, at various times, consortingA with prostitutes, parleying with Hitler, getting regular advice from the dead, and having a dog for closest confidant. But Donald Brittain's six-hour, three-part docu-drama, The Killg Chronicle (co-produced by the National Film Board and the CBC), lies steadfastly two-dimensional on the TV screen and refuses to come alive. Brittain's recounting is based on King's 12-million-word diary, but the diary, instead of revealing the inner life of an eminent public figure, is, according to Brittain's own descrip- " tion, "stuffed with sanctimonious self-importan- ! ceo "King's contemporaries called him" dull and ~ devious'''; in Parliament he was known as a ~ bone-crushing bore. (Alliteration, you can tell, ~ is one of Brittain's favorite stylistic devices.) f To make a dull subject interesting is a Forsaking his dog, MacKenzie King (Sean McCann) consults with spiritualist Emma Wreidt (Kay Tremblay) tempting but dangerous challenge for any artist. that he could rise above the wishy-washy when King snug and respectable in his three-piece suit commenting and insulting. His punchy prose Dullness cannot be simply represented, but inspired. For him as an individual and for that his sweaty flesh is somehow an affront. and newsreel narration style are intrinsically must be somehow transformed, through Canada as a country the conference was pivotal Granted that King led a double life, too often the contrary to the fictional mode. At the end of the contrast or context, into something of dramatic - but even so, a conference is a conference, and Chronicle does not succeed in making it Chronicle, the viewer will certainly know more import. Valuable as The Killg Chronicle is as a Brittain's extended attention to the proceedings psychologically or dramatically probable, so about the facts and quirks of King's life but will record of people and events that shaped is far too much for all but the most avid of some of the transitions just don't work. have none of the satisfaction that comes of being Canada 's destiny in the 20 th century, it is Canadian history buffs. This is also the problem with the other aspect involved in compelling fiction. Brittain refuses ultimately defeated by its pudgy, implacable King lost the 1930 election, having "reduced of King's private ~e, that is, his faith in to embellish the known. So why didn't he make subject. the crash of '29 to a tedious debate over mediums. Ironically, these scenes don't seem a straight-on documentary? King, it seems, was a Dale Carnegie-style federal-provincial jurisdictions. " He sat shocking enough. To an audience jaded by Ralph Friesen • opportunist, who, except for his guilt about sex opposite R. B. Bennett in Parliament and saw Poltergeist, Witchboard and the like, King's THE KING CHRONICLE d. I w. I narr. Donald Brittain. p. and his lack of "image," might have been quite numerological significance in the Conservatives' mediums seem like harmless, dotty old ladies AdamSymansky. d.o.p. Savas Kalogeras. cam. Susan Trow. at home in our own decade. As a young man he seating arrangement; a visit to an Ottawa and the spirits themselves so faint and vague pic. ed. Rita Roy, Roger Hart. asst. Rene Pothier. p.dcs. flirted briefly with ideals of social justice, visiting medium meanwhile, assured him that he would that it's impossible to imagine that King Robert Hackborn. art. d. Denis Boucher. orig. treatment the slums of Chicago, recording his pity for the be restored to power. And so he was in 1935, seriously believed in them. Ronald Blumer, Donald Brittain. cast. Marsha Chesley. sd. rec. Hans Oomes. sd. cd. Les Halman, Bill Graziadei, poor. But this was a brief dalliance on his way to with the catchy slogan, "King or Chaos. " There is a level on which The King Chronicle is Raymond Vermette. re-rec. Jean-Pierre Joutel, Adrian Croll. apolitical career, for it was politics - perhaps not Equivocal as ever, he committed Canada to a success - and that is, as a chronicle. M. Eldon Rathburn, Milan Kymlicka . t1I. rec. Louis Hone. so much the exercise of power as the maneuve the war effort in 1939, but was vague on the most Painstakingly, Brittain takes us through the m.ed. Julian Olson. p.man. MarceIMalacket.loc.nUlIl. (eline ring required to reach such a position - that volatile domestic issue, declaring; "ConScription events of King's life and times, intercutting the Daignault. cont. Gaudette Messier. gaffer Fran~ois Warot. gripFran <;ois Dupere. nUlkeup Geralyn Wraith. tecl!. coor. enchanted him. if necessary, but not necessarily conscription. " dramatized re-creation with actual footage of Richard Bujold. a. d. Joanne Malo. I.p. Sean McCann, Gary At 26, he was a deputy minister; by 33 an When he visited Canadian troops in 1941 they events. Canada moved decisively toward Reineke, Marion Gilsenan, Robert Benson, Richard Farrell, M. P., and minister of Labour in Laurier's refused to listen to his address, shouting him nationhood while King was prime minister; The Patrioa Collins, Michael Kirby, Jason Dean, Albert Millaire, down with an assortment of four-letter insults. faithfully records the political John W. Carroll, Doris Petrie, David Hughes, Christopher government the following year. He became King Chronicle Newton, Stephanie Morgenstern, Trevor John, Harry Hill, prime minister in 1921, beginning a career of While this is certainly based on historical fact, machinations and backroom business that went Arthur Grosser, Barrie Baldaro, John Bayliss, Christina Kaya, leadership that depended on offending as few the dramatic rendering is shocking and almost on. It also deals with some of Canada's moral James Bradford, Les Lye, John Friesen, Jean Belcourt, Donna Canadians as possible while cautiously pulling incredible, perhaps because the viewer has not failures during this time, such as the internment Farran, Terrence La Brosse, Damir Andrei, Gordon Jocelyn, been prepared, and much of what has gone on George Merner, Tom Harvey, Marion Gilsenan, R. H. away from British dominance. King actually of the west coast Japanese-Canadians (touched Thomson, Kay Trembla y, Daved Gardner, Sandy Webster, took the British on in fierce debate at the before is dry and passionless. What had King on rather lightly) and the refusal to aid Jews John Friesen, Shawn Lawrence, Robin Bowditch, Robert little-known Imperial Conference in London in done to evoke such a display of naked fleeing from the Nazi oppression. Welch, Doris Petrie, Jim McNabb, John W. Carroll, John 1923, and set Canada on an independent course animosity ? The advantage of using drama in the telling of Koensgon, Henry Ramer, Nicolas Hrtschan, Helga Schmitz, Babs Gadbois, Jack Rider, Henry Ramer, Len Watt, Gordon in {vl;:!gn policy. He would not allow the It calls to mind an earlier scene in which King, history ought to be that we can get inside events Jocelyn, Gerard Parkes, Robert Higden, Philip Pretten, Dean Canadian press to report on these events, then leader of the opposition, visits the Byward and characters in a way that a simple piecing Hagopian, Terry Haig, Norris Domigue, Tom Harvey, Barr)' however, because he was afraid of annoying Market and beds a prostitute. Lunging and together of the facts would not allow. But Edward Blake, Doris Petrie, Mark Brennan, Yves Dubreuil, diehard imperialists at home. grunting, he climaxes; wincing and cringing, the Brittain is an inveterate editorialist; he cannot Chuck Collins, James Rae, Bob Girolami, Aline Vandine, Steve Michael?, Richard Zeman, Bernie McManus, Teddy King's success at the conference was proof viewer averts his gaze. You get so used to seeing restrain himself from interpreting and Lee Dillon. CINEMA CANADA PAGI g6 MAY19U CINEMA CAN A D A • Jacques Leduc's an anima ted sequence by Pierre Hebert which basically illustrates Ie passagedu temps, the flow of Charade chinoise time. These mechanisms of self-reflexion are integrated into the film to convey the idea Leduc assigns to a coincidental reality that is" stronger ooking bac~ at the past always contains than cinema itself. " some traps. Reminiscence is a mode Leduc makes clear near the end of Cha rade where nostalgia rna\' overrun the chi110ise that one of his preoccupations in making necessary objective analysis of the facts , the film was "failing to change the world, how and may sometimes bea \I'd\' to obscure far can we go on filming?" (A defaut de pouvoir Lthe present. changer Ie monde, jusql/ 'O// peut-oll filmer?). He Jacques Leduc's latest documentary feature sees the failure of political causes through the Charad echi noise promotes itself as an assessment participants of Charade chillo/se, but he also of Quebec's militanc:' during the ' 60s and the makes this judgement on a filmic practice which 70s. As Leduc puts it, in a voice-over is no longer the carrier of these political causes: commentary on his film , it tries to "strike the "I miss this way of seeing, the way of seeing right hour" and to convey an "assessment of possible change, " delusion. " The occasion for this assessment is If Charade chilloise incorporates some devices an organized St-Jean Baptiste's weekend in the from '70s militant films, namely the conscious Eastern Townships Leduc brings together a Conforming to nostalgia for the pOlitics of the '70s, director Jacques Leduc ness-raising group encounter and the attitude of dozen old militants, men and women who have self-reflexiveness, it does not use them to elevate just turned 40 and are trying to make sense of personalized than those of the men in No tes de her remarks to threaten the rampant nostalgia the discourse.