Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre STUDY GUIDE MOOSE JAW (THERE’S A FUTURE IN OUR PAST) CONTENTS INTRODUCTION The CFMDC’s Seminal Works project examines five key works from our collection: Cinema Vérité 2 Moose Jaw (There’s a Future in Our Past) by Rick Hancox, Hookers on Davie by Synopsis 2 Janis Cole and Holly Dale, In the Gutter and Other Good Places by Cristine Richey, Film Studies 3 The Inquiry Film by Jesse Nishihata and Winter Kept Us Warm by David Secter. Canadian Social History 4 These films were chosen for their capacity to raise issues and questions relevant Cultural Geography 5 in a variety of educational settings and across disciplines in the humanities and Further Viewing 6 social sciences. Film Credits 6 Biographies 6 The five works were made between 1965 and 1993, spanning almost three decades of film production in Canada, the oldest of which is 40 years old this CREDITS 7 year. Examining the films in 2005 will provide both an opportunity to see how history has changed our understanding and interpretation of the works themselves, as well as the opportunity to examine how we now understand the issues the films explore. Four of these works are social issue documentaries dedicated to specific regional, community and cultural concerns and one is a dramatic feature which was the first-ever film produced in Canada that addresses gay sexuality. As a group of films, they all challenge previous cinematic theory and practice–formally, aesthetically and conceptually. They use filmic and narration devices unusual for their time: surveillance technology, first-person perspectives, personal memory, and multi-level excavation of subjects, as well as forbidden themes and contentious political history. With this project, CFMDC inaugurates a process of rejuvenation for Canadian film and documentary. Given their cultural significance, we believe that these films will be engaging for educational audiences and will generate renewed interest and discourse. Our goal is to increase public exposure of what we feel are some of the most important works produced by Canadian media artists. http://www.cfmdc.org/home.php Page 1 of 7 STUDY GUIDE MOOSE JAW (THERE’S A FUTURE IN OUR PAST) For discussion of the four documentaries, it will be useful to read these definitions of cinema vérité and “new documentary:” Cinema vérité is a style of documentary filmmaking that emphasizes the showing and telling of the ‘truth.’ The cinema vérité approach is employed to present reality as it really is, enabling ‘objective’ observation. A cinema vérité movement emerged in the 1960s simultaneously in France, USA, England, and Canada with different philosophies to the practice emerging in each locale. The practice that emerged in North America is often referred to as direct cinema. Cinema vérité, as a method, gained significant repute since the making of Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961). (See: Callison, Candis. 2000. “Truth in Cinema: Comparing Direct Cinema and Cinema Verité.” www.web.mit.edu/candis/www/callison_truth_cinema.htm) In his discussion on the evolution of Canadian documentary filmmaking, Peter Steven describes the period of the 1980s and 90s as one in which filmmakers departed from merely documenting the ‘observed’ truth to employing a hybrid form that married art and social-issue documentary. A significant and defining feature of the “new documentary” is the departure from ‘neutral’ observation and ‘balance’ of viewpoints. FILMMAKER Rick Hancox, 1992. 52 minutes. Colour. Sound. FILM SYNOPSIS Moose Jaw was a frontier boomtown flourishing on the Canadian Pacific rail line forging Canada as a “Dominion” in the late 1800s. But as rail gave way to the jet age, Moose Jaw began to decline. Now, museums dot the landscape, along with a giant moose, and schemes to restore yester-year boast the motto “There’s a future in our past” - ironically adopted by Hancox in this one-hour, experimental docu- mentary filmed over the course of a decade. A poetic, multi-levelled excavation of personal memory, social and political history, and the pre-historic, Moose Jaw is also a reflective portrait of the filmmaker’s hometown as a faded symbol of Empire, and “storm centre” on the frontier of a museumized future. http://www.cfmdc.org/home.php Page 2 of 7 STUDY GUIDE MOOSE JAW (THERE’S A FUTURE IN OUR PAST) FILM STUDIES QUESTIONS 1. Moose Jaw is an example of the 1980s trend towards autobiographical documentary, a form of experimental filmmaking which challenged traditional “objective” and distanced modes of documentary by acknowledging the filmmaker’s own subjectivity. As you watch the film, identify three scenes in which Hancox’s own experiences, memories, and desires shape the way we see the town. 2. What are the possibilities of autobiographical documentary that are not available to the filmmaker in more traditional documentaries? What are autobiographical documentary’s limitations? If you were going to make a film about your own hometown, would you use some of Hancox’s methods? Why or why not? 3. Identify three examples of Hancox’s use of archival materials (for example, family photographs, old radio jingles, or newspaper clippings). Then decide what role each is playing in the film. Overall, why do you think Hancox has used this kind of personal and historical material? Additional Question: 4. Hancox takes his film’s subtitle from Moose Jaw’s slogan “There’s a future in our past.” What are the tensions between past and future in the film? In what ways are residents of Moose Jaw forced to exploit their own past? Comment on the irony of Hancox’s subtitle. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Cinémathèque Québécoise. From Nanouk to Oumigmag: Documentary Film in Canada: 50 key Films. www.nanouk.ca/index.2.html Hancox, Richard. “Geography and Myth in Paul Tomkowicz: Street-railway Switchman.” In J. Leach and J. Sloniowski (Eds.) Candid Eyes: Essays on Canadian Documentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, (2003): 13-30. Hancox, R. and C. Jonasson. Richard Hancox. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1990. Hoolbloom, Mike. Inside the Pleasure Dome: Fringe Film in Canada. Toronto: Coach House, 2001. Kaye, Frances W. Hiding the Audience: Viewing Arts and Arts Institutions of the Prairies. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2003. Lane, Jim. The Autobiographical Documentary in America. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002. Levasseur, Audrey. “Film and Video Self-Biographies.” Biography 23, No. 1 (2000): 176-192. Winston, Brian. “Documentary: How the Myth was Deconstructed.” Wide Angle 21, No. 2 (1999): 70-86. http://www.cfmdc.org/home.php Page 3 of 7 STUDY GUIDE MOOSE JAW (THERE’S A FUTURE IN OUR PAST) CANADIAN SOCIAL QUESTIONS HISTORY 5. As traditional sources of income are lost, the politicians of Moose Jaw turn to tourism to boost the economy. What happens to the city’s history when it is commercialized and “museumized” in this way? In answering the question, consider Hancox’s conversations with the city councilor, the opening of the Mexican restaurant, and the filming of museum interiors. 6. In his reflections on the postmodern, Canadian scholar Arthur Kroker argues that Moose Jaw challenges the notion of a Canadian identity. Discuss the notion of national identities. Do you think there exists a single Canadian identity? Is such a thing desirable? Why or why not? 7. The transnational railway has been an important symbol in mainstream depictions of Canadian nationalism. What experiences of the railway, rooted in Canada’s colonial past, are absent from Moose Jaw? In your opinion, do these absences impact the effectiveness and scope of the film? Additional Question 8. Hancox has suggested that “what is happening to Moose Jaw is, in fact, symbolic for the rest of the country.” Do you agree that Moose Jaw is sym- bolic? Why or why not? ADDITIONAL RESOURCES Blackwell, J. and L. Stanley-Blackwell. Canadian Studies: A Guide to the Sources. www.iccs-ciec.ca/blackwell.html Diaz, H., Jaffe, J., and Stirling, R. (Eds.). Farm Communities at the Crossroads: Challenge and Resistance. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 2003. Iacovetta, F. and Mitchinson, W. (Eds.). On the Case: Explorations in Social History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. Phillips, Ruth B. “Re-placing Objects: Historical Practices for the Second Museum Age.” The Canadian Historical Review 86, No. 1 (2005): 83-110. Strobel, Margaret. “Getting to the Source: Becoming a Historian, Being an Activist, and Thinking Archivally: Documents and Memory as Sources.” Journal of Women's History 1 (1999): 181-192. Wetherell, Donald. “Making New Identities: Alberta Small Towns Confront the City 1900-1950.” Journal of Canadian Studies 39, No. 1 (2005): 175-198. http://www.cfmdc.org/home.php Page 4 of 7 STUDY GUIDE MOOSE JAW (THERE’S A FUTURE IN OUR PAST) CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY QUESTIONS 9. Moose Jaw documents the economic and social decline of Hancox’s hometown from the 1950s to the 1990s. As you watch, identify three examples of this devitalization. In each case, consider what combination of factors – regional, national or global – are responsible for the change. 10. Discuss the impact that technology, and the acceleration of technological change, is having on small towns and rural economies. Compare and contrast that impact with the influence of technology on Canadian urban centres. 11. In their study of the marketing of Kelowna, BC, Luis Aguiar, Patricia Tomic, and Ricardo Trumper argue that in an age of rapid urbanization, many of Canada’s smaller hinterland cities have sought to re-invent themselves using a discourse of whiteness that emphasizes “familiarity,” “homogeneity,” and “safety.” As you watch, find an example of this kind of language used by Moose Jaw’s civic boosters or cultural institutions. What kinds of assumptions lie behind this discourse of whiteness? What kinds of lived experiences does it exclude? Additional Question 12.