Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary Schools Vendula Pšeničková Identity and Loss in Films by Atom Egoyan Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil Dr. 2010 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Vendula Pšeničková 2 Acknowledgement I would like to thank doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. for his encouragement and his invaluable advice. I would also like to thank Josef Galetka and Milada Burianová for their patience and support. 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................... 5 2. Atom Egoyan .......................................................................... 8 2.1. Biography ....................................................................................................... 8 3. Canadian Cinema ................................................................ 26 3.1. Co-production ............................................................................................... 29 3.2. Independent Film Production ....................................................................... 30 3.3. Ontario New Wave ....................................................................................... 31 4. Family Viewing .................................................................... 35 4.1. Synopsis ........................................................................................................ 35 4.2. Production ..................................................................................................... 37 4.3. Genre ............................................................................................................ 39 4.4. Narrative structure ........................................................................................ 39 4.5. Mise-en-scene ............................................................................................... 43 4.6. Cinematographic Properties ......................................................................... 48 4.7. Response ....................................................................................................... 50 5. The Sweet Hereafter ............................................................ 51 5.1. Synopsis ........................................................................................................ 52 5.2. Adaptation .................................................................................................... 53 5.3. Financing ...................................................................................................... 55 5.4. Narrative structure ........................................................................................ 56 5.5. Mise-en-scene ............................................................................................... 60 5.6. Cinemathography ......................................................................................... 64 5.7. Music ............................................................................................................ 66 5.8. Response ....................................................................................................... 67 6. Where the Truth Lies .......................................................... 68 6.1. Synopsis ........................................................................................................ 68 6.2. Financing ...................................................................................................... 71 6.3. Adaptation .................................................................................................... 72 6.4. Narrative Structure ....................................................................................... 74 6.5. Mise-en-scene ............................................................................................... 76 6.6. Cinematography ........................................................................................... 81 6.7. Music ............................................................................................................ 83 6.8. Editing .......................................................................................................... 84 6.9. Response ....................................................................................................... 84 7. Loss and Identity in Egoyan’s Films .................................. 86 7.1. Identity .......................................................................................................... 88 7.2. Avoidance, Repression and Denial ............................................................... 99 7.3. Substitution ................................................................................................. 114 7.4. Gaining Control .......................................................................................... 125 8. Conclusion .......................................................................... 133 9. Works Cited ....................................................................... 137 4 1. Introduction Atom Egoyan is the most critically acclaimed contemporary Canadian filmmaker. While he began his career in the 1980s as an unknown director of low- budged independent films, he has gradually taken on some more ambitious and generously funded films. Egoyan‘s early films were strongly influenced by his fascination with the Theatre of the Absurd and by his exploration of personal identity through recording technology. Despite the fact that these early films won Egoyan certain critical recognition at a number of domestic and international film festivals, they were generally perceived as too distanced and emotionally detached to appeal to a wider audience. Egoyan‘s first shift to more emotionally available and commercially oriented films came in the mid 1990s with the release of Exotica (1994) and The Sweet Hereafter (1997). A critical success of both the films at the Cannes International Film Festival and two Oscar nominations for The Sweet Hereafter granted them wider domestic and international release, and also recognition from international audience. As a result, some of the supporters of Egoyan‘s earlier films accused the director of losing his artistic vision. The second major shift of Egoyan‘s career came in 2005 when he released his most commercially oriented and his most generously funded feature film of his career Where the Truth Lies. At that time, even the most devoted advocates of Egoyan‘s work felt baffled and dissapointed ―by his recent turn to the popular‖ (Egoyan, ―Four Film‖). They attributed this dramatic shift to the commercial pressure from the UK investors of the film and Telefilm Canada. I believe that these seemingly thematic transitions of Egoyan's films, attributed to his growing commercial success and international prominence, are, in fact, changes 5 of approach and depiction of the themes that were present already in films he made at the very beginning of his career. To a lesser or greater degree, the themes of fabrication of individual identity, interchangeability of identities, traumatic loss, and a process of coping with the loss have been tackled in all Egoyan's films from his early short films made on a shoe-string budget to his latest more than generously financed co- productions. The changing funding patterns and the increasing commerciality of Egoyan's film has have naturally also been reflected in changes of the production process and of the visual style of his films. Although the topics and some of the narrative devices have remained consistent, the visual quality of production has gradually raised as Egoyan have has been able to afford high-quality equipment, setting, and promotional campaign. However, at the same time it also put Egoyan under pressure to keep up to the expectation and to produce high quality films that are increasingly accessible to a wider audience and commercially viable at the same time. This is naturally reflected in certain compromises of Egoyan's artistic vision. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to prove and demonstrate that despite the increasing commercial orientation and changing financing patterns of Egoyan's films, his chief preoccupations with the topics of identity and loss have never been abandoned. In order to prove this, I will analyze three Egoyan‘s films that represent different stages of development of the director‘s career. There are several reasons for selecting these particular films for my analysis. Firstly, they reflect changes in financing patterns of Egoyan‘s films. Secondly, they reflect the increasing commercial orientation, and therefore also the increasing emotional accessibility of Egoyan‘s films. Thirdly, they represent different approaches to the topics that are core interests of Egoyan‘s films - the construction of identity and dealing with loss. 6 In the second chapter, I will first consider some essential biographical facts related to the enduring thematic preoccupations of Egoyan‗s films. Then, I will provide an outline of Egoyan‘s films from the early low-budget student films to his latest film Chloe. In the next chapter, I will first discuss the chief aspects and the influences of the contemporary Canadian cinema in general. Then, I will put Egoyan's work into the wider context of contemporary Canadian filmmaking.