1979: Reading the Tax-Shelter Boom in Canadian Film History By Peter Urquhart, Department of Art History and Communications Studies, McGill University, Montreal. Submitted July, 2004. A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. © Peter Urquhart 2004 Library and Bibliothèque et 1+1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de l'édition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada Your file Votre référence ISBN: 0-494-12959-X Our file Notre référence ISBN: 0-494-12959-X NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant à la Bibliothèque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par télécommunication ou par l'Internet, prêter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des thèses partout dans loan, distribute and sell th es es le monde, à des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, électronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protège cette thèse. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. ln compliance with the Canadian Conformément à la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privée, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont été enlevés de cette thèse. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. ••• Canada 1979: Reading the Tax-She1ter Boom in Canadian Fi1m History Abstract More certified-Canadian feature films were shot in Canada in 1979 than in any other year. The height of what has become known as the "tax-shelter boom," 1979 stands as a remarkable moment in the history of the Canadian cinema, with 70 features shot in a year in which Hollywood produced only 99 films. The extant history of the Canadian cinema has largely ignored this moment, and in this thesis largue that the slim treatment of the period by cri tics represents a "received wisdom," consistently repeated, but seldom scrutinized, and that this received wisdom is representative of the culturally nationalist impulse which has coloured the entire historiography of the Canadian cinema. Because many of the films produced during the boom were in the style of Hollywood genres, the "received wisdom" presents the entirety of the tax- shelter boom as a cultural and industrial near-disaster for the Canadian cinema, and this thesis, partly a revisionist history, explores not only those conclusions, but also provides critical discussion of them. l begin by presenting the received wisdom, the existing account, on the period. This is followed by a chapter which situates the tax-shelter boom in a history of state intervention in the feature film industry. Following this, l provide analysis of the contexts surrounding the tax-shelter boom, including critical discussion of articles and reviews from the contemporaneous popular press, and of the industry discourse. l then turn my attention to the texts themselves, which the received wisdom more or less ignores, and provide three thematically-organized chapters of textual analysis: the first organized around readings of gender and genre in the films, the second on the prevalent theme of "selling out," which is central to numerous films of the period, and a third chapter which explores the place of Quebec in the films of the period. The thesis concludes with an analysis of the material effects of the government policies which led to the boom, and concludes that in this respect too, the received account of the period -- once again, as a failure -- needs to be reexamined. 1979 Une analyse du boum des abris fiscaux dans l'histoire du cinéma canadien Résumé En 1979 plus de films canadiens ont été tournés au Canada qu'au cours de toute autre année. L'apogée de ce que l'on connaît maintenant comme le « boum des abris fiscaux» de 1979 marque un moment important pour l'histoire du cinéma canadien. Cette période, pendant laquelle 70 long-métrages ont été tournés alors que Hollywood n'en produisit que 99, a été en grande partie laissée de côté dans l'histoire du cinéma canadien. Dans la présente thèse, je soutiens que le peu d'attention que les critiques ont porté à la période reflète des « idées reçues » sans cesse répétées mais rarement examinées de près. Ces idées caractérisent d'ailleurs la position nationaliste culturel qui a imprégné toute l'historiographie du cinéma canadien. Etant donné que plusieurs des films produits à cette époque imitaient le style des films de Hollywood, le boum des abris fiscaux est perçu comme un quasi- désastre pour le cinéma canadien. La présente thèse, qui est en partie une analyse révisionniste de l'histoire, explore ces conclusions tout en offrant une discussion critique de celles-ci. Après avoir rendu compte des idées reçues sur la période, je situe le boum des abris fiscaux dans un contexte d'intervention de l'Etat dans les affaires de l'industrie cinématographique. Par la suite, j'analyse les contextes du boum et propose une discussion critique d'articles de la presse populaire ainsi que du discours de l'industrie cinématographique. Je me penche ensuite sur les textes qui sont plus ou moins écartés dans les idées reçues et structure l'analyse textuelle de ceux-ci en trois chapitres thématiques. Le premier chapitre regroupe les lectures portant sur le genre cinématographique et la question du sexe; le second porte sur le thème du compremis, thème récurrent et central de nombreux films de la périod; et le troisième chapitre explore la place du Québec dans les films de cette époque. En conclusion, j'analyse l'effet matériel des politiques gouvernementales qui ont conduit au boum et conclus que la perception reçue de cette époque en tant qu'échec doit être révisée. 1979: Reading the Tax-Shel.ter Boom in Canadian Fil.m Bistory Table of Contents Acknowledgements l Part One: Contexts Chapter One The Received Wisdom on the Tax-shelter Boom 1 Chapter Two Where Did the Boom Come From? 38 Chapter Three Reception and Contexts 71 Part Two: Texts 126 Chapter Four Genre and Nation, Genre and Gender 133 Chapter Five Selling Out 168 Chapter Six My Commercially-Calculated Cinema Includes Quebec 200 Chapter Seven Little Flowers Growing 221 Conclusion 246 Bibliography 255 Appendix Canadian Feature Films Shot in 1979 268 Acknow1edgements Thanks are due to many people and institutions for helping me with this project. First, l offer my sincere appreciation to my supervisor, Professor Will Straw for aIl of his help and encouragement, and for his pointed and good-natured criticism. l cannot imagine a supervisor more generous with his time, knowledge and experience than Will Straw. As weIl, professors Sheryl Hamilton and Melanie Nash, both formerly of McGill, also contributed a great deal toward clarifying my occasionally muddy thinking at an important early stage in this project. l appreciate and acknowledge as weIl contributions made by my many friends at McGill, especially those by Ira Wagman and Anthony Kinik. My former colleague in the Visual Arts department at Champlain College, Dan Babineau also offered more help than he knows, as did my dear friends there Richard Brown and John McKay. William O'Farrell of the National Archives of Canada and his former assistant Charles Tepperman gave extremely generously of their time and expertise during rese~rch forays into the National Archives' Gatineau Audio-Visual Preservation Centre, and l thank them for assistance weIl beyond the calI of duty. My new colleagues at the Institute of Film 11 Studies, University of Nottingham, especially Mark Jancovich, Gianluca Sergi, Julian Stringer Paul Grainge and Sharon Monteith, have also provided helpful support of many kinds, especially by providing an enormously collegial atmosphere in which to finish this project off. Financial support throughout the writing of this dissertation was supplied by Fonds pour la Formation des Chercheurs et l'Aide à la Recherche (Bourse de doctorat en Recherche, FCAR) , the Centre for Research on Canadian Cultural Industries and Institutions, the McGill Major Fellowship, the Professional Development Fund of Champlain College, and by the Research Funds of the School of American and Canadian Studies, University of Nottingham. Finally, l want to extend heartfelt personal thanks to my family, and especially to my parents Jerry and Elinor Urquhart (who actually belong in the previous paragraph also), and to my wife Kelli, and our children Nicola, Tom and Ivan who endured much and contributed more during the completion of this project. Without their unwavering support, completing this project would have been impossible. PART 1: Contexts CHAPTER ONE The Received Wisdom on the Tax-Shelter Boom Canadian film studies is currently experiencing something of a renaissance. A flurry of publishing has brought to market several new books in the past few years, sorne of which make significant contributions to the field and provide either useful correctives to entrenched assumptions, or simply ask a different set of questions than those broached in the first wave of publishing on Canadian cinema from the 1970s, and in the few books which have appeared since then.