Free-Shoot by Matt Joyce
As I sat in the library, trying to wrap my brain around how I was going to write a 10-page paper on Jeremy Bailey’s film, Full Effect (2005), I said to myself, ‘This is impossible…I can’t do this. This film doesn’t speak to me … in fact, how could this film speak to anyone? It’s not saying a thing … AHHHHHHH!’ … Then I reviewed the syllabus and made a decision. I would move on to Arthur Lipsett and that would be the end of it. I would never have to study experimental film. ever. again.
As it happens, time went on and I started to feel differently about experimental film. I started to understand where such films were coming from, began to recognize where the creative impulse was coming from – the inherent need, the longing to be heard, maybe even understood. It all made sense, especially in relation to my own difficulties as a filmmaker, an artist trying to find the means to express myself. There was a kind of reassurance in the concept of avant-garde, both in what it represented and offered to its creators. I realized there is something incredibly special about this cinematic mode of representation that we call “experimental film”.
I read something interesting the other day. Stephen Katz was talking about how out of all the different art forms, filmmaking is the longest process. (Sounds obvious, I know.) There is the longest gap between the moment of creative inception and the completion of the final ‘fleshed-out’ product. Just think about all the different stages, details, factors … the sheer time it takes even to write the script, not to mention the inevitable distraction, frustration, discouragement, the overall loss of creative potency during the grueling process of turning idea into picture. The musician on the other hand simply has to sit down and start playing and BOOM – there’s something to work with. Their act of creation manifests itself in an instant and with the gift of improvisation there’s nothing to prevent them from producing their best work off the top of the dome. The same goes for dancers and to a lesser degree, writers and visual artists. Regardless of whether the final product coalesces later, they are off to the races, so to speak, with a stroke of the brush or pen.
This is the magic of experimental film – that running parallel to the study of film theory and the application of film practice (those narrative conventions we’ve embraced since Griffith) here is something else entirely, something that breaks down those beloved syntaxes. A pure work of unmediated expression, unmediated in the sense that such a film is a work of art, which does not pander to the expectation that it be a coherent whole; experimental film ignores the notion that movies must be products shaped to be passively viewed and absorbed by an audience. It is a self narrative, an individual narrative of the self. What do I mean by this? Human beings make sense of the world through story. Our lives are just one big story. We all have a continuous narrative going on inside of us every day. For some of us, it needs to be released. What experimental film does is it allows us to grasp and express a little of that story, a holographic fragment of ourselves. Bit by bit, little by little, film by film, we come clear.
Experimental film is not by any means a narrative in the classical sense. It does not require a three-act structure; potential spectators are not spoon-fed a cooked paradigm of beginning, middle and end. It’s raw. It does not concern itself with ‘Who am I sending this text to?’ It’s a form of expression that is actually a process of discovery, of pure perception playing with often disjunctive variables as it delves beneath exterior reality to get at something almost out of range. By giving liquid thought a home on the screen, it incarnates a mystery.
The way experimental film approaches narrative is similar to the way ‘free-writes’ operate in creative writing. They aren’t meant to be perfect works of art. It’s more like eavesdropping on someone else’s craft. I may not enjoy watching the results but now, coming full circle in my understanding of the medium, I truly respect it. And I don’t have to enjoy it. Who am I? Armchair critics in experimental film are irrelevant. I just love the fact that there is a free stream of cinema which acts – it’s raw, it’s pure, it’s momentary. It’s not bound to anything or anyone except the mind that put it on the screen. So when André Bazin wrote sixty years ago “that the director [now] writes directly in film” …surely today, given the feeling that it has all been done before, all I can say is, ‘Please, feel free to write whatever you’d like’.
Saturday
IFCO's TRIM BIN: Discussions on Contemporary Celluloid Practices
"IT'S SOOO CANADIAN".
I don't want to call myself an expert on what shapes national identity. I am an immigrant and my cultural boundaries are in a constant state of mutation, creating new dynamic relationships with the environment I am now in. However, I was told once "do not lose your Russianness". So, even though I am floating in indecisiveness regarding who I am, I possess "Russianness" that is an indistinguishable part of my identity.
If we blew up the scale of an identity map from a single individual to the whole country, we would see that "Canadianness" persists the same way as my "Russianness" does. Culture caught on celluloid becomes fixed filmic evidence, similar to that of a scene in a suspense film; where one can search for the elusive clues of what "Canadianness" means. Now, I am on a mission, on my new personal quest to try and formulate my own definition of "Canadianness". I will keep you posted on how this investigation unfolds.
Truly yours,
Irina Lyubchenko
SOOO CANADIAN EH! by PATRICE JAMES
It’s interesting how often I’ve encountered, or even myself uttered the phrase – “that’s sooo Canadian”, not only in reference to Canadian cinema, but in reference to so many ‘things’ that can be considered to be just “sooo Canadian”. In actuality I’ve had a relationship with this nation of ‘in-betweens’ for a long time even before I arrived in Canada nearly 23 years ago. I grew up watching Canadian TV shows like The Littlest Hobo; Beachcombers and The Raccoons; wow I’m really dating myself. And long before I entered into film studies at Carleton University, I’d already developed a preconceived notion about Canada and its ever ambiguous landscape and culture(s) etceteras. My perception of this land was that it was extremely isolated, naked of any real dynamism; trapped in between some sort of makeshift identity, that had some whisperings of both USA and UK cultural markers. I mean; the language, music, culture and geography is somewhat similar, yet greatly dissimilar all at once to the latter nations’.
I began to ultimately grasp some understanding of what is meant by “sooo Canadian”, especially during my stint at Carleton. I began to identify with the angst of displaced characters , like Peter and Joey in Donald Shebib’s iconic film - Goin' Down the Road. Wasn’t my family and I, and sooo many Canadians, just like these characters in one main way? I mean, I’m not a young white male from Nova Scotia, travelling to the big urban centre (Toronto) in search of a better life; but I was a young immigrant who travelled half way across the world, from a little West Indian island, with my family in search of a better life and new beginning in Canada.
I think so much of being Canadian is wrapped up in this constant search for something more! Something more beyond the class we’re born into; beyond our gender limitations; beyond other imagined, or real social constraints. As well, like Peter and Joey, a lot of people will never be able to escape certain prescribed stations in life, no matter how hard they try; they’ll remain perpetual underdogs, and though this may seem extremely fatalistic; I’m often fascinated by just how many other Canadian films I’ve enjoyed over the years, which situate their protagonists in environments or situations, which somehow often ends up displacing them; ‘born losers’ so to speak.
Another common notion that comes to mind as soon as I conjecture about what is meant by “sooo Canadian”, is a perception of a Canadian obsession with duality; cultural duality, linguistic duality, geographic duality. Sooo many Canadians want to be from ‘somewhere else’, and for those of us who immigrated here, we’re either constantly trying to assimilate, or desperately trying to hold on to our original culture(s). Canadian cinema has been instrumental in its attempts to explore, delineate and explain this constant Canadian dichotomy of dualities.
Films for instance like Deepa Mehta’s Heaven on Earth speak directly to both our need as Canadians born or naturalized, to be constantly in search of something more, something better; along with certain of our struggles around cultural duality. In Heaven and Earth, the film’s leading female protagonist (Chand), leaves her homeland of India to relocate to Ontario, Canada. She has left all that is familiar to her behind, to embark on a promising new life, as a happy new bride. Surely one’s perception is that she will enjoy a much higher quality of life in ANYWHERE Ontario, Canada, when compared to what her quality of life in India might have been. As the film unravels though; we see that this new bride, although in a new and more modernized land, becomes trapped in a cycle of violence which is deeply mired in her traditional Indian culture. She has one foot in the new world, and the other foot in the old world, and when both worlds collide, her only escape is through her OWN imagination.
So when I think about the notion of a “Sooo Canadian” cinematic experience; I think of a Canadian obsession with always searching, and being trapped between dual experiences/realities.
I began to ultimately grasp some understanding of what is meant by “sooo Canadian”, especially during my stint at Carleton. I began to identify with the angst of displaced characters , like Peter and Joey in Donald Shebib’s iconic film - Goin' Down the Road. Wasn’t my family and I, and sooo many Canadians, just like these characters in one main way? I mean, I’m not a young white male from Nova Scotia, travelling to the big urban centre (Toronto) in search of a better life; but I was a young immigrant who travelled half way across the world, from a little West Indian island, with my family in search of a better life and new beginning in Canada.
I think so much of being Canadian is wrapped up in this constant search for something more! Something more beyond the class we’re born into; beyond our gender limitations; beyond other imagined, or real social constraints. As well, like Peter and Joey, a lot of people will never be able to escape certain prescribed stations in life, no matter how hard they try; they’ll remain perpetual underdogs, and though this may seem extremely fatalistic; I’m often fascinated by just how many other Canadian films I’ve enjoyed over the years, which situate their protagonists in environments or situations, which somehow often ends up displacing them; ‘born losers’ so to speak.
Another common notion that comes to mind as soon as I conjecture about what is meant by “sooo Canadian”, is a perception of a Canadian obsession with duality; cultural duality, linguistic duality, geographic duality. Sooo many Canadians want to be from ‘somewhere else’, and for those of us who immigrated here, we’re either constantly trying to assimilate, or desperately trying to hold on to our original culture(s). Canadian cinema has been instrumental in its attempts to explore, delineate and explain this constant Canadian dichotomy of dualities.
Films for instance like Deepa Mehta’s Heaven on Earth speak directly to both our need as Canadians born or naturalized, to be constantly in search of something more, something better; along with certain of our struggles around cultural duality. In Heaven and Earth, the film’s leading female protagonist (Chand), leaves her homeland of India to relocate to Ontario, Canada. She has left all that is familiar to her behind, to embark on a promising new life, as a happy new bride. Surely one’s perception is that she will enjoy a much higher quality of life in ANYWHERE Ontario, Canada, when compared to what her quality of life in India might have been. As the film unravels though; we see that this new bride, although in a new and more modernized land, becomes trapped in a cycle of violence which is deeply mired in her traditional Indian culture. She has one foot in the new world, and the other foot in the old world, and when both worlds collide, her only escape is through her OWN imagination.
So when I think about the notion of a “Sooo Canadian” cinematic experience; I think of a Canadian obsession with always searching, and being trapped between dual experiences/realities.
Thursday
National Cinematic Identity. What is it? by DAVE JOHNSON
I cannot consider myself an authority on the subject of cinematic identity, but being that I am a practitioner in the celluloid arts and a Canadian. I am submitting a “rant”, if you will, on what I believe should be a form of national cinema.
It is without a doubt that Canadian cinema was born through the loins of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). This cinema was that of primarily documentary genre and later animation. These early generation NFB films created a whole industry for Canada as a self sustained unit, creating stories of so called far away lands only to be shown within Canadian theaters as news reels. Moving forward to 1967, the first screening of Michael Snow’s film Wavelength was received with the audience members throwing their chairs in reaction to such a film. With this, some could argue, was the birth of Canadian avante-garde film, even though the film debut was in New York(?). In the 80’s we saw Canadian films, produced through American companies, such as Porkies, Meatballs, etc. and the establishment of such directors as David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, etc. etc. All this just scrapes the surface of the history of Canadian Cinema. If one was to throw all this in a bowl we would then have a salad of different styles and influences. Are these good examples of Canadian cinema? Well, one could argue that this is separate from American cinema in that they all have some sort of temporal displacement, landscape becomes the muse, characters, even the so called heroes are unsavoury, and essay upon essay has been and will be written making one point or another defining “OUR” cinema.
Let’s move on from this tired debate and talk briefly about the 1985 manifesto of R. Bruce Elder "The Cinema We Need."
“In this essay, Elder attacks the attempt on the part of Canadian filmmakers to make "New Narrative film": a cinema that is different from Hollywood cinema's desire for traditional storytelling and which draws upon, in part, the aesthetic of the Canadian avant-garde. Elder claims that Canadian narrative cinema will never be able to compete with American products and that this "New Narrative cinema" engages in a process of vandalization and commercialization of the Canadian avant-garde tradition.” (Referenced from National Identity, Canadian Cinema, and Multiculturalism: Scott MacKenzie, University of Glasgow http://www.uqtr.ca/AE/vol_4/scott.htm).
Now I’ve been known to miss an obvious point or two, but, from a certain context, and from a cultural viewpoint, this states that we need to ignore the American import and concentrate on our own engineering of cinema. The only way this could be done is through political awareness, education (or an unbiased knowledge of cinema as an art form, not just an entertainment industry) and through support for artist centers and cooperatives. If we want to define Canadian cinema we must continue to create and support it despite of what our imports tell us. A Canadian cinematic identity will only be prevalent if we choose to create one. From a practitioner’s point of view, I would like to not worry so much about trying to identify and worry more about engineering our own cinema… keep creating with awareness and put it on the big screen, a screen, ANY screen! The more we create the more we will be recognized!!! Create, don’t be Created!!!!
It is without a doubt that Canadian cinema was born through the loins of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). This cinema was that of primarily documentary genre and later animation. These early generation NFB films created a whole industry for Canada as a self sustained unit, creating stories of so called far away lands only to be shown within Canadian theaters as news reels. Moving forward to 1967, the first screening of Michael Snow’s film Wavelength was received with the audience members throwing their chairs in reaction to such a film. With this, some could argue, was the birth of Canadian avante-garde film, even though the film debut was in New York(?). In the 80’s we saw Canadian films, produced through American companies, such as Porkies, Meatballs, etc. and the establishment of such directors as David Cronenberg, Atom Egoyan, etc. etc. All this just scrapes the surface of the history of Canadian Cinema. If one was to throw all this in a bowl we would then have a salad of different styles and influences. Are these good examples of Canadian cinema? Well, one could argue that this is separate from American cinema in that they all have some sort of temporal displacement, landscape becomes the muse, characters, even the so called heroes are unsavoury, and essay upon essay has been and will be written making one point or another defining “OUR” cinema.
Let’s move on from this tired debate and talk briefly about the 1985 manifesto of R. Bruce Elder "The Cinema We Need."
“In this essay, Elder attacks the attempt on the part of Canadian filmmakers to make "New Narrative film": a cinema that is different from Hollywood cinema's desire for traditional storytelling and which draws upon, in part, the aesthetic of the Canadian avant-garde. Elder claims that Canadian narrative cinema will never be able to compete with American products and that this "New Narrative cinema" engages in a process of vandalization and commercialization of the Canadian avant-garde tradition.” (Referenced from National Identity, Canadian Cinema, and Multiculturalism: Scott MacKenzie, University of Glasgow http://www.uqtr.ca/AE/vol_4/scott.htm).
Now I’ve been known to miss an obvious point or two, but, from a certain context, and from a cultural viewpoint, this states that we need to ignore the American import and concentrate on our own engineering of cinema. The only way this could be done is through political awareness, education (or an unbiased knowledge of cinema as an art form, not just an entertainment industry) and through support for artist centers and cooperatives. If we want to define Canadian cinema we must continue to create and support it despite of what our imports tell us. A Canadian cinematic identity will only be prevalent if we choose to create one. From a practitioner’s point of view, I would like to not worry so much about trying to identify and worry more about engineering our own cinema… keep creating with awareness and put it on the big screen, a screen, ANY screen! The more we create the more we will be recognized!!! Create, don’t be Created!!!!
Tuesday
By MATTHEW A. MACDONALD
I don't mean to offend anyone, but ...
When I was teenager (1993-1999), and before I was particularly passionate about filmmaking and took a genuine liking for the certainly not mainstream films of Jean-Luc Goddard, Vittorio De Sica, and Michelangelo Antonioni (though, alas, no Canadian directors of note), my friends and I generally understood that if one of us referred to a movie or television show as being "so Canadian," it simply meant the production values were relatively low, the images were inexplicably grainer than American productions we were used to seeing, the acting was not quite as good as American productions, and the movie or show itself was often not quite as interesting.
This may sound harsh, but it's true, and I think it was, and perhaps is still, true for a lot of people. For example, the writing and acting in the new TV show "Chicago Code" is clearly a cut above the writing and acting in the Canadian "Rookie Blue," although Canadian production values have otherwise definitely improved since the 1990s compared to American productions.
When I first met the woman who would become my wife, she expressed the same feeling about Canadian cinema. Canadian movies, she felt, just didn't stand up very well next to American movies, at least most of the time. Sure, she loved Canadian children's shows like "Danger Bay," but her general feeling was that Canadian movies and TV shows were, on a whole, not so much "so Canadian," but rather "too Canadian."
In 1995, for instance, while U.S. studios released movies like Apollo 13, Braveheart, Babe, Sense and Sensibility, Dead Man Walking, Leaving Las Vegas, and Nixon, Canadian filmmakers gave us what? Here are the Genie nominees for Best (Canadian) Picture of 1995:
(1) "Magic in the Water," a children's film about which Roger Ebert writes: "One of the problems with the first two-thirds of "Magic in the Water" is that we don't see Orky [the sea creature the movie is focused on]. One of the problems with the last third is that we do. Orky turns out to be singularly uncharismatic, looking like an ashen Barney on downers. ... "Magic in the Water" is innocuous fun, but slow, and not distinguished in the special effects department."
(2) "Le Confessional"
(3) "Liste noire"
(4) "Margaret's Museum" [a decent, if still a bit "too-Canadian" film, in my opinion]
(5) "Rude"
Huh?
Yes, the U.S. spends a lot more money on films, which accounts for its higher output and generally higher production values, but then it seems the Canadian solution is a strange one: produce films that are too-often so culturally idiosyncratic and self-absorbed that they only rarely and then often only tangentially touch upon universal themes that would allow them to appeal to a broader audience and break out of the "so Canadian/too Canadian" mold.
Part of the problem may be the hybrid identity life in Canada often forces upon people. It is often said that Americans, the British, the French, the Japanese, and so on, generally have a much clearer, more coherent, positive sense of national identity than Canadians, who very often include "not American" as an implicit part of their self-understanding. As a result, I suspect, it may be easier for filmmakers from these countries to move beyond persistent personal questions of identity and belonging to make films with more confidence and much broader appeal because they focus on more universal themes or, when they focus on more idiosyncratic concerns, at least they do not simply assume that audiences will care—they actually make an effort to show the audience why it should care.
Sure, it's important to tell different, meaningful stories, and Canadian filmmakers certainly do. But when Canadian cinema becomes mired in cultural idiosyncrasy and narcissistically obsessed with telling Canadian stories and stories about it's search for "identity," all the while simply assuming that other people will care, as I believe it sometimes does, instead of simply telling good stories, it suffers and becomes "too much."
When I was teenager (1993-1999), and before I was particularly passionate about filmmaking and took a genuine liking for the certainly not mainstream films of Jean-Luc Goddard, Vittorio De Sica, and Michelangelo Antonioni (though, alas, no Canadian directors of note), my friends and I generally understood that if one of us referred to a movie or television show as being "so Canadian," it simply meant the production values were relatively low, the images were inexplicably grainer than American productions we were used to seeing, the acting was not quite as good as American productions, and the movie or show itself was often not quite as interesting.
This may sound harsh, but it's true, and I think it was, and perhaps is still, true for a lot of people. For example, the writing and acting in the new TV show "Chicago Code" is clearly a cut above the writing and acting in the Canadian "Rookie Blue," although Canadian production values have otherwise definitely improved since the 1990s compared to American productions.
When I first met the woman who would become my wife, she expressed the same feeling about Canadian cinema. Canadian movies, she felt, just didn't stand up very well next to American movies, at least most of the time. Sure, she loved Canadian children's shows like "Danger Bay," but her general feeling was that Canadian movies and TV shows were, on a whole, not so much "so Canadian," but rather "too Canadian."
In 1995, for instance, while U.S. studios released movies like Apollo 13, Braveheart, Babe, Sense and Sensibility, Dead Man Walking, Leaving Las Vegas, and Nixon, Canadian filmmakers gave us what? Here are the Genie nominees for Best (Canadian) Picture of 1995:
(1) "Magic in the Water," a children's film about which Roger Ebert writes: "One of the problems with the first two-thirds of "Magic in the Water" is that we don't see Orky [the sea creature the movie is focused on]. One of the problems with the last third is that we do. Orky turns out to be singularly uncharismatic, looking like an ashen Barney on downers. ... "Magic in the Water" is innocuous fun, but slow, and not distinguished in the special effects department."
(2) "Le Confessional"
(3) "Liste noire"
(4) "Margaret's Museum" [a decent, if still a bit "too-Canadian" film, in my opinion]
(5) "Rude"
Huh?
Yes, the U.S. spends a lot more money on films, which accounts for its higher output and generally higher production values, but then it seems the Canadian solution is a strange one: produce films that are too-often so culturally idiosyncratic and self-absorbed that they only rarely and then often only tangentially touch upon universal themes that would allow them to appeal to a broader audience and break out of the "so Canadian/too Canadian" mold.
Part of the problem may be the hybrid identity life in Canada often forces upon people. It is often said that Americans, the British, the French, the Japanese, and so on, generally have a much clearer, more coherent, positive sense of national identity than Canadians, who very often include "not American" as an implicit part of their self-understanding. As a result, I suspect, it may be easier for filmmakers from these countries to move beyond persistent personal questions of identity and belonging to make films with more confidence and much broader appeal because they focus on more universal themes or, when they focus on more idiosyncratic concerns, at least they do not simply assume that audiences will care—they actually make an effort to show the audience why it should care.
Sure, it's important to tell different, meaningful stories, and Canadian filmmakers certainly do. But when Canadian cinema becomes mired in cultural idiosyncrasy and narcissistically obsessed with telling Canadian stories and stories about it's search for "identity," all the while simply assuming that other people will care, as I believe it sometimes does, instead of simply telling good stories, it suffers and becomes "too much."
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