Prairie prophet Guy Maddin thinks the phenomenon might have something to do with how Canadian filmmakers "are allowed to not be so profit-driven," because nobody expects a blockbuster north of the 49th Parallel.
"We're allowed to be more personal and we're allowed to vent," he said in an interview from his cottage in Gimli, Man.
"We might treat the movie set like a psychiatrist's office. I think everyone wants to be as honest as possible, and all sorts of nagging feelings make their way onto the screen."
That's certainly true of Maddin's My Winnipeg, his highly personal and typically idiosyncratic look at his hometown, "the coldest city in the world."
Maddin alternately loves and despises his home and native town, a place he sees filled with nagging moms, threatening urinators, angry squirrels, agitated parakeets and, above all, sleepwalkers.
Winnipeg holds some kind of record for the most sleepwalkers. It's an apt distinction for a people who, to Maddin's eye, drift through their days not sure if they wish to remain in the city and build it up, or to simply abandon it altogether.
Quoth Maddin: "Everything that happens in this city is a euphemism."
Question: who is missing from this equation?
Anyone? Anyone?
Sorry. I'll just go back to my TV cranny now.
14 comments:
I'mm guessing that you are intimating that "the audience" is missing and sure there is some validity in that but it also must be said that if we consider Maddin to be our version of David Lynch I wonder how much pleasing the audience should factor into the way we evaluate his movies.
While I am a Tv monkey I do think there is real validity in supporting filmakers like Maddin who is not raping the taxpayer as badly as some people in our industry do on a daily basis.
I would also say that our movies that have been designed to be "crowd pleasers" have been more dismal failures than any of the artsy fare produced by the Maddins, Egoyans et al.
I agree with blueglow, I like alot of Madden's work. My initial response to your question would have been 'Tom Cruise?' or 'Lindsay Lohan'? I like artists with something to say, even if I don't agree with it. Alot of popular film and television is escapism, it may be set in the real world, but it is not about real people, or real issues, or real anything - everything is over the top, the characters are not people you might actually meet someday, or anything like people you know.
Escapism is fine, but I think there is room for art as well. By the way, check out 'the Tracy Fragments' - brilliant Canadian film.
A cameo by Don McKellar?
Yes, yes, yes.
And the usual defences come out. It's interesting that Justin goes right to "escapism" as if that's the only possible alternative to the traditional Canadian film.
Which I have nothing against per se. I don't happen to enjoy Guy Maddin's films, but I agree wholeheartedly with blueglow that he's probably earned the support he gets.
But. He's always quoted first. I'm not worried about Maddin, or Egoyan, or Cronenburg -- it's just that because that is the only face of Canadian film (in English. As in most things, Quebec has a whole wide spectrum of film, some audience pleasing some not).
What I'm worried about is the 5000 talentless hacks with their weird navel gazing fuck the audience films that come out of them. Because those people make their shitty first pictures and can't get others made and then inevitably drift into Canadian TV because there's work there.
And you know, Canadian TV -- in which they're slumming so badly -- needs to be 'saved.'
Snobbery and pap.
Fie on the lot of them.
As for me, I'm rooting for Martin Gero's Young People Fucking. And not just because he was a very talented and well behaved young man when I taught him at Rye High back in the day.
...but will gets partial points for the Don McKellar cameo!
I can't really help you if talentless filmmakers are finding their way into Canadian TV, but there are alot of good Canadian films that get swept under the rug - not because they aren't good, but because no one knows they exist. Hollywood movies are a machine - huge marketing budgets, big stars, alot of free publicity through the press (especially all of the entertainment shows), they come to town under a hail of commercials, posters, ticket giveaways and special promotions and then are at 5 different local theatres, on 15 screens with 45-50 showings a day.
Meanwhile the latest Canadian film is playing in a single arthouse theatre, one screen, two showings a day, no publicity - except maybe a small add near the bottom of the movie listings in the Star or NOW - and even if people notice the add, they've never heard of the film or it's stars, have no idea what it's about and so pass it over and head to the multiplex.
It has nothing to do with the quality of the film, the writing, the acting... There are great Canadian Films being made, but making them is not enough.
The First Weekend Club - an organization I've been working a bit with, is trying to at least start to turn that around by boosting opening weekend and keeping the films in theatres longer (even if it is still 2 showings a day).
"Snobbery and pap" - um...no
In terms of return on investment Mr. Maddin's films probably do better than most Canadian television shows, the audience that you're talking about may happen to be in London or New York (he's the toast of the town there) but it is substantial.
The Star article isn’t about Canadian film. It’s about Canadian films playing the TIFF.
The TIFF is half-gallery, half-market. All kinds of oddball personal films from around the world play there alongside the much-hyped star-vehicles, not just Canadian ones. And banal self-indulgent filmmaking is unwatchable regardless of country of origin.
Non-Hollywood films at the TIFF, including independent American films, are trying to sell to the myriad of distributors and acquisition execs that attend from around the world, looking to fill their specific product niches.
Entertainment-wise, you can’t compare the TIFF to a given week of prime-time TV. It’s more like the upfronts. Lots of networks flogging their pilots, some of which are awesome and some of which reflect baffling perspectives on what they think audiences want to see. The former will hopefully succeed, although of course many won’t, and the latter will more than likely disappear within a few weeks of their launch.
It’s the same with films launching at festivals like Toronto’s.
To me though it doesn't sound like the film is all that self indulgent, necessarily. Madden tends to rely alot on symbolism and atmosphere, but from the description above it sounds like he may be doing something like a feature film version of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1WxZ4w7NFM
Which could actually be pretty good. A guy madden moody, atmospheric, film noir version of One Great City.
I'll have to side with Justin here. Hell, I'm still waiting for someone to explain the utter failure of 'Fido' at the box office. Given the premise and the cast, the thing should have been a guaranteed hit, at least as far as Canadian movies go.
Not that I actually saw it or anything. I live in Milton.
I accept the fact that movies that appeal to teenagers, rednecks, and whoever the hell goes to those Wayan brother movies will always dominate the box office. I also accept the fact that, however broad the appeal, Canadian movies will always have the status of 'indie films'.
I would just like one screen, somewhere within an hour of my home, where I can watch movies for grownups without having to wait for the DVD or catch it on it's opening weekend because it'll be gone the next.
Screw capitalism. I'm just glad I don't live in Kenora.
Justin - I was referencing Denis's "weird navel gazing fuck the audience films" when I wrote "banal self-indulgent filmmaking", not Guy Maddin's work specifically.
Jennifer - Would you download independent films (Canadian or otherwise) if there was a legal, easily accessible, quality-assured site for doing so? Or is the cinema experience crucial to you? Just curious.
Jennifer - I don't know all the details of what happened with FIDO. But I don't think it helped that TVA, the film's Canadian distributor, insisted on releasing it in March, three months before its June American release through Lions Gate.
Canadian distribs usually wait to synch up with the America launch so they can coast off their deep-pocketed marketing and spend as little as possible up here. Not so with FIDO.
Did FIDO's barely-marketed limp through theatres up here lead Lions Gate to lose confidence and rein in their American push three months later? No idea. But I doubt it helped.
Quoth Elan:
Did FIDO's barely-marketed limp through theatres up here lead Lions Gate to lose confidence and rein in their American push three months later?
I don't know either, but there was definitely something wrong when I never tracked down a place to see it in Chicago. Not even the Music Box. (Unless it turned up there in July; I got too busy to keep hunting.) How does that happen??
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