Canadian Film Digest (Jan 1973)

| Page 10 JANUARY 1973 The Canadian Film Digest _ Feature Production in Canada Today Saskatchewan Report: A New Location =» oe Saskatoon — Saskatchewan has blossomed as a motion picture site because two Canadian production companies wanted realism and authenticity, broad Prairies and big skies, and new faces, Onyx Productions of Montreal set up shop on a studio-built village, two miles west of Duck Lake, to shoot Alien Thunder, a $1.4 million picture, one of the most expensive in Canadian history and the first English-speaking film to be done by the French Canadian company. Agincourt Productions of Toronto used Delisle, already famed for hockey because of the National Hockey League's Bentley Brothers, as the site of Last of the Big Guns, a $500,000 venture about the small town hockey hero's struggle against obsolescence in this day and age. Alien Thunder, a_ historical film, will be released in connection with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police centenary in Ottawa and the provincial capitals simultaneously in May. Big Guns is expected to be ready for the screen in April. The doors to Saskatchewan were really opened by writers. W.O. Mitchell, well-known for his Jake and The Kid series, penned his interpretation of an 1895 incident at Duck Lake, where an Indian named Almighty Voice became the subject of a frantic pursuit by the Royal North West Mounted Police. Les Rose and Barry Pearson grew up in Saskatchewan towns, played a little hockey in them, saw the possible undoing of the small communities and put Big Guns on paper. It was obvious to both companies that Saskatchewan was the place to film. They could have stayed in the east. But, in each case, the companies realized the authenticity of their films would offset whatever extra costs would be involved. The disadvantages in coming to Saskatchewan included the lack of processing equipment, laboratories, technicians and even actors at their finger tips, plus the extra hotel and transportation costs, and an_ underestimation of some of the props needed on location. Sometimes it was 72 hours before the rushes came back from the laboratory in Toronto. And in the case of Big Guns, it was estimated that $40,000 was spent during a 30-day period of transportation, hotel and meals for a crew ot 30, which, if they were working in Toronto, wouldn't have been necessary because it was home base for most. Alien Thunder's outlay would have been higher for a 60-day shooting period. James Margellos, producer of Last of the Big Guns, said “We offset the costs for the atmosphere and the feeling. You must be true to the story. And Sdskatchewan is a new part of the country which hasn't been on film before and it's beautiful. The first time in a new locale is exciting, too, and the co-operation you get is just overwhelming.” Claude Fournier, director of Alien Thunder, said that even if Saskatchewan was more costly, “there were two things that you couldn’t get in Montreal. The first is silence. There are no planes or cars to interrupt shooting. The second is a big sky —a very big sky.”’ The Alien Thunder crew was also thankful for a clear sky and less pollution (resulting in a clearer film) and about 90 minutes’ more shooting time per day because of Saskatchewan's particular brightness of sky. It wasn't all easy. The crew of Last of the Big Guns travelled 60 miles return trip each day, _the crew of Alien Thunder. travelled almost 100 miles return trip each day, to and from headquarters in Saskatoon, which were necessary for accommodations and air connections. The weatherman always plays strange tricks, too. Early in September, Saskatchewan came up chilly and windy and, for most of the actors, it was an experience. “It was fine for the camera crew in their power toboggan suits,’’ said Elizabeth Ashley, star of The Carpetbaggers, Ship of Fools and Tony award winner on Broadway. “But it wasn't funny for me, standing out in the cold, in light sweater and short skirt. Remember I’m a gal from Louisiana. If we ever saw a quarter of an inch of snow in Louisiana, we'd be in trouble because we wouldn’t know what to do with it.” At Duck Lake, the precise. moment that Fournier decided to shoot a tennis game, the weatherman decided it should snow. They required snow at Duck Lake later and, oddly enough, the snow didn’t come again until just three days before wrap-up day. And it was ironic, too, that, in spite of some. rain and chill, Don Wilder, chief of photography of Big Guns, had to send for the Saskatoon Fire Department's pumper truck to provide enough rain for one sequence at a country store. But there were happy occurrences, too. One part in the Big Guns script called for the hero to drive up to the railway crossing and come toa stop. The day the shooting took place, the stop was for real. An uninvited freight train arrived at the same time. It wasn't planned but it was more than the crew had dreamed for! A happy occurrence for the townspeople of Delisle was the day the hotel beer parlor was closed for movie shooting. The facility was required from morning until about 8 p.m. Many people were involved simply as customers. The Big Guns company picked up the tab. So the townspeople shifted their tastes from beer to something stronger. By 8 p.m, the hotel had $250 in the till, better than an average day, and the manager closed shop the rest of the night, quite content with his earnings. John Beck, who has been in four films and starred in TV’s Nichols, said he skated on figure skates, as a lad just outside Chicago. When he Janded in Saskatoon, he put on hockey skates and found that they weren’t quite the same. As a result of his first session on skates, Beck cut his forehead to the tune of 13 stitches and it was a battle scar he carried through his part in the film. Skating was a new experience, too, for Keir Dullea, who became a transformed character in Last of the Big Guns. “This job would normally go to Robert Redford or Steve McQueen. But I sold myself to John Bassett one afternoon by guzzling beer, drawling gawddam’s and an appropriate western slang. Maybe this free-wheeling, guntoting dude will break me out of a typecast which has existed since David and Lisa,’’ he said. Donald Sutherland, who has played many starring roles, is the key in Alien Thunder, the Mountie who leads the pursuit of the Indian. fugitive. He said he found it one of the hardest preparation jobs because the history had to be right. His constant companion was an RCMP officer, who was responsible for maintaining the authenticity. Donald was never arrested for impersonating an officer but there were many nights on which Sutherland drove back to Saskatoon, in brown hat, red tunic, blue pants and high boots, all the traditional Mountie garb. Sutherland built up quite a following with his anti-Vietnam war preaching in Saskatoon. His visit coincided with the showing of his film, FTA, at the Paramount theatre, and Donald showed up at least five nights a week for two weeks to talk about the FTA film and its philosophies and answer questions onstage. Many nights, he was there direct from shooting, and many nights there were late suppers. Chief Dan George played a role in Alien Thunder but the picture really turned out to be a launching pad for young Indians to get their talents on screen. The major discovery is Gordon Tootoosis, 31, striking at six-foot-four, possessor of leadership qualities, a partly rebellious nature like the man he portrayed, and a person with enough previous show business experience that he fit like a glove. Tootoosis was discovered on Saskatchewan's Poundmaker Reserve, where he had learned native dancing’ from his boyhood days. Other Saskatchewan Indians will get credits on Alien Thunder, many others will be part of over-all scenes, and many had received employment in the building of the $150,000 village, which, according to Sutherland “‘is the best set I've ever worked on.” All buildings have concrete foundations, are completely finished and completely furnished. The Duck Lake Village of the 1890s, the use of a vintage locomotive and train (moved all the way from Winnipeg), and the use of the RCMP Musical Ride in battle scenes against the Indians are three good reasons why Alien Thunder not only achieved authenticity but impressive publicity for each accomplishment. Failing all else, Saskatchewan's one greatest memory of 1972 movie-making will be the village, which is being left behind and turned over to the provincial government as a natural historic site and museum. But, hopefully, much more potential is ahead because Saskatchewan still has locations yet undiscovered by film. The future may rest clearly with the new breed of writers like Pearson and Rose. Allan King Ponders BY LLOYD CHESLEY When the rest of the world doubted that movies were being made in the land of igloos and dogsleds, one name was internationally known and respected: Allan King. Forty-two year old King has been involved in film production since 1956. That was in his home town of Vancouver where he worked for the CBC in live TV, a public affairs show for which he did some filmed documentary segments. He had also done some amateur film work, and he ran the Vancouver film society, showing the standard greats of Renoir, Vigo, the Russian classics. He had the opportunity .to watch each film many times. ‘‘You can learn a lot from simple shot list transcriptions, about structure, editing, etc.” Also he watched the films of Robert Flaherty, whose constructed documentaries fascinated him especially for their feel of character as well as of time and place. These are the qualities of the documentary, the dramatic qualities, that appealed to him, as opposed to the essay style of other film-makers. He spent from 1958 to 1967 in Europe, and it was here that he edited Warrendale, the film that brought him great acclaim. It was the time of the growth of cinema verite, a style mostly accredited to Leacock and Pennebaker for their influential film, Don’t Look Back. But King saw the growth of the form as international, simultaneously occurring in countries all over the world. Like any new form in art, he saw it as ‘‘many people answering a Socially felt need,’’ in this case a new quest for spontaneity and realism. His next film, A Married Couple, gained spectacular quantities of notice on this level and took the form into the area of controversy. But for the viewer in the theatre, it was a new closeness to people on the screen. ‘‘People got into more heated discussions about Billy and Antoinette, about who was right and wrong, than they usually do about the characters in a drama.” For this reason, he was very Satisfied with the effect of the film. ‘‘In.the strictest sense, the film is a form of fiction. It doesn’t matter what was spontaneous or what was ‘put on’ for the camera, its the final dramatic effect and sense of character.”’ He feels himself a story-teller in the tradition somewhat of Flaherty, who made films about real people not using actors in the professional sense, but had people in the area he was documenting play people like themselves and set up scenes for them. King is looser in how the action in front of the camera comes about, but the discrepancy between the ‘“‘real”’ lives of the people he uses and the lives of the people they create for the camera is irrelevant. “This is not an essay or news film. It is very subjective, shaped by the film-makers. ‘‘People use art as an emotional hypothesis to test values.’’ For this reason, one wants the art to appear as real as possible so identification is possible. But it can’t be totally real, as in the case of a violent murder, for example, which would be too disturbing, and distracting from the moral conflict. ‘People want some kind of protection from total reality, but how much and of what kind it is hard to define or measure.” In the case of his films, the audience’s unfamiliarity with the veritie style, which is a structured and controlled artistic form, makes it look realer and reach them. To his satisfaction, most people don’t look on his products as films at all, which gives him great success as a dramatic story teller. His most recent foray into this form has been finished for a year. It is called Come On Children. Over two years ago he screened some three to five hundred kids from the Toronto suburbs and chose five girls and five boys, age 14 to 20, to move into a farm and allow him to follow their social progress with his camera for ten weeks, after which the project would end. Getting the money took a year, getting the shooting together took a year, and editing took a year. They went onto a farm of 200 acres in Newcastle. The kids did little actual work on the farm, spending most of their time talking, playing and hanging out, which suited King fine, for it was their progress as a group that he was interested in. He had allowed them a fullfledged drop-out existence: no parents, no school, no nine-to-five job, no city. And he watched to see what would result. Would they get closer? King considers every aspect of the documentary process equally important and strongly denies the ‘‘myth of editing.” For him, the choice of people as subjects is of great importance. He chooses them as an author may choose characters for a screenplay, both on the basis of what kind of individuals they are and how they will mix. Being young, the kids were a little shyer than other subjects he had used. He had to ban the TV. They watched so much that the film was in danger of becoming a film about watching television. His cameraman on this film is Bill Brayne. He prefers to only use one cameraman on a. documentary shoot to avoid a clash of styles and the possibility of them filming each other. The crew commuted, staying from morning to night, with rarely more than one sleeping over at any time. King keeps out of his cameraman’s way, talking to him at the beginning or end of the day and leaving him alone while shooting. At the time of shooting most of King’s work is involved in screening. ; Screening involves a total of some sixty hours of film which will become a film of an hour and a half. First the junk has to be discarded. Then the scenes to be made are chosen and he gives them to his editor, Arla Saare and assistant, David Scott, to structure them. Then they discuss the scenes and they are re-worked and re-worked until done. It is unimportant to him if the chronology of the film matches the chronology of events, but he tires to be true to the real character of each subject as they are presented on the screen. It could be one of his most pertinent efforts and best films, but the man hasn’t been able to find distribution with over a year of search behind him. Our loss. Like David Acomba, King has read Margaret Atwood and agrees with her analysis of Canadian content as basically dealing with ‘depressive themes of victimization. Stories of people suffering through.”’ There is a “‘lack of heroes, little focus on aggression. If American films are characterized by violence and Swedish films by sensuality or sex, Canadian films have no violence or sex.” The themeatic virtues of the country are in its civilized attitude. ‘‘Decency, people getting along, humane respect for people. The future of our world is one of large social organizations with complex and subtle human contracts.’’ He feels our themes deal directly with these questic-s Like many a Canadian film-maker, he sees the best part of the industry as the government financial support, and the tax break available to investors. He is impressed by the volume of writing going on, which he hopes will lead to more and better projects. Combining this with “democratic themes in which ordinary people are important and there is a sense of realism and affection for real people,” one could assess his attitude as optimistic, But now there is too little money and it often goes to the wrong places. Canadians are forced to work with inadequate budgets. When they try for slickness in the American style they are trying to do in half the time with half the money what the Americans have long trained themselves to be expert at. But ‘‘anti-Americanism, like any scapegoat, often reveals a sense of inadequacy.’’ He doesn’t mind their money being here since their films have a different character and are irrelevant in a discussion of a Canadian industry. He looks forward to greater international distribution of Canadian films but this is ‘‘not achieved through imitation.” King sees the greatest market as television. He’d like to see Canadian films carried on national TV six months to a year after their theatrical distribution ends. This way they can reach larger audiences, and can validate larger, more workable budgets. It would be a combination of the CBC and CFDC. “‘The basic market for Canadian films is in Canada and it can be reached on the widest scale through television.”’ For King, documentary is beginning to force too much surrender of control. He is becoming more interested in drama. . His major project is a five or six, one-hour episode adaptation of W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen The Wind for TV. As we talked in his old house near the Riverdale Zoo, the typewriter kept up a steady clacking from upstairs as his wife worked on the second episode. He is also interested in an essay-style, character-less documentary on poverty for TV. But he fears the institutionalized nature of the medium coupled with the will of the advertisers would never give him an honest say. So one of the world’s leading dramatic documentarists has switched to drama for the time being, and waits while a film a year old searches for distribution.