Canadian Film Digest Year Book (1976)

PALATABLE PRODUCT NEEDS NO QUOTAS | firmly believe in a strong competitive Canadian Motion Picture Industry and | believe that we can support one, which given time and experience can become a viable force in the overall Industry in Canada. | do, however, have some reservations. For instance, ! do not think that everyone who Owns or can borrow a 16mm. camera and a couple of rolls of film automatically qualifies as a film producer, but we do have many experienced members in the various movie crafts, artistic and technical, many of whom are unable to maintain constant employment. They do keep on trying, which is to their credit, and one day may see the results of their trials, tribulations and countless frustrations, finally hit the screen. | have been a target for interviewers in the past few months, both face-toface and on the air . . . have been quoted verbatim: and have had my remarks twisted out of all context. | have met with Government agencies and with prominent aspirants in the private sector to, hopefully, assist this fledgling industry in Canada. Our Company, in co-operation with the Canadjan Film Development Corporation and, sometimes with the help of private investors, has invested approximately $3,000,000.00 in co-production deals and, in short, has done everything to encourage Canadian production asking only that the end product be of a practical and hy George P. Destounis cOmmercial nature. Some of our investments paid dividends in that we recouped our investment; the odd one even made a profit; but the vast majority didn’t even see the light of day. These were just unacceptable to our paying customers. Naturally, the accusation of cultural strangulation began to rear its ugly head. The advocation of a strict quota system, plus a sizeable levy on our box-office take, to finance more film makers has become a favourite target. Mundane as it may seem, we are in business to make a profit, not only for our thousands of Canadian shareholders, but for the many thousands of employees on our payroll. We will continue to play product on our screens, imported or home-grown, if it will help to keep us in business, but | don’t think it makes good sense to force so-called culture down the throats of non-existent audiences. The Government can certainly legislate quotas, but it can not legislate people into theatres. The public demands the right to choose what they want to see on the screen and in the long run they are the barometer of the success or failure of any film. Good films can be made in Canada, we have seen a few, and with time, boundaries will vanish, and we will have an Industry which can justifiably consider itself not just Canadian, but truly International in scope. JAWS GIANT FISH HOOKS MILLIONS Never in man’s imagination has a fish, an enormous leviathan wallowing joyfully in acres of human-blood stained ocean, captured on film and at the boxoffice, man’s need for and search of violence. | dare say that anyone who had subjected himself to a first shocking introduction of JAWS, was back agin for a second, third and fourth viewing to sate an insatiable desire for self-inflicted shock. Legislators and self-proclaimed censors have cried out long and loud against violence in the media and on the screen and the effect it has on our young people, but statistics clearly demonstrate that more than half of the audiences are in the ‘youth’ group. ‘JAWS’ is a magnet which irresistibly attracts all segments of the population. This $250,000.00 mechanical juggernaut, and there were three of them in the picture, just to play safe, maims and mangles humans by the score, and could, if he were so inclined, down the whale that swallowed Jonah, for dessert. The film is so realistic that it has done a great favour for the environmentalists in keeping ocean-front beaches clean and clear of the usual debris left by holidayers. It has so stag-, gered the imagionation, the story goes, that home-pool owners are hesitant to stick their feet in the water, and most vacationers resist the urge to venture into the ocean waters. Sharks along many of the world’s famous resorts have been known to attack humans just a few feet from the shore. The home-pool story may be an exaggeration, but is certainly evidence of the impact and influence of a few thousand feet of film, skilfully handled. ‘JAWS’, an all-time best-seller, written and adapted for the screen by Peter Benchley was’ produced by Richard Zanuck and David Brown. Its Canadian gross is rapidly nearing the fifteen million dollar mark, and the projected world gross an all-time record two hundred million. <i 41