Cinema Canada (Jul-Aug 1975)

KOTGrIEFr: Following the enormous success of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Director Ted Kotcheff returned to Canada for a few days last February to discuss his work with film students at York University. Kotcheff, an exiled Canadian who has directed stage and television plays in England and the U.S., and films in England, Tahiti, Australia, Israel and Canada often talks about returning home to live and work. The following interview is an edited transcript of a videotape interview conducted at York University on February 27, 1975. I would like to start off by asking you the stock question. How did you get started in film? That would be a long answer to that question, and not a very simple one. I certainly didn’t have any ambitions to be a director when I was at University. I studied English Literature at the University of Toronto andafter I graduated I didn’t know what I wanted to do and drifted around from one kind of job to another. At my father’s instigation I went down to apply forajobat the CBC which was not onthe airas yet; they were just opening up the television studio—this was in 1952 and my father felt that because I had studied English Literature at the University, that equipped me to be a television writer. I tried to disabuse him of that notion, but he kept nagging at me to go down and get a job. So, I went down and was interviewed by Mavor Moore who was then the Program Director. I was a very callow lad, 21 years of age and he said to me, ‘‘Have you had any experience in radio?’’ I said, ‘‘ No.” He said, *‘ Any experience in film?’ I said, ‘‘No.’’ He said, ‘“* Any experience in theatre?’’ I said I had directed a one-act play at University 60 Cinema Canada An interview by John Katz College which never got on—it was cancelled at the dress rehearsal. Then he said, ‘‘What about television?’’ I said, ‘‘No, no” and I started to rise and move towards the door, picked up my coat and hat, and thought this was it. But he stopped me and said, ‘‘Would you like to learn?’’ I said, ‘*Yeh, I’dlike tolearn.’’ So he said, ‘‘Why don’t you? Ill tell you what, I will give you ajob as a stage hand with the CBC. Inevitably you'll pick up a lot from that vantage point and whenthe CBCexpands we are going to draw from that poolof personnel. You are going to be one of the most experienced people in Canada; we are going to use you and youare going to have a chance to move up.”’ I thought, well, I’ ve worked in the slaughter house slinging carcasses. I’ve worked for Goodyear Tire & Rubber, slinging rubber; I might as well sling scenery. So I took the job. I still had very little interest in pursuing a career in television, or acting. However, after a while, I began to watch other people directing and with all the youthful arrogance of 21, I said, ‘*These guys are idiots, I can direct better than that, they don’t know what they are doing’’, and slowly I shaped an interest in becoming a director. Then I went back to the University of Toronto where I had a director’s course with Bob Gill, a marvelous director, but this was theatrical directing. Ithen studied acting, not to become an actor, but to know what the acting process was like from a director’s point of view with a marvellous woman called Basya Hunter; she is still in Toronto. She was a terrific teacher; she taught a combination of Stanislavski and Michael Chekov. I really learned a lot in that period. Interestingly enough in that class there was Silvio Narizzano, who directed Georgie Girl; there was Bill Shatner whom you probably know; quite an interesting group of people. Finally, I did move up in the CBC and