Cinema Canada (Feb 1976)

FILM REVIEWS Gordon Sheppard's Eliza’s Horoscope d. Gordon Sheppard, asst. d. John Board and Al Simmons, se. Sheppard, ph. Jean Boffety, Paul Van Der Linden and Michel Brault, ed. Sheppard, asst. ed. Marguerite Corriveau, sd. rec. Lenny Lencina and Ron Seltzer, sd. ed. Vincent Gutierrez, a.d. Francois Barbeau, m. Elmo Peeler, cost. Francois Laplante and Louise Jobin, lI.p. Elizabeth Moorman (Eliza), Tom Lee Jones (Tommy), Lila Kedrova (Lila), Rose Quong (Astrologer), Pierre Byland (Clown), Marcel Sabourin (Pervert Doctor), Richard Manuel (Hippie Composer). p. Sheppard, asst. p. Marguerite Corriveau, p. manager. Lenny Lencina, p.c. O-Zali Films Inc., 1974, 35mm, color, running time 121 minutes. It’s been a long time coming. After sO many years — estimates range from six to eight — Eliza’s Horoscope is up there on the screen, and I must admit that I entered the theatre with a great mixture of interest, curiosity, suspense, and, since Gordon Sheppard has worked so long at it, trepidation: what if it wasn’t any good? After all this time!!? Well, a short while later, through a combination Eliza (Elizabeth Moorman) during initiation ceremony in Eliza’s Horoscope. 44/ cinema canada as Lila, Eliza’s friend in Eliza’s Horoscope of Francois Barbeau’s absolutely stunning design, first-rate cinematography by Jean Boffety, Michel Brault and Paul van der Linden, and Sheppard’s humourous and ingenuous script, I realised that the wait was worth it. Sheppard has said that a novelist can take years to create a novel, so why can a filmmaker not do the same? A valid point, but the trouble is that contemporary films usually take about two years from conception to release for a very simple reason: somehow the content, and especially the tone and attitude, may date very quickly. And Sheppard’s film, if it has any major fault, seems at times to be too obviously a film of the Sixties. For while the form is_ universal — the youthful quest and the search for love — the content consists of an astrological journey among a_ very stylised group of people. The construction is much more simple and straightforward than the jumping, obscure films of the late Sixties, but Astrology seems to be a fad of the past. Of course Sheppard’s intentions are of greater scope. He’s really concerned with Love itself, and comments Lila Kedrova (who won the Canadian Film Awards Best Supporting Actress for this role) on it in a religious context (Eliza, with all her innocence, is driven from home because of her godlessness), and in a social context by showing other kinds of love and lust in the tenement in which Eliza makes her home. He also shows love in our world of technology and material obsessions. To present his _ observations, he plucks imagery from classic and common sources, employing a beautiful white horse, a clown, an Indian Mask, a neon-lit cross side-by-side with a radio transmitter, grotesque but not repulsive tenement inhabitants made-up in chalk-white and grey facial colours, and above all the Ceremony. There are really two ceremonies in the film. One is at the very end, as Eliza is initiated into the Astrology cult on the top of Mount Royal. All of the imagery gathers into the dance circle, and the priest inducts her and her fellows. At the same time her true love, whom she refuses to acknowledge as such and therefore loses in the end, makes his own journey; a radical with Indian blood, he attacks injustice by attempting to blow up a bridge, and is shot when the project misfires. He travels up