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on handat f.i.s.t.
Pen Densham and Leonard Yakir were sent to apprentice with Norman Jewison on the shoot of F./.S.7. For Densham, the experience was an important one, and led eventually to the filming of a documentary on Sylvester Stallone. But that’s another story, to be told another time. Below, Densham’s view of the shooting of F.L.S.7. and his role as observant Cana
dian filmmaker.
Norman Jewison and Pen Densham during a break
It was a little like the plot for a Frank Capra movie, ““Mr. Densham goes to Hollywood”’. A character from the sticks, a Canadian filmmaker, is bustled off to the entertainment mecca of the world.
The kindly people from a string of organizations — CCFM, CFDC, NFB, OAC, Canada Council *— had collected all those initials in one room and had decided to experiment with artistic crossfertilization, and I was to be their first specimen. Also corralled was Leonard Yakir who joined the project later. The concept was simple; to place a Canadian Filmmaker as an observer on the set with Canada’s most successful Producer/Director Norman Jewison.
+ The Council of Canadian Filmmakers, the Canadian Development Corp., The National Film Board of Canada and the Ontario Arts Council.
by Pen Densham
Jewison is often referred to as the film industry’s most bankable director. His films seem to defy formulas —The Russians are Coming, In the Heat of the Night, Fiddler on the Roof, Rollerball, Jesus Christ Superstar, etc. — yet all have been box office successes, and have won a total of nine oscars. The hope was that through the process of watching Jewison film F.1I.S.T., an eight million dollar picture with Sylvester Stallone, some of his midas touch would rub cff onto a younger generation of Canadians.
For me, the decision to become involved in the Jewison Project was a difficult one. For the past
eight years, my work as a filmmaker has always been a creative partnership with John Watson. We have run “Insight Productions’ on the basis of mutually taking responsibility for the direction of our films. We have shared everything equally, from the knocks to the successes. The Jewison Project appeared to select me to be whisked off to Hollywood, leaving him at the bottom end of the seesaw, wrestling with the day to day grind of running our company. John made the choice for me... he pushed me out the door and onto the plane. I left with a lump in my throat.
So there I was, a Pilgrim, clutching my little bag of possessions and an enormous bag of misconceptions.
Through the years the Hollywood machine has done a tremendous job of creating a myth — the magic camelot of movie making, the place where great sorcerers of the art are served by minor Gods so stupendous in their powers, that anything is possible. “You want an earthquake? OK! ready by
Pen Densham is a partner in Insight Productions,
one of the most energetic and successful production companies operating in Toronto.
April-May 1978/19