Cinema Canada (Aug 1979)

they were sorry, but they felt there was not much of a film there. They thought it was really disjointed and fragmented; When | asked them about editing facilities, they claimed that it was all booked up.” Borsos rough cut Cooperage himself and took it to a “really super editor” in Vancouver named Jana Fritsch. Much of the quality of Cooperage is owed to Fritsch. Her initial sequence of shots, edited to music, establishing the factory in a state of early morning rest before the old machines spring loudly to life is one of the finest of the film. Her cutting is quick, but the impression is one of total peace. Then Borsos’ camera takes over, moving with the coopers through clouds of steam, peering into the open charring fires, and probing the greasy, dust-covered gears of antiquated equipment still driven by overhead belts. Old, tinted Weyerhauser footage of the making and assembling of barrel stays in years past, is woven through the beginning of the film, establishing just how little things have changed. By right of excellence, if not aggravation, Cooperage triumphed over NFB competition at the 1976 Canadian Film Awards. The people at the NFB Vancouver office must have felt as testy as a certain film instructor in Banff. The marketing plan for Cooperage was as well thought out as the film itself. Of the $19,000 that Borsos spent making the film, the Canada Council chipped in $5,000, and the Film Board donated $2,000 in raw stock and processing. Rocky Mountain Films paid the balance. Borsos ran the film through the festival circuit with the help of the Festivals Bureau of the Secretary of State’s Office. The film was screened in London, Chicago, Barcelona, and the Virgin Islands. Viking Films was contracted for film sales and still handles the Canadian market, while the Boston office of the Canadian Filmmakers’ Distribution Centre is in charge of American sales. The CBC saw the film and its program purchasing department picked it up for $1,750. Odeon gave it a thirteen-week run in theaters in British Columbia and Alberta. The success of Cooperage enabled Borsos to secure a Vancouver bank loan for his next undertaking. Originally working-titled The High-Rigger and later changed to Spartree, it remains Borsos’ finest film. After Cooperage, Borsos vowed in a Vancouver Sun article never to make another short film. But, obviously he is hooked on the energy of filmmaking. He admits that he fell into filmmaking in the first place because, unlike silkscreening, “It’s exciting.” As he tells it, “You have to deal with hundreds of people, money, weather, and light, trying to coordinate all these intangibles. I like to think of myself as a producer, because I value the control. I prefer the overview.” In the case of Spartree, Borsos’ skills as a producer were put to the test. Like Cooperage, he was out to document a fading art; that of the high-rigger, the man who tops the tree from which the central drag cables are supported in logging operations. Logistical problems started with finding the right tree. Initial inquiries were met with less than unbridled enthusiasm. Finally, a perfect 250’ specimen was found, but it was unfortunately located in a firebreak — an area in which no cutting is allowed. After obtaining government permission to top one tree, Borsos assembled his crew of high-riggers, stuntmen, cameramen, speed climbers and others. Borses was obsessed with the visual quality of the film. He constructed elaborate dolly platforms over the forest floor to get the sort of smooth, gliding shorts that he felt even his Director Phil Borsos on the Spartree set Cinema Canada/19