Cinema Canada (Mar 1983)

With a negative pick-up from United Ar tists Cross Country, Paul Lynch’s latest feature awaiting release, would seem to be a filmmaker’s dream come true. Yet the case of Paul Lynchis not without a profound ambivalence : few Canadian directors have travelled from the critical esteem accorded The Hard Part Begins (1973) to the contempt of the reviews for Humongous (1982). As John Harkness wrote of Humongous in this magazine: “every time you think the Canadian film industry has hit rock bottom, something comes along to prove not only that it could get worse, but it already has.” For Lynch, who leaves critics to their opinions, the focus has been on the day-to-day reality of “keeping an industry rolling.” But his own career itself eloquently bespeaks the nature of that roller-coaster. The _ interview, conducted by Connie Tadros in Montreal took place late September, 1982. Paul Lynch: When I started out, the CBC was the backbone of independent filmmaking. You used to be able to walk into the CBC with an idea, and they would give you money and encouragement, and teach you how to make films. Now that door is locked, and I think it’s unfortunate because they used to have so many series that you could work for, dramas and documentary alike. Cinema Canada: How much work did you do there ? Paul Lynch: [| think I did 35 films: several 15-minute films, half-hour films, documentaries for “Telescope,” for “Gallery,” docu-dramas for the school and youth department. In those days, they would give me $10,000 and I would go out and hire a writer. They would let me go and make my film, and the only time the producers came in was to see the cut. They would change this or that, and then it was finished. And along the way they would be helpful. J started out at 20 as an art director and a graphic designer, and splurged my savings ($700) on a 12-minute film. ] took it to Glen Sarty at the CBC after I had spent $900 on it and he gave me $700 to finish it. And as a result, I had a legitimate, finished film to show. That was wonderful! I marched from there to the religious programming division and did a half-hour film on a home for retarded young boys. You'd go in with an idea, they would give you the money and send you away, and you'd make a film. From the day I started at the CBC, filmmaking was a profit-making business for me. On my first film I lost $100 and that was the last time I lost a cent making a movie, But more important, they told you how to make films. It Paul Lynch Working-class hero by Connie Tadros Cinema Canada: Was your training in graphic arts or was that something you just picked up ? Paul Lynch: Well, I had very little schooling. I started as a cartoonist al the Toronto Star when I was 15 and then did a couple of years as a newspaper photographer around Ontario. That lead into working as a magazine photographer for Maclean’s and the Star Weekly and Toronto Life. I was doing quite well asa cartoonist and photographer, but | decided that neither one had much ofa future because, in those days, what I wanted to do was photo-journalism for Local Life and I was doing photojournalism for the Star Weekly and Weekend Magazine. But it really didn’t have much ofa future ; magazines were closing down so IJ decided that, since I was a cartoonist, the next best step would be to be an artist, so I sortof went and applied for art jobs around Toronto and one lead to the other and I ended as What it was was a combination of photography, graphic design and typography and along the way I just learned, had the luck — touch wood of meeting a lot of good people. 1 ended up working for Toronto Life and while I was there I did a story for’ The Canadian magazine on teen-age married couples and I thought it was a pretty good story. So I went out and found another couple who were even younger — 16 and 17 — and decided I'd make a film out of it. There was a stills photographer I was working with, David Street at Toronto Life, and he was interested, so we got together and I got the money for the film and went out and shot it. We shot week-ends for four months and I was so thrilled by it that I thought, ‘; don’t need graphic design anymore ; I will finish this film and I will go out with it and] will bea major success !’ It didn’t quite turn out this way. In the course of doing it, I was working freelance in the hotos: Lois Siegel night for a teen-age magazine and I had all these cans of films sitting there and wondering what I would do with them. While I was working at the teen-age magazine, the editor brought in a guy called Bill Gray and said ‘this is Bill Gray and he’s going to do some columns for us, So 1 feel you should meet him.’ So we were sitting around chatting and I said ‘What do you do?’ and he said he edited promos for CTV. ‘Like editing films ?’ He said ‘yes.’ I said ‘I think I should buy you dinner.’ So I bought him dinner and I said, ‘I have all these cans of films.’ At the time he was free-lance or unemployed. I asked him if he would like to edit so he said, ‘Why not ? [haven't got anything else to do.’ I would borrow editing rooms from commercial places and we would go in and edit. And slowly my epic 19-minute film on teen-age marriage got cut to twelve minutes and we sold it and that started the association with Bill Gray, which dates back from day one. Through the CBC providing the money, and people who worked at it, cameramen, people like that, providing the insight and Bill Gray editing, they took me to become a filmmaker. And I will always be glad and thankful for the CBC for that ; I got them as they were on their last legs, when the CBC was still an open door. You could start with a 12-minute documentary and work your way up toa halfhour or one-hour documentary. Three years after I'd started working for them, for no known reason, they decided to find new directors in drama. The drama department was next to “Telescope” and as soon as I heard it, I wandered over and they started to give me adrama series. There were four of us... Cinema Canada: You were in documentary before ? Paul Lynch: Yes, there was one docudrama | did for Schools and Youth, Little Indian Boy, a good true story, a very nice little film about this little boy who was taken from the reservation and senttoa government school. He runs away from the school and on his way to the reservation he freezes to death. I'd done that one as a docu-drama; that and a few Telescopes started me on CBC drama, Cinema Canada: How did you make the jump to your own first feature film ? I presume The Hard Part Begins was your first independent film ? Paul Lynch: In the course of my freelancing as a filmmaker, I also worked as a freelance graphic designer and one of my clients was a magazine called Toronto Calendar, I had been with them since the conception of the magazine and I got a call from them about going down to do a promo piece for some advertising program. They told me I would have to make it; the sales exec was going to write it. So I said, fine, so we met in his office and he turned out to be John wasn't like going to school... an art director, which I quite enjoyed. 20/Cinema Canada March 1983