Cinema Canada (Jun 1983)

ds, a ae oe aa ss Te ETE LAROCHELLE advocating a rigourous renewal of the cinema through new, competitive, commercial competence, e the defence of a popular, progressive national cinema. These trends are far from being fully defined, as we will see. Nevertheless it seems that the first two options base themselves on an economic nationalism for the cultural industries to which social and cultural nationalism must align themselves as best they can. Without denying the economic conditions of cinematic practice, the third option is above all concerned with social and cultural profitability, and continues in the tradition of Quebec cinema ofthe sixties, the cinema of the quiet revolution. |. CULTURE IN THE CONTROL OF THE CULTURAL INDUSTRIES “The year 1981 marks the most serious decline in film production in the past decade” announces the recent report of the Institut Québecois du cinéma (IQC). The Institut conceived its Plan quinquennal d’aide (five-year financial assistance plan) in June 1981 under the sign of austerity, announcing that it would only grant assistance to films deemed financially viable (fiction being preferrable to the documentary feature), and suspending all assistance to medium-length fiction as well as to all short and medium-length documentaries. This would leave only the tions Ltd., International Cinema Corporation, etc. deny assistance to most young filmmakers attempting their first feature film, as wellas to all those dedicated to an alternative, cultural or experimental cinema. At the beginning of May, the 1QC announced an even more selective assistance policy, accepting scripts by professionals only, “on the condition that they be associated witha production house and an experienced director’; production houses would be assessed according to specific criteria of financial management, production control, and capability of distribution. But these were not the only signs that indicate a change in Quebec cinema. The |QC refused a $40,000 subsidy to the Semaine du cinéma québécois, which could not hold its spring festival; the last Albert Tes sieraward wentto a producer instead of a director, (Gilles Groulx had been under consideration) ; andthe critics’ prize, relinquished the year before by the Institut, became the Ouimet-Molson award and was givento...Gilles Carle forLes Plouffe. The picture is no brighter when we look at assistance given to Quebec cinema by federal institutions. The NFB, conforming with a prestige policy favouring feature fiction film (J. A. Martin photographe, Cordélia, Les beaux souvenirs, La quarantaine) had to admit that it had somewhat sacrificed the documentary and social-interest film. Furthermore, the combined policies of the CFDC and the Capital Cost Allowance were a monumental failure. Even the national EnglishCanadian cinema has problems and does not recognize itself in films like Tribute, for example. But, at the other extreme, thanks to this assistance, Quebec professionals produced Lucky Star, Scanners, Dreamworld, Visiting Hours, Atlantic City, and Quest For Fire. Is this a linguistic and cultural farce ? Denis Héroux has said that “it is time to separate the men from the boys !” Let us try to see how and why, since this crisis has not only created losers but winners also. Economic nationalism and cultural nationalism make good bedfellows Ottawa’s policies, based mostly On management and profitability, have supported the production of the currently fashionable ficture feature; those policies have encouraged the merging of production houses and have favoured monopolization. According to this system, the product is deemed Canadian/Québécois if the producers, technicians, and administrators are Québécois or Canadian. Therefore, the nationalism of cultural industries is a function, first and foremost, of economic nationalism. That is why when Denis Héroux, in 1981, spoke of “the men”, he was referring to those of the newly-formed Association of Canadian Movie Production Companies, where English Canadians and Québécois rub shoulders in such organizations as Astral Films, Dal Productions, Filmplan International, Mutual Produc 30 Ra : tion Ltd., International Cinema Corporation, etc. These “big boys” of the Canadian cinema are signally in complete agreement with such federal cultural policy objectives as those of the Applebaum-Hébert report, as well as with the projects more recently announced by Francis Fox that touch on the field of pay television, the potential golden calf of film production. These global, federal cultural policies not only feed the economic nationalism of the cultural industries, they.also “dot the'‘i’” as far as cultural nationalism in general. As Francis Fox has said “... surely it is not a coincidence if in Canada renewal comes onall fronts atthe sametime, from the constitution to culture.” Whether we talk about a constitution, a people, a culture... let it be within multiculturalism! Applebaum-Hébert took up the same idea: We heard it expressed in many different ways that Canadians want a culture which both represents them to the world and defines them to themselves. In short, we found: that Canadians have both the will and the means to move togetherin directions which will furtherenrich and ennoble the Canadian spirit. Such an obvious negation of Quebec’s national rights —as well as those of many native peoples -— is exactly what had been denounced in the spring of 1980 atthe Canadian Images Festival in Peterborough during a panel discussion with members of the Applebaum-Hébert committee. Whatfollows proves that the then-protesting filmmakers — Québécois, English-Canadian and native — were right.2 Federal policies on cultural industries reward an official cultural nationalism or“constitutional nationalism,” as it were, In the meantime, if necessary, some film producers readily emphasise “international culture.” Why else the hesitant nationalism of Les Plouffe, for example ? Denis Héroux admits that this nationalism is just incidental to a film’s more universal subject. Furthermore, on Radio-Canada in 1979, this same producer stated quite plainly that nationalism derives from outdated values and that we should,