Take One (Dec 2003 - Mar 2004)

already suffers from a dearth of varied opinions in this crucial art and medium. I confess, it feels odd to complain about CanWest’s canning a bunch of their critics; the chain (previously named Southam) has a long and rather disgusting history of treating arts reporting as something to be tolerated, rather than fostered. But simply downsizing the number of film critics who already work in these arts sections (through transfer or attrition) is hardly the answer. It has long puzzled me that the attitudes of “hard news” journalists in Canada have meant the sidelining of cultural coverage. Has no one noticed that the very best newspapers in the world, including The New York Times and The Guardian, take their arts sections every bit as seriously as their news sections? As for the franchising or synergy effect merely being something practiced by the crass mainstream press, witness the alternative Montreal media, who have, sadly and rapidly, been following suit. On Friday, October 10, 2003, The Gazette ran reviews of both the two main movie releases of that week (Tarantino’s Kil] Bill and the Coen brothers’s, Intolerable Cruelty) neither written by the paper’s 19-year-veteran Griffin, but by the newly minted national critic Stone. A day earlier, the city’s Frenchlanguage weekly, Voir, ran precisely the same cover story of its English-language offshoot, Hour. Written by Hour critic Dimitri Katadotis, the Tarantino-interview cover was the result of a Kil] Bill junket. The doubling up of coverage in both papers came a mere few months after Voir's film critic, Juliette Ruer—widely considered one of the city’s best—was unceremoniously canned in a bid by the paper to save cash. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I must state here that I work for the Mirror, a competitor of both Hour and Voir.) It might sound like sweet revenge for Canuck filmmakers. At last, all those critics who’ve killed so many trees trashing various movies are getting their comeuppance. But something’s getting lost in the translation with the move toward all this evaporation, franchising and synergy of opinion. It may be a wet dream for cheap publishers but the effect, I suspect, will be felt throughout the Canadian filmmaking community, not just among journalists. It was the great Canadian thinker Northrop Frye who once suggested that “Where is here?” was the quintessential Canadian question, an existential streak he sensibly sensed running throughout so much of our literary and film culture. Here feels like it’s getting a whole lot smaller. Matthew Hays is the film critic and associate editor for the Montreal weekly Mirror and is a member of Take One’s editorial board. fRental Facility (Absolute Location Support Services WwW:-absolute'ta Ee aes WARD need STRIL Wallace www.wallacestudios.com Toronto's Complete Studio/Location S/ Tel: (416)537-3471 Fax: (416)532-3132 The Business Side of Screenwriting Praxis offers a kit based on a Through the course we run in Vancouver which 9 (iene nel brings together agents, producers, [| M0CMRUESCnTT Ee entertainment lawyers, is now available broadcasters and funding to screenwriters agencies. across Canada The kit includes a DVD comprising five nights of panel discussions from these industry reps, plus a binder full of sample contracts, lists of lawyers and agents, copyright info, development advice and much iter Fee $59.95 + GST. For information and ordering contact us by Phone 604-682-3100 Hi E-mail praxis @sfu.ca Visit our website at Hl www.praxisfilm.com A Program of The School for the Contemporary Arts at SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY TAKE ONE 1