Trade News North (Nov 1977)

Huberman: Canadian Films “Good Stuff Coming” Amold M. Huberman gave the following comments to Trade News North last May at the Cannes Film . Festival. At that time, he was the _Director of feature film programming for the late night series at ABC. His comments pertain to programming for that network. He has since moved on to become director of programming for Home Box Office, a division of TimeLife. Trade News North: Why do you think Canadians are so preoccupied with making ‘‘Canadian’’ films? Arnold Huberman: Probably because they feel so smothered by the U.S. Putting politics aside, I think there is an unnecessary identity crisis on the part of Canadian filmmakers. To get out from under the shadow of America, they say, ““We are going to make a Canadian film”. Well, what the hell is a Canadian film? I buy the most successful films made in Canada, but they are not ‘Canadian’ films. Duddy Kravitz is not Canadian, Lies My Father Told Me is not, Neptune Factor is not a Canadian film by any standard, Black Christmas is not... Trade News North: Why do you say they are not Canadian films? Huberman: They are international films. Take whomever your best cinematographer is — and I wouldn’t know his name. I don’t know how good he is but I hazard a guess that he could be ten times better if he were allowed to work _,on films with Ozzie Morris and guys like that. The way I underStand it is, in order for films to qualify as “‘Canadian”’ films, that’s not possible. So all your technical workers, your cinematographers, your film editors, your lighting directors are not being given the opportunity to work with the craftsmen of other nationalities: they are not given the chance to learn. As good as they are, they'll never get as good as they could be. Plus, there is the fact that you have very limited star value in Canada. How many films can you make with Donald Sutherland? Donald Sutherland to me means absolutely nothing. Genevieve Bujold happens to mean something, Christopher Plummer means less than Donald Sutherland to me. Chief Dan George... he plays the best Jewish Indian I’ve ever seen. The point of making a film is not to make a film and say “this is a product of Canada”’. If you have a story to tell, tell the story and cast the best people, find the best director and the best man to produce it; and screw the Canadian Film Development Corporation or whoever it is. Because if you can’t get the money from them and you have the property, believe me, you'll get the money elsewhere. I spent my time in Cannes doing production financing on projects, none of which are originating from America: all originate overseas. Nobody is having trouble getting money when they have the right projects. Trade News North: Does ABC have money to invest in films that would originate in Canada? Huberman: We have money to invest in films. We are only interested.in the films. I couldn’t care less where it originates. We don’t specifically say, “15% of our films are going to come from Canada and 20% from France or 10% from the UK”. All I’m interested in is a good commercial film. Trade News North: Apart from filming, are you able to distinguish a Canadian from an American? Are there any national characteristics that you would call “‘Canadian”’ as opposed to ‘‘American’’? Huberman; This sounds a little unfair because it doesn’t apply only to Canada, but a lot of the Canadian films I’ve seen have been very amateurish. They seem to be very small, and I don’t know how to define the word ‘‘small’’, but it is small as I perceive it. The film doesn’t seem to look beyond its own horizons, and that is not what a film is supposed to do. It has to reach out for people. Trade News North: But independently of films, you know Canadians as a people; is there anything which you consider distinctive in the national character as opposed to that of an American? Huberman: Only in some cases: the panic to identify oneself as a Canadian. They spend so much time and effort in claiming they are Canadian, and it isn’t really necessary. They are a people. I try not to distinguish between one or another. The French-Canadian situation is another matter. I think the problem is that.a lot of the Canadian films, and especially films using CFDC money, are very limited in scope. They are about subject matters and the Tundra, about this or that. They might make a couple hundred thousand in Canadian theatres but the rest of the world isn’t interested. That is the problem; to make films without limited scope. For a filmmaker to make a film, he has to have something to say; and if he has something to say, he should cast the film in such a way that the . widest possible audience is attracted to it. Otherwise you’re just making films for yourself... and why bother? j Trade News North: When you're programming for television and want to reach a large audience, how much difference does it make that the film includes big names? Huberman: All the difference in the world, because aside from an extraordinary promotion, (which we can only do occasionally because of budgets) the only thing that will make people watch a film is the listing in TV-Guide. There has to be something in that TVGuide — in that one line, between stories, synopsis and cast — that makes them want to watch. And it will be either the fact that they know the film, that the title has more key value or that the cast has more key value, or there is something particularly intriguing about the story. It is very difficult to sell a film, so you’ve got to have those things. Big stars don’t guarantee the success of the film. The lack of big stars often dooms it to failure. Trade News North: Does it happen that you see a film which you deem really terrific and that you don’t dare buy because there is no “handle” to sell it to the TV audience? Huberman: As a matter of personal taste, yes. . .There is a project that’s going, Caravans. It’s one of the best scripts I’ve ever read. I hesitate at this point to buy it because I think it makes a much better book than it makes a movie. Cousin Cousine has done very well in certain cities, but once you've dubbed that film into. English, — and I watched the dubbed version — it lost all its charm. I think that on the small little television set in someone’s living room. it loses everything, so I would pass on that. There were other films like that: The Wind and The Lion, The Man Who Would Be King... Trade News North: Have you seen the films that are considered the Canadian Classics like Goin’ Down the Road, A Married Couple by AlIlan King, or films like that? Huberman: I saw Goin’ Down thé Road, and I was not interested in it. There is stuff coming out of Canada this year that sounds much more intriguing. There’s that horror film Rabid which I have not seen, but sounds interesting. Rituals, Why Shoot the Teacher, and a couple of others that I’ve heard about. Those films sound like the subject matter is a little bit more universal. A horror movie is a horror movie. Black Christmas te Kotcheff: Canadians Don’t Risk MONTREAL — Director Ted Kotcheff has experienced both the carrot and the stick of the big US distribution machine. His film The Apprenticeship ofr Duddy Kravitz, though a critical success in United States, did poorly because of inadequate distribution and publicity. His latest film, Fun with Dick and Jane got the publicity it deserved south of the border and consequently the success, Mr. was a well done horror movie. Breaking Point was not a very well done film, but Breaking Point could never be accused of being Canadian... it was just a bad film. Anybody can and normally does make one. So it was 0.K. So, I guess the point is, don’t think Canadian. To think Canadian is to pretty much doom yourself going in. When it comes to being an artist — which a filmmaker is — be an artist like an artist in any other part of the world, and don’t wave the flag so violently in everybody’s face. It’s offensive. And also it doesn’t work. I know that there are other problems and I’m not that familiar with them. There’s the question of film distribution inCanada, and: the American majors; and I know that last year the American majors snubbed a festival, which I thought was a stupid thing to do because there is a market up there. I know in our own set-up at ABC we sell the “made for television movies’’ that we make ‘theatrical’ overseas. We do not sell to Canada first because of the American unions, If we sell to Canada, it triggers a set of residuals which causes it to be uneconomical. Eventually, we hope that will change. Canada is a separate country. Once Canadians recognize that, they’ll make films like everybody else. There are very few films that you can call American films. I think a Woody Allen film is an Kotcheff, a guest at the recent World Film Festival in Montreal gave his views on distribution to Trade News North. “I have always been of the opinion that there are very few problems in life that money can’t solve. If you have enough money, and you give enough people the opportunity to work, talent will reveal itself. The big problem is that no Canadian film can earn it’s money back CANADIAN FILMS INFILTRATE TV The CFDC has been keeping tabs on the sales and use of Canadian films on Canadian television. The following excerpt from its annual report sums up the situation. On the French side, Radio-Canada played 35 films during the year. The same network recently purchased a library of 20 English-language films which are presently being dubbed into French and which are expected to be telecast during the next 12 months. L’Office de radio-télédiffusion du Québec (RadioQuébec) had a total of six telecasts of four different Canadian films, the same number of features as last year, while Télé-Métropole, as in the previous year, showed only two Canadian films. In English-Canada, the CBC English network showed four Canadian films and CTV showed five Canadian films. However, it should be pointed out that a large number of Canadian films were shown during the year on many of these networks’ stations on an individual basis. Global TV showed 14 films during the year just passed. Throughout the world, Canadian films were being sold and telecast on foreign stations. Highlights of the year included the sale of a package of five films to the BBC and the second telecasting of a Canadian film by a U.S. network (CBS): ‘The Neptune Factor’. American film, because Woody Allen is so intrinsically American. Marathon Man is not an American film, Black Sunday is not, The Eagle Has Landed is not. These are just FILMS in capital letters. Trade News North: If often seems to be a question of who is able to take initiative. In some of the “Canadian”’ films, the initiative has been taken by people who have lived abroad. Huberman: Yes, but there are guys like David Perlmutter, and other people, who have absolutely the right point of view about how you do movies. Their problem is no different from anybody else’s. The hardest thing in the world is to: a) find a good property, and b) put a package together. And everybody has that problem — regardless of nationality. There’s been a gradual decline in product of the American majors, so everybody is in the same boat. It’s finding the product that’s critical. Next season I’ll run Duddy Kravitz and nothing in my promotion of that film will even allude to the fact that in has anything to do with Canada. It’s Duddy Kravitz, it’s Richard Dreyfuss, it’s Ted Kotcheff. I just bought Kotcheff’s latest film Fun with Dick and Jane. He’s a Canadian director who seems to have transcended that border and is making normal movies now, and doing very well. And that’s the way it should be. in Canada. All successful film industries, even the small film industries like those of Sweden and France, get their money back in the country of origin. We don’t and are therefore in a very powerless position because we are dependant on earming our money abroad to pay for the film.”’ “‘No one knows what constitutes a success. If anyone did, then we would all be rich. But we are not all rich and film companies are failing. It is a fact that the attrition rate in films is extraordinary. Nine out of ten films are wiped out completely and do not make a single penny!” “In Canada we have this additional problem of distribution. We simply do not have an aggressive distribution technique, and people are not willing to spend money on promotion of films. It is interesting to look at my latest film, Fun with Dick and Jane in this respect. Being a high budget studio production, the backers conceive the making of the film as a package, a package which includes distribution and advertising. In this case, the production cost 442 million dollars and an additional three million was spent on promotion. The Americans realize they have to spend this three million dollars to protect their investment. There doesn’t seem to be anyone in Canada who has the guts to take this aggressive approach — willing to risk money to get money back...”’