English-Canadian Film (Winter 2007)

#### Jan. 7: Nobody Wave Goodbye

* Screening: Nobody Wave Goodbye (1964)

#### Jan. 14: Goin' Down the Road

* Screening: Goin' Down the Road (1970)
* comparison to Nobody Wave Goodbye
* fulfilling the dream - small town to big city
* Margaret Atwood's Survival \- dramatization of failure
* overacting/underacting - docudrama
* John Hoffman - American failure spectacular and glamorized vs. Canadian failure 'grubby' and pathetic
* Christine Ramsay \- plurality - postmodern reading - identification - gender/region/class - marginalization
* marginalized are not losers but rather sublime outsiders
* victims and losers in Canadian losers - noble nature of losers
* Screening: Pierre Berton interview with Shebib

#### Jan. 21: Dreamland

* Feldman Article
* Uselessness of written word in Canadian films - Nobody Wave Goodbye and Going Down the Road examples
* Feeling of emptiness in Shabib films - conveyed without the use of words
* Shabib characters often battered into silence
* Experimental works also suggest silence holds 'real power' in Canadian film
* What's not there is 'more horrifying' than what is there - absence
* Abigail's party - example of absence
* City of Gold
* Short Brittain bio + filmography
* Memorandum (1965)

##### postscreening discussion

* distribution problems - then and now
* quotas
* carry-on movies - product of quota system
* Canadian influence in Hollywood and vice-versa
* Lonely Boy (1962)
* Unit B
* Acknowledgement of ambiguity - acknowledgement of the camera
* dark nature of the film
* Barry Keith Grant text about the film
* darkness of film - at home everywhere/nowhere
* 'we had a nosejob' - Anka belongs to everybody/not himself - Freedomland scene
* Troy Donahue - godfather - Coppola - Hollywood + mafia connection
* comparison to Dreamland

#### Jan. 28: Winter Kept Us Warm

* McCarthyism
* Communism
* Anti-Semitism
* Homophobia

* Kenneth Anger's Fireworks - made just before Anger's departure for Europe
* Homophobia in Hollywood during the McCarthy era
* keeping up appearances
* Beat poets
* Jack Kerouac
* Allen Ginsberg
* Claude Jutra, Michel Tremblay's works in Quebec
* Robin Wood's 'The Return of the Repressed' - horror movies allow people to talk of repressive themes - horror movie often dismissed or marginalized
* Gay and Lesbian filmmakers statistically more frequent in Canada
* The Weinstein's involvement with and promotion of independent films
* Canadian benefit of newfound interest in low budget Sundance films
* Winter Kept Us Warm
* Critical reception - Variety magazine review
* influence on Cronenberg - quote from Cronenberg on Cronenberg on Winter Kept Us Warm - 'very sweet film'

#### Feb. 4: The Apprentice (1971)

* Susan Sarandon – Joe – pre-Apprentice success
* Larry Kent
* concern about job loss
* anticonformism
* Bitter Ash's reception + Success at McGill U
* High – censorship in Quebec
* CFTC - Telefilm
* distribution + promotion of films
* power in the hands of producers – taxcredit incentive

##### postscreening

* Larry Kent lecture
* English vs. French version
* appearance of the priest – French priest in French version – pressure to have english priest
* Susan Sarandon’s casting vs. Diane Keaton
* Starting up at UBC – Bitter Rash
* Directing french actors – non-Quebec native – challenges
* hope for Canadian films – 2007 and beyond