Great Canadian Film Directors

George Melnyk is a cultural historian who has published some twenty books in a distinguished career, including works of philosophy, history, politics, and poetry. He teaches in the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary, where he specializes in Canadian cinema.

"One Saturday in the winter of 1965 I talked my father into driving me to Toronto from our home in Oshawa, Ontario, to see a particular movie that I knew I would never see at the local cinema. I was 14 years old. What I saw that cold night made a profound and lasting impression on me. I grew up watching Hollywood westerns and commercial television shows and, like most people of my generation, I thoughtlessly consumed those products for escape and entertainment. Never before had I seen a film that encouraged me to think about myself, my own life and the province that was my home. The movie was called Nobody Waved Goodbye. It was produced at the National Film Board of Canada and directed by a Torontonian named Don Owen. Thus began my 40-year love affair with Canadian cinema. By becoming a passionate fan of Canadian cinema in the 1960s, I joined a relatively small group of people who go to see Canadian films because it nurtures our souls and provides us with powerful food for thought from a familiar point of view. [F]or the intrepid voluntary viewers out there, this book will be an invaluable resource-a map to navigate their courageous journey through the wonderfully contradictory worlds of our brave film artists and the almost invisible yet burning hearts of those who live on the frosty masthead of the North American continent." Clarke Mackey, Literary Review of Canada, October 2007

• Introduction; Wieland's Far Shore and Shipman's God's Country; The Fatal Leap; "It Takes Monsters to Do Things Like That"; Denys Arcand; David Cronenberg; Atom Egoyan; Activism and Aesthetics; Norman Jewison; Double Take; Straight Outta' Hogtown; Living In/Between; Women with a Movie Camera; Mina Shum; A Problem with Rules; Coward, Bully and Clown; Hanging in Plain Sight; Zach Kunuk and Inuit Filmmaking; Don McKellar; Lynne Stopkewich; Index.