Canadian Cinema – serie

Arguably the most famous and critically acclaimed Canadian filmmaker, David Cronenberg is celebrated equally for his early genre films, like Scanners (1981) and The Fly (1986), and his dark artistic vision in films such as Dead Ringers (1988) and Crash (1996). The 2005 film A History of Violence was a mainstream success that marked Cronenberg's return to the commercial fold of Hollywood after years of independent art house filmmaking. His international reputation grew and the film was honoured with numerous awards and two Oscar nominations (for screenwriter Josh Olson and supporting actor William Hurt). David Cronenberg's A History of Violence - the lead title in the new Canadian Cinema series - presents readers with a lively study of some of the filmmaker's favourite themes: violence, concealment, transformation, sex, and guilt.Bart Beaty introduces us to Cronenberg's film, situating it in the context of its aesthetic influences, and argues for its uniquely English-Canadian qualities. The author contends that A History of Violence is a nuanced study of masquerade and disguise, a film that thwarts our expectations of film genre as much as it challenges our perception of national geography and cultural mythology. As a contribution to the Canadian Cinema series, the volume also presents readers with an overview of Cronenberg's career, the production history of the film, a discussion of its critical reception, and a filmography.David Cronenberg's A History of Violence is a book for fans, critics, and cinephiles alike.

The release of Denys Arcand's Le Déclin de l'empire américain (The Decline of the American Empire) in 1986 marked a major turning point in Quebec cinema. It was the first Québécois film that enjoyed huge critical and commercial success at home and abroad. Arcand's tragicomedy about eight intellectuals gathered around a dinner table relating sexy anecdotes became the top-grossing film of all time in Quebec and was the first Canadian feature to be nominated for an Oscar in the foreign-language category. Seventeen years later, Arcand won an Academy Award for the sequel, Les Invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions), where the amusing insouciance of the thirty-somethings talking dirty in Le Déclin is replaced by a sense of moral responsibility and serene resignation.In this engrossing study, André Loiselle presents the first in-depth analysis of both films within the context of Quebec culture. Through close readings and concise cultural analysis of two of the most important films in the history of Quebec cinema, Loiselle demonstrates the ways in which Arcand's work represents a snapshot of the evolution of the French Canadian film industry since 1980. The companion films trace the decline of Quebec's national dream and the Québécois' attempts to cling to their identity against the forces of barbaric globalization.The second title in the new Canadian Cinema series, Denys Arcand's "Le Déclin de l'empire américain" and "Les Invasions barbares" is essential reading for cinephiles, film critics, and anyone with an interest in cultural studies and Canadian and Quebec history.

The Far Shore (1976), made under the direction of celebrated visual artist and experimental filmmaker Joyce Wieland, is one of Canada's most innovative contributions to cinema. The film borrows elements from the life of Canadian painter Tom Thomson, who is represented by the character of Tom McLeod. The main character, however, is not Tom, but the fictional creation of Eulalie de Chicoutimi, the married Québécoise woman who loves him. Using Eulalie's perspective, Wieland was able to re-frame Thomson's life and story as a romantic melodrama while infusing it with subversive commentary on gender, nature and nationalism, and ultimately, on the value of art.Here, Wieland specialist Johanne Sloan offers a fascinating new perspective on The Far Shore, making it more accessible by discussing Wieland's utopian fusion of art and politics, the importance of landscape within Canadian culture, and the on-going struggle over the meaning of the natural environment.

Long before 'Reality TV,' Canadian filmmaker Allan King caused a stir by mixing people's private and public lives in his 1969 documentary A Married Couple. This observational cinema piece, which took an unscripted look at the urban Edwards family, was deemed too contentious to air by commissioning network CTV on the grounds of excessive nudity and obscenity. Nevertheless, the documentary was accepted by the Cannes festival, and it is now cited as a milestone in realist filmmaking.In Allan King's A Married Couple, ZoË Druick examines the film in the context of late 1960s cinematic and cultural movements. Through a scene-by-scene synopsis and an analysis of contemporary responses to the piece, she traces A Married Couple's influence on documentary and Canadian filmmaking. The fifth volume in the Canadian Cinema series, this work is an accessible and engaging introduction to a controversial film and its fascinating director.

Consistently ranked as one of the best Canadian movies of all time, punk-rock mockumentary Hard Core Logo (1996) documents the last-ditch reunion tour of an aging rock band led by vocalist Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon). Well received by critics at the time of its release, the film continues to enjoy a devoted international cult following.This entertaining analysis of Hard Core Logo explores many of the film's key themes, including the responsibility of documentary filmmakers to their subjects, the development of close male relationships, and the relationship between art and commerce in Canada, especially for touring musicians. Paul McEwan examines Hard Core Logo in the context of other adaptations of Michael Turner's 1993 novel of the same name, as well as against other films from McDonald's celebrated career. Featuring interviews with McDonald himself and others involved in the film, Bruce McDonald's ‘Hard Core Logo’ provides an engaging look at one of Canada's most mythologized movies.

Since its release in July 1970, Donald Shebib’s low-budget road movie about displaced Maritimers in Toronto has become one of the most celebrated Canadian movies ever made. In this study of Goin’ Down the Road, renowned film critic Geoff Pevere provides an engaging account of how a film produced under largely improvised circumstances became the most influential Canadian movie of its day as well as an enduring cultural touchstone.Featuring extensive interviews with the film’s key participants, Pevere provides behind-the-scenes history and explores how the movie’s meaning and interpretation have changed over time. He gives special attention to the question of why the film’s creative mix of documentary techniques, road movie tropes, and social commentary have proven so popular and influential in Canadian filmmaking for decades.

John Walker is one of Canada's most prolific and important documentary filmmakers and is known for his many thoughtful, personally inflected films. His masterwork, Passage, centres on Sir John Franklin's failed expedition to find the final link of the Northwest Passage connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Canadian Arctic. It also gives us the story of John Rae, the Scottish explorer who discovered the fate of Franklin and the final link in the passage, but was left to the margins of history. Walker's film brings to this story a layering of dramatic action and behind-the-scenes documentary footage that build tension between the story of the past and interpretations of the present.Darrell Varga provides a close analysis of Passage, situating it within Walker's rich body of work and the Canadian documentary tradition. Varga illuminates how the film can be viewed through the lens of Harold Innis's theories of communication and culture, opening up the work of this great Canadian political economist to film studies.

Few studies of Canadian cinema to date have engaged deeply with genre cinema and its connection to Canadian culture. Ernest Mathijs does just that in this volume, which traces the inception, production, and reception of Canada’s internationally renowned horror film, Ginger Snaps (2000). This tongue-in-cheek Gothic film, which centres on two death-obsessed teenage sisters, draws a provocative connection between werewolf monstrosity and female adolescence and boasts a dedicated world-wide fan base.The first book-length study of this popular film, John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps is based on the author’s privileged access to most of its cast and crew and to its enthusiasts around the world. Examining themes of genre, feminism, identity, and adolescent belonging, Mathijs concludes that Ginger Snaps deserves to be recognized as part of the Canadian canon, and that it is a model example of the kind of crossover cult film that remains unjustly undervalued by film scholars.

John Paizs’s ‘Crime Wave’ examines the Winnipeg filmmaker’s 1985 cult film as an important example of early postmodern cinema and as a significant precursor to subsequent postmodern blockbusters, including the much later Hollywood film Adaptation. Crime Wave’s comic plot is simple: aspiring screenwriter Steven Penny, played by Paizs, finds himself able to write only the beginnings and endings of his scripts, but never (as he puts it) “the stuff in-between.” Penny is the classic writer suffering from writer’s block, but the viewer sees him as the (anti)hero in a film told through stylistic parody of 1940s and 50s B-movies, TV sitcoms, and educational films.In John Paizs’s ‘Crime Wave,’ writer and filmmaker Jonathan Ball offers the first book-length study of this curious Canadian film, which self-consciously establishes itself simultaneously as following, but standing apart from, American cinematic and television conventions. Paizs’s own story mirrors that of Steven Penny: both find themselves at once drawn to American culture and wanting to subvert its dominance. Exploring Paizs’s postmodern aesthetic and his use of pastiche as a cinematic technique, Ball establishes Crime Wave as an overlooked but important cult classic.

Long before 'Reality TV,' Canadian filmmaker Allan King caused a stir by mixing people's private and public lives in his 1969 documentary A Married Couple. This observational cinema piece, which took an unscripted look at the urban Edwards family, was deemed too contentious to air by commissioning network CTV on the grounds of excessive nudity and obscenity. Nevertheless, the documentary was accepted by the Cannes festival, and it is now cited as a milestone in realist filmmaking.In Allan King's A Married Couple, ZoË Druick examines the film in the context of late 1960s cinematic and cultural movements. Through a scene-by-scene synopsis and an analysis of contemporary responses to the piece, she traces A Married Couple's influence on documentary and Canadian filmmaking. The fifth volume in the Canadian Cinema series, this work is an accessible and engaging introduction to a controversial film and its fascinating director.

Few studies of Canadian cinema to date have engaged deeply with genre cinema and its connection to Canadian culture. Ernest Mathijs does just that in this volume, which traces the inception, production, and reception of Canada’s internationally renowned horror film, Ginger Snaps (2000). This tongue-in-cheek Gothic film, which centres on two death-obsessed teenage sisters, draws a provocative connection between werewolf monstrosity and female adolescence and boasts a dedicated world-wide fan base.The first book-length study of this popular film, John Fawcett’s Ginger Snaps is based on the author’s privileged access to most of its cast and crew and to its enthusiasts around the world. Examining themes of genre, feminism, identity, and adolescent belonging, Mathijs concludes that Ginger Snaps deserves to be recognized as part of the Canadian canon, and that it is a model example of the kind of crossover cult film that remains unjustly undervalued by film scholars.