May 3, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Beautiful.
Her publicist should advise her to lose the gum during an interview. Otherwise…very nice.
Saw the film on the weekend and it is a beautifully executed, well-observed piece. A quiet masterpiece.
Loved the movie, except… the loud “555” phone number reference on the answering maching shocked me back into reality…. everybody knows “555” means “fake movie phone number!”…. a shame….
I’d like to have lunch with Sarah Polley.
No, really…
Great interview. I met Sarah Polley back in September at Cinefest Sudbury and was thoroughly impressed by how articulate she was — not to mention how willing to converse with complete strangers about the wonders of Alice Munro.
Your interview with Olivier Assayas is even better. Kudos!
I’m glad she’s apparently so adept behind the camera because as I witnessed with last year’s “Don’t Come Knocking” Polley had finally slid into the comatose territory she had been threatening to do with her acting for a while now.
Maybe I’m just watching the wrong movies, but other than Go and Dawn of the Dead every time I see her in a movie I wanna take a nap.
But, yes, glad she’s got the skill behind the camera. We need more prominant female directors/writers.
Well, this is a first… I’m jealous of David Poland. I found she wasn’t a great inteview but I’d spend time with Sarah Polley any chance that I could get 🙂
Well she gave you a better interview than the print people (I assume) later that day… she gave very short answers when not on camera. You probably should have cut out the bit where you get kicked out of the hotel, though… we all know that you’ve been blacklisted from most of the hotels and restaurants in New York already but didn’t have to prove it by showing it on camera. 🙂
…every time I see her in a movie I wanna take a nap.”
Agreed. I have no idea what her direcing debut is like but in front of the camera she seems to have two modes; ‘grumpy and surly’ and in her more rounded performances ‘really grumpy and really surly’.
Nice to see her smiling for a change. Then again, if I was getting wealthy off the backs of the poor of Canada under a system that has withered away a generation of Canadian filmmakers I ‘d have a big shit eating grin on my face too.
“Well she gave you a better interview than the print people (I assume) later that day… she gave very short answers when not on camera.”
You should try to track down an interview she gave to the National Post a few years back. She perceived the paper to be right-wing (it’s not, just not as Hugo Chavez-left as Sarah) and then proceeded to show up late for the interview and treat the interviewer like crap, when he was just doing his job. In another interview at the time she sneered down at the people who trained her to use weapons in Dawn of the Dead.
Seems she didn’t like having to deal with ‘average folk’. I know plenty of people that know Polley. She’s quite a little elitist piece of work.
Greeeeeaaat smile though.
I’ll keep this simple:
How do you know she’s wealthy, and which Canadian filmmakers have ‘withered’?
Jeff,
How do I know she’s wealthy?
I know plenty of people that know her and have worked with her on a personal level. I’m not going to mention their names though, but Sarah is not looking for food stamps any time soon. I’m not saying she’s Bill Gates or Oprah but she is no starving artist, which is how she portrays herself in Canada.
She also has more than enough clout to raise private investors for her films but refuses to because she cleaves to extreme socialist politics. Sarah is no moderate or center-left artist. She makes Michael Moore look moderate. I’m just sayin…
Which Canadian filmmakers have withered? No one you would have heard of…that’s why they withered.
I am not trying to be cute, your question is valid, but I am talking about a generation of artists (many whom I know) that are talented but cannot penetrate the socialist Canadian film system which constantly changes criteria to qualify for grants. Those criteria ultimately are meaningless to those who do qualify because if you know people (like Sarah) and are ‘in the know’ you can jump the line.
In essence it’s a ‘who you know’ system. Shitty enough for private financing, but when its paid for by the poorest, most heavily taxed demographic…pretty vile.
Sarah is a huge defender of this socialist system and it has damaged the English Canadan film industry immensely. For the past two years there has been a real drought in the Toronto film industry with fewer and fewer films being shot there and even fewer originating there. Craftspeople are out of work and leaving the industry to feed their families. It is largely due to the lack of any private film financing there.
It is a very complex issue and only now, about 25 years after it was instituted, can people now see the horrific effects of it.
The reason why the Mike Myers’ and Jim Carrey’s left Canada was because nobody would hire them there. The ‘system’ is adverse to anything even remotely mainstream.
If the subject interests you, you should find some articles where Ivan Reitman speaks at length on the subject.
Understand both moderates who are left and right in Canada critique this system…but extremists like Sarah control it.
‘Horrific’? ‘Extremists’?
Methinks you indulge in hyperbole.
Methinks you indulge in hyperbole.
“Methinks you indulge in hyperbole.”
Methinks you would say that regardless of what I said.
“Methinks you indulge in hyperbole.”
Methinks you would say that regardless of what I wrote.
I love how she is simultaneously a capitalist tyrant and socialist biggot in your portrait, Nicol. Completely agreed about the “who you know” system, but locating Sarah Polley at the centre of the nexus of opression seems an awfully big stretch.
Nicol: possibly, but that says as much about you as it does about me.
Quiggles,
“…but locating Sarah Polley at the centre of the nexus of opression seems an awfully big stretch. ”
Nobody said she is at ‘the nexus’ but Sarah wears her socialist politics on her sleeve and is VERY vocal about it. When she then champions a system that hurts many people and promotes poverty and lack of diversity in the arts, I think it is A-OK to call her out on it, even in this forum.
You have to admit that all of those things are debatable, especially the ‘lack of diversity in the arts’ element which is exactly what the program is meant to counter.
What program, Jeff?
Methinks you are just going against me for the sake of going against me without really getting this subject.
The Canadian film system ‘program’.
Do you blame me? You have a clear ideological bias that you launched into this argument, without having seen the movie at issue, so if you’re going to be knee-jerk ideological, why shouldn’t I?
Jeff,
My issue has never been with the film. My criticism stands, regardless whether it is good or crap.
Poor taxpayers should not have to pay for Sarah’s ‘art’ as she so arrogantly believes.
Be ideological all you want Jeff, but at least get a clue as to what you are ideological about. Going against me for the sake of it does not make you clever. I am passionate about this subject because I know too many people who are directly and adversely affected by it.
You defend it just because you don’t like me. That’s knee-jerk.
It’s not that I don’t like you, it’s that I don’t trust anything you say.
“Poor taxpayers should not have to pay for Sarah’s ‘art’ as she so arrogantly believes.”
Nicol, I don’t like OR dislike you, so please believe that I am not being “knee-jerk” when I say it is seriously strange to think it especially “arrogant” that a director would want people to pay to see her ‘art,’ as you call it for some reason. She does get paid to make it, no? And it would therefore follow that the spectator would pay to see it, right?
I’m not really sure what you’re advocating here — free screenings of “Away From Her” because Sarah’s a socialist?
Nicol’s point is that taxpayers are funding Polley’s socialist, elitist films (even though she’s only made this one feature) and shouldn’t have to. My attitude is that a national film board like this has to struggle against Hollywood and the huge amount of Hollywood product shot in Canada, they have an obligation to support less-than-commercial Canadian projects that would otherwise disappear without a trace. Maybe the selection process for those projects and filmmakers is flawed but the basic idea is valid.
Some backstory here. Nicol D is still pissed that his canuck movie MOUNTIE! was refused funding. Pic told the broad yard of a brave young man who joins the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and uncovers a plot by pinkos and darkies to overthrow the government and replace it with a homosexual king (and queen). It would have toplined Keanu Reeves, Shannon Tweed, William Shatner, Pamela Anderson and Robert Goulet.
Women directing = SNORE.
(Excepting Sofia Coppola, of course.)
Sure, it sounds like sexist baiting, but think about it, SC and maybe Kathryn Bigelow aside.
Not that I completely understand the situation (in fact, I am gleaning much first-time knowledge on the subject of Canadian cinema from your posts), but how are either the Canadian Film Board’s policies or Sara Polley’s socialist leanings to blame for “the lack of any private film financing there”? It has seemed (historically, at least) that the Canadian Film Board’s participation in production has dwarved any US government participation in recent decades, and if you’re going to bitch about one group or another “getting wealthy off the backs of the poor,” you wouldn’t have to look hard at more egregious examples than the Film Council. The American right-wing (with its hardline against the National Endowment for the Arts) has all but stifled the US gov’ts participation in independent film production, yet nearly undistributable stuff like ZOO and FLANNEL PAJAMAS still gets released. Whoever said it’s hard to get a film made nowadays has clearly not had to sit through some of the dreck the “fringe cinema” has to offer.
Catherine Breillat, Isabel Coixet, Julie Taymore, Jodie Foster, Niki Caro, Catherine Hardwicke. Not all great (nor very prolific on the American side), but certainly not boring.
I’d say Women directing = NOT OFTEN ENOUGH is a more accurate equation.
Bleh; “Women don’t direct enough” is one of those half-assed feel-good, “we should do something about this (but never will)” platitudes that make for a nice bullshit EW column to pad out a slow “news” week. It goes hand in hand with complaining that there aren’t enough “good roles for women!” or “movies that women want to see.”
Never mind that even when those movies DO get made, they usually have no intensity, no visual style, no true filmmaking energy. Or that even the “female audiences” in question usually don’t give a shit.
You make good points, but it remains true that women don’t direct enough.
I not only second bmcintire but I go furtherL LexG you’re a fool. What about Jane Campion, Andrea Arnold, Mary Harron, Mira Nair, Beeban Kidron, Gurinder Chadha, Lynne Ramsay, Catherine Breillat, Margarethe von Trotta, Deepa Mehta, Marzieh Meshkini, Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Samira Makhmalba or Nicole Holofcener? Not to mention Dorothy Arzner, Ida Lupino, Agnes Varda… and Leni Riefenstahl!!! And don’t say you have neither heard nor seen any of their films. If that is the case, you should get out and sample the true diversity of cinema.
Eh, got anyone whose movies aren’t incredibly fucking boring? Was that a list of filmmakers or subliminal advertising for douche?
Nicole Holofcener? Oooh, look at those stunning compositions and kinetic shooting techniques in FRIENDS WITH MONEY. Oh, I mean when it’s not four old women standing around a clothing store with Jennifer Aniston wears a stupid fishing hat.
Why not throw in Lisa Cholodenko while you’re at it? She seems like a fucking personality DYNAMO on the LAUREL CANYON extras. It’s a visual medium. Some of these women have a certain reserved lyricism, and I’ll concede they can craft a sensitive dramatic scene, but they’re mostly writers’ and actors’ directors. Not born and bred, flesh-and-blood filmmaking lunatics like Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, Spielberg, the Scott brothers, Michael Mann, etc. With some exceptions, their movies don’t really teem with a kinetic energy where all the elements of filmmaking intertwine. Most of them shoot in static shots in a boring 1.85:1 frame.
Mary Harron’s AMERICAN PSYCHO is fairly awesome, but even there the evidence of a not really strong visceral fillmaker shows through: A certain cold, clinical “style,” but the on-the-cheap Canadian-ness and staginess shows a less intuitive attention to verisimilitude than you’d get from a Fincher or a Spike Lee.
No one should even mention Niki Caro after the cartoon laughapalooza NORTH COUNTRY– really, why didn’t Charlize just go get another job?
Mira Nair, Gurinder Chadha… boring, boring, boring. Wake me up when they direct Colin Farrell in an awesome moustache standing against a neon cityscape. Jane Campion? IN THE CUT didn’t have enough hardcore cop shit.
Female directors = THE WNBA.
I’ll concede Catherine Hardwicke, though I didn’t see NATIVITY STORY, and I can’t imagine it having the grit and style of her previous two films.
Hardwicke, Coppola, and Bigelow (formerly, at least) seem fit to play with the big boys… I at least feel like I’m watching a real movie by a real filmmaker, instead of a sour drip doing a book report.
LexG, the substance of your argument seems to be that there aren’t enough female Michael Bays making vacuous Viagrafied action movies. Calling a bunch of directors ‘boring’ is not an argument, and you seem to be pretty misogynistic.
Whatever, jeff. I hate being called misogynistic. But in this case, I’d say I’m being realistic. If you’re so put off by my talking points and seek to be the white night for female directors everywhere (surely a fun lot), lemme ask you this, as someone who peruses this blog and other entertainment sites:
Off the top of your head, without IMDB, name Michael Bay’s upcoming movie.
Okay, name Ridley Scott’s upcoming movie, and who stars in it. Bonus points, name the release month.
Name the screenwriter of Steven Spielberg’s next project.
Quote to me the opening weekend box-office tally for Spider-Man 3.
Name the DP of David Fincher’s ZODIAC.
All done? Okay, since you seem to be an eagle-eyed Hollywood watcher, I’d put good money down that you scored a perfect 100% so far, because you’re a man who loves movies and follows the biz and gets excited for great directors and craftsman.
Now, name the next project Lisa Cholodenko is directing. Uh, uh. No IMDB.
Stumped? Okay. An easier one: What’s next from Jane Campion? Anything? Hmm… Okay, surely you could name all the Ridley Scott movies off the top of your head. Let me see you try. Nice job– and in chronological order! Now name all of Claire Denis’ movies. Yep, go for it.
You can’t??? Why not? Didn’t you see each and every one in the theater? That’s ok. No one else did either.
Really, directing is a gruff field that attracts testosterone-laden, wild-eyed, wild-eyed maniac blowhards possessed of a singular vision. There are exceptions to every rule of course, but speaking GENERALIZATIONS, which are GENERALLY TRUE, women are less inclinded toward the visual, less inclined toward bombast. Even that recent EW article with no less of authorities than HELEN MIRREN, MERYL STREEP, and DAME JUDI DENSCH quoted each and every one of them as basically admitting directing is man’s work, or the work of lunatic control freaks.
** Note, that’s not an exact quote, but merely how I interpreted the three actresses, or whichever configuration of the three answered that question about why they don’t feel a need to direct. Surely they didn’t say “man’s work,” as that was my leap. Sorry.
You still have no argument, and you misspelled Dench.
LexG – Wow. You went from 0 to douchebag in almost nothing flat. Consider this: You are championing a handful of male directors in the pantheon of thousands, MOST of which churn out the same syrupy, shitty dreck you are accusing the women of. What’s up next for Daniel Sackheim? Stephen Herek? Andrew Davis? John Pasquin? Another consideration: The must-have-dick mentality is what keeps the lid on women not only getting to helm films, but it’s quite the deterrent to even strike up an interest in going for something as rudimentary (and potentially worthless) as film school. You went, didn’t you? How many chicks were in your class? Much the same deterrent a the must-have-white-dick mentality that prevailed until the 80’s. And this is coming from a guy. A white guy.
I had to leave (speaking of crazy bombastic male directors, I finally saw Black Book) so I couldn’t more fully respond to LexG, so here:
It sounds like your definition of ‘quality cinema’ can be boiled down to movies with lots of explosions in them that gross a lot on opening weekend. If that’s the end-all and be-all to you, then I concede the point: few women are going to have the expertise, much less the interest, to make Bad Boys 3 or Ghost Rider 2. If your view of cinema can be expanded beyond the teen boy demographic though, then you can see that there’s quite a bit of talent out there in both genders. I’ll take any random Claire Denis movie over any given Tony Scott movie any day of the week – especially when talking about ‘the work of great directors and craftsman [sic]’.
Also, of your five trivia questions: I know the answer to one of them (Transformers), I could take good guesses for two more. But I also know that Olympia is the progenitor of a huge number of modern TV commercials, that Barbara Kopple got shot at while making Harlan County USA, and that The Hitch-Hiker is a damn good film noir.
So basically by now we’ve all established that LexG is a sexist arsehole, right? If every male director who had “no intensity, no visual style, no true filmmaking energy” was vanquished from the world then there would be a helluva black hole left in the industry.
You really got one of the most pathetics arguments going around this blog Lex. THey don’t make movies you like (and what’s the bet you view them as “movies made by women” and not just “movies” like you would of movies made my men) so they have no worth at all.
Should a woman director be held to a different standard? It’s like how what happened to Sofia Coppola last year. If man had directed an action movie set during 17th century France there wouldn’t be a fuss, but Sofia made the movie she wanted and she got ripped to shreds. I still can’t believe that genuine professional critics were lambasting her for putting in “too much pink”!
As for the Canadian film system, it sounds awfully similar to Australia’s filmmaking system where most films are funded by various government funding bodies. It is the governments responsibility to support the arts as a means of advertising their nation’s product, not just to international audiences, but also to themselves. Barely any of Australia’s movies seem to have success overseas (not even the great stuff like Jindabyne) but my country’s government needs to spend money so that Australians themselves can continue to see themselves of screens in all forms of films. Not just cookie-cutter dumb comedies. The amount of great Aussie movies that wouldn’t have graced our screens without the system is scary. Whether they were financial successes or not really doesn’t matter.
No, Kamikaze, I think rather it’s just been established that I’m fucking AWESOME, and that most others are too P.C. to acknowledge an admitted generalization that’s nonetheless true a MAJORITY of the time. I’m sure there’s two or three women out there who can throw a spiral like a MOTHERFUCKER, but the statistics support that men are more likely to be professional football quarterbacks.
Show me a woman who wants to do police ride-alongs, or delve into the deepest jungles or rainforests, or wrangle thousands of extras through some giant battle sequence, or even something so technical as experiment with film stock and grain… and I’ll show you a woman who probably isn’t that attractive. ZING!
See? That’s a great fucking line. No wonder D-to-the-PIZZO has quoted me multiple times and based whole entries on my genius. Jeffcmn, or whatever his name is, wishes his lame arguments could summon that kind of attention. I’m a fucking genius. Jeff is the kind of guy who lists his profession as DIRECTOR or FILMMAKER on forms, despite never having (and never going to, EVER) direct shit, outside of maybe an internet thread. Whoo-hoo! Have fun typing your SCREENPLAY (wackoff emoticon) in a public place like Starbucks so everyone can see what a FILMMAKER you are, jeffmcnwhatever. You’re not a filmmaker, I’m not a filmmaker, and we’re NEEEEEEVER going to be. So drive back to your little Podunk (if you’re not still there) and bag my groceries, douche.
And Kamikaze, aren’t you the no-intensity, squeamish rod who was so put off by all the machismo in THE DEPARTED? And said something like, “Give me flair! Give me costumes!” or something? Yeah, that makes you an expert who has filmmaking panache. And Jindabyne is the stupidest fucking word in the history of the world. JINDA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOYINE. Nice accent, Australia. Have fun building that rabbit-proof fence and pretending to be Americans.
GET SOME!
All hail the genius of LEXG. And admit that you don’t get irony, comedy, or absurdism. Corn dog hammock brown. Why would I say that? I don’t know, but you SQUARE-ASS NON-REPPERTON poseurs who TALK TOO LOUD SO EVERYTHING THINKS YOU’RE IN THE BIZ WHEN YOU’RE ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT tools wouldn’t think of it, because you’re too boring, humorless and NOT AWESOME.
TONY SCOTT rules CLAIRE DENIS’ pretentious ass. Every single time MAN OF FIRE is on cable, or TOP GUN, you KNOW you sit down and watch it grinning like a motherfucker. If you don’t, then you’re probably a colossal fucking douchebag who isn’t awesome in any way.
Anyone wanna tell me about SARAH POLLEY’S awesome compositions? Her use of the widescreen frame? Her use of a sound mix to create a Lynchian undercurrent of doom? Her variant film stocks? Wait, what? You mean she doesn’t do any of that shit? It’s all static and fucking boring? Color me SHOCKED.
Hey, jeffcmamcmamancncn (even your username is a FUCKING BORE), try posting something legitimately clever. ARE YOU DOWN WITH THE SICKNESS? See, that’s a funny reference. Do you ever perform standup? You probably can’t. You’re too dull.
And though it’s tiresome and literal and beneath me to have to justify any of my filmic points of view, because really, WHO GIVES A FUCK, for the record my favorite directors are Leone, Lynch, Scorsese, Eastwood, Mann, both Scotts, Altman, Coppola, Allen…. I could go on. But the point is, it’s not squarely VIAGRA ACTION PORN or whatever jeffcam’s NON-FILMMAKING EVER LOSER ALL-TALK cluelessness said, but still: Not a female director in sight now or ever who could approach any of their filmmaking skillz. Sofia Coppola is GREAT, and MARIE ANTOINETTE was one of last year’s best (to me), and she’s the only one even CLOSE MUCH respect to her. She’s a true filmmaker. It might be true that there’s journeyman male directors aplenty, but there’s still HUNDREDS of notable male auteurs. And a FEW women. Is it really because Hollywood is such an evil, evil place that crushes the hopes and dreams of these poor, exploring artists? Or is it maybe because so many of them direct films with the same panache with which David Poland enters a room where there’s no one famous to suck up to? Cheap shot! D-PO in the house!
LexG, I suppose in many ways it boils down to what you think cinema actually is. The way you are citing it, it appears that you think cinema is technique; framing, film stocks and lenses. A certain type of cinema is about that… but there is another kind of cinema and that one is more interested in presenting the human experience.
No amount of flashy framing or film stocks will get you any closer to understanding or communicating what is means to be human.
John Ford once said that the most interesting thing to put before a camera is the human face. He also said that Kurosawa a great filmmaker because he understood how capricious life is and could put it into the hearts of his characters.
And I say that Kurosawa was not compared to Shakespeare because of his use of the long lens and slow-motion.
Sarah Polley’s film Away From Her doesn’t need the magician’s hat; it has the human face to conjur its spell.
I was wondering what so many people could have to say about DP’s interview with SP….then I saw Nicol and jeff were at it and LexG spouted some silliness and we’re back to the in-fighting! Yay!!
I’m sorry that I wasted LexG’s time attempting to have a serious conversation with him. Apologies, Lex, you obviously have more important things to do, like being awesome.
Everyone has more important things to do than you Jeff.
Get back to your lavatory it needs cleaning.
Hi Don, how are things?
Waiddaminute. Don and Lex are two different people???
“Nicol, I don’t like OR dislike you, so please believe that I am not being “knee-jerk” when I say it is seriously strange to think it especially “arrogant” that a director would want people to pay to see her ‘art,’ as you call it for some reason.”
Quiggles,
Read my posts again…I do not think it is arrogant for a director to believe that someone should pay ‘to see’ their art. It is the heighth of arrogance for a director to believe people should have to directly finance it.
Polley went so far as to speak before the Canadian House of Commons a couple years back to say that Canadians should have quotas put upon them as to how many and what American/foreign films Canadians should be allowed to view and be forced by quota to watch Canadian films.
Make of that what you will.
BMCINTIRE,
The socialist Canadian system does not allow for the elimination of private financing.
The system works to directly offer incentives, finances and tax breaks to films made through the system which are vetted for content and subject matter. Can someone make a film independantly?
Sure.
But you will have no financial incentives or support, not have access to screens and not be seen as legitimate. You will also have to pay taxes at a rate that are so high as to ruin any incentive for you to produce outside the system. that’s how socialism works.
You will not have access to the unions. You will not have access to the actors who might get your film seen or the top tier of crew.
That’s how the culture works.
Kind of like how in America getting an NC-17 does not mean you cannot make a film but for all intents and purposes it is the financial kiss of death.
That’s how the Canadian system works. You can work outside of it…but it is the road to financial ruin and the kiss of death for your production.
Imagine if the American film industry consisted entirly of the films of Harmony Korine, Todd Solondz and Todd Haynes.
That’s the English Canadian film industry.
Imagine if the American film industry consisted of Korine, Solondz, and Haynes…and there was also a country next-door employing thousands of Canadians on a regular basis on a wide variety of films – so wide that it threatened to eclipse the American film industry.
I know I will be so sorry for trying to answer a smart ass seriously.
Well LexG you might convince me of most of your points if you didn’t use Tony Scott as a reference point. Tony Scott?! Oh I had the best laugh of the day.
If we are speaking purely from a filmmaker point of reference, I’d say CLaire Denis’ pretentious ass rules TOny Scott’s testosterone-commercial ass for style and story and getting awards/noms worldwide. In fact Agniezska Holland owns his ass too and so does Lina Wertm
i forgot to mention Love & Basketball…loved that movie, and it’s directed by a woman.
“An easier one: What’s next from Jane Campion? Anything? Hmm…”
Bright Star – a biopic about John Keats’ star-crossed affair with an upper class woman.