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Buster Keaton rides the rails in Canada

Friday 11 December 2009

In September of 1964, Hollywood icon Buster Keaton arrived at Canada’s East Coast to start filming a 25-minute travelogue for the National Film Board. Produced with the full co-operation of the Canadian National Railroad, the film would see him travel from coast to coast on a railway-track speeder.

Keaton was a star of Hollywood’s silent era, directing and starring in dozens of short comedy films from 1917 onwards. He later moved to features, which were huge box office hits. These included his masterpiece The General where he got to “play” with real life locomotives. All of Keaton’s films featured the actor performing incredibly complicated stunts, which were as astounding as they were hilarious. Following the advent of sound, his career took a turn for the worse, and he found himself starring in a string of mediocre films in which he had very little creative control.

When television appeared in the 1950s, Keaton’s films were rediscovered by a new generation, and suddenly his career was back on track. In 1964, director Gerald Potterton was going to work at the NFB in Montreal when he saw a railway track speeder on the railroad tracks. He immediately thought of Keaton’s The General and wasted no time in contacting Keaton, who agreed to star in the NFB film simply because it was about his hobby, railroads, and he would get to ride the rails in Canada.

Shooting began on the 5th of September near Halifax, where Keaton was filmed coming out of the ocean onto dry land. This gag, while very funny, was tough on him, as the water was freezing cold. Potterton shot the film chronologically traveling from East to West. Most of the gags were improvised along the way with Keaton. The film was conceived as a colour travelogue short destined for the cinema screens of Canada and the world. Filming was done on 35 mm, but without sound. It was decided to shoot in the style of a silent film of old, complete with music and sound effects, but no dialogue. Potterton later said that the noise of the speeder and other trains would have made location dialogue shooting next to impossible. Interestingly, Potterton, who had mostly made animated films up to that time, wanted to shoot Keaton in live action and add him to an all-animated film. Thankfully this idea was dropped in favour of an all live-action film.

Shooting the film in Canada was extra special for Keaton, as he hadn’t visited the country in 48 years – since the time when he toured with his family’s vaudeville act prior to moving to Hollywood.

Accompanying Keaton on his Canadian assignment was his third wife Eleanor, who watched over him day and night. Keaton turned 69 during the production, but insisted on doing his own stunts. He would often work these out with Potterton the night before. They would be inspired by whatever the men happened to see along the way. The sequence with Keaton opening the impossibly large map while crossing over a railway trestle caused concern to all. Keaton insisted on doing this stunt himself much to the chagrin of Potterton and the crew. The pair and the film crew travelled throughout the country in a special railway car complete with chef and steward.

A second film crew followed Keaton and made the one-hour documentary Buster Keaton Rides Again, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film. This documentary would be shown on Canadian television while The Railrodder was shown on the nation’s screens.

The filming took six weeks in all. The crew had to endure scheduled trains passing on the main line, which slowed down filming considerably, and cold temperatures. Keaton took it all in stride and would retire at the end of the day to watch the World Series on television in his railway car. The sequence that opens the film was shot in London with a stunt double. Keaton was later matted in.

Press coverage during the shoot was comprehensive. From coast to coast, newspapers sang the praises of Keaton. Some towns honoured him and his wife with film screenings and dinners throughout his journey in Canada.

The film was released theatrically by Columbia pictures in October 1965, playing with Gilles Carle’s La vie heureuse de Léopold Z in Quebec. In English Canada it would play with a variety of Hollywood films. Reviews, unfortunately were mixed. Most reviewers thought the film too simplistic and not very funny. They felt it should have sacrificed the scenery for more Keaton.

The film was also distributed theatrically in the USA and throughout Europe, including the UK, Portugal, France, Belgium, Finland, Sweden and the USSR. Since there was no dialogue, it was very easy to sell in other language markets. It would also play on television around the world, notably in Italy, Argentina, Poland, Yugoslavia, Germany and South Africa. It enjoyed a second life on television in Canada and later on home video. Sadly Keaton would only work on a couple more films before passing away in February of 1966, just when The Railrodder was gracing the nation’s screens.

I never fail to smile when I see this film. Keaton is as spry as he was in his heyday. Some of the gags are hilarious. I especially enjoy Keaton stopping in the middle of the Prairies to enjoy his afternoon tea while a pack of bison looks on. The Railrodder remains the work of a comic genius, who could wring a laugh out of any prop on hand. As much as I admire Potterton for making it, the film is Keaton’s and will always remain his. May he forever ride the great railroad in the sky.

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From documentary to fiction: The story behind the NFB’s first feature film

Friday 27 November 2009

In the late 1950s, the NFB sent writer Charles Cohen out to Saskatchewan to investigate the possibility of making a film on farming and irrigation. After a great metamorphosis, this film would eventually become the NFB’s first ever fiction feature film. This is the story of how it came about.

Cohen had prepared a project of three half-hour documentaries on irrigation to be made for television. The NFB submitted this to the CBC, who refused it outright. The NFB felt that the idea was well worth a film and instead proposed a single one-hour documentary. Once again, the CBC refused.

Donald Haldane was brought in to direct, and he suggested making this a fiction film to tell the story. While the NFB had produced many short films for theatrical distribution over the years, it had never produced features. It was felt that this was too important a project to abandon so it was decided that the story would be shot as a short feature film to play in the nation’s cinemas.

Cohen was asked to re-write the screenplay. He decided to go with a more personal story, concentrating on the trials and tribulations of the Greer family, who had gone out west from Montreal to try their luck at farming. It is essentially the story of farming pioneers in a land that can be bountiful but also cruel.

Haldane got permission to shoot the film in widescreen 35mm but in black and white to keep the costs down. SuperScope, a less expensive alternative to the then popular CinemaScope, was chosen. This caused cameraman Reginald H. Morris csc some trouble as it was the first time it had been used at the NFB.

Regardless of the technical problems, production began in the summer of 1961 with shooting in and around Swift Current, Saskatchewan. Several stage actors from Toronto were brought in to take on the principal roles. These included Frances Hyland, who was known from the stage but had done some television work at that time, and James Douglas. Locals were signed up to play some of the smaller supporting roles. The filming on the prairies took several weeks before production wrapped.

The important blizzard scene was shot in winter of 1962 at the NFB studio in Montreal. Some dubbing had to be done to correct the sound problems caused by the omnipresent prairie wind during the location shooting. The production budget swelled to about $218,000, which was about twice what was originally allocated.

Eventually, Columbia pictures agreed to distribute the film. It was decided to premiere the film in Swift Current and release it throughout the Prairies a couple of towns at a time. The premiere, on September 25th, 1963, was a huge success as were the showings throughout the Prairies. Some theatres reported ten times more people attending this film than usual. The film was also released in B.C. and in the east, eventually playing in more than 500 cinemas nationwide. Critics lauded the film for its realistic portrayal of pioneer life and the beautiful cinematography as well as the solid acting. Variety called it “A good clean simple film made with professional care.” It was obvious that the film touched a nerve with audiences, who appreciated seeing a Canadian story for a change.

The French dubbed version, Un autre pays, premiered in Quebec City on November 20th, to great acclaim, and played throughout Quebec. Eventually the film was released in the United Kingdom and in the United States. Columbia also released it theatrically in Central and South America. It would play on television in Switzerland, Yugoslavia, China and Malaysia among other countries.

Running a short 70 minutes, the film was offered as part of a double feature or accompanied by the NFB’s haunting 38-minute film on the war dead of the two World Wars, Fields of Sacrifice. Either way, it played throughout 1963 and 1964 on the nation’s screens before making its way to the non-theatrical circuit, where it continued to play in schools and community centres on 16 mm. It later enjoyed a second career on television and home video.

Today, the film still offers a gripping perspective on pioneer life, told in a sensitive way with beautiful cinematography and great acting. Frances Hyland stands out as the woman who reluctantly accompanies her husband out west but eventually comes to love the Prairies. The NFB gambled in making this first feature film, as it could have bombed with audiences. The success of Drylanders led to a whole slew of modest features being produced at the NFB in French and English throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

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Do We Need Public Cultural Organizations?

Wednesday 18 November 2009

The following is the text of a public address given by government film commissioner Tom Perlmutter to the RIDM conference in Montreal on November 17, 2009

It may seem self-serving at worst and naïve at best for the head of a public cultural agency to pose the question of today’s debate. It is neither. It stems from my ongoing attempts to understand on what basis I can act. What are the valid arguments which both justify the continued existence of a National Film Board and which would guide its direction? When I have looked for guidance in the cultural sector I found none. What I saw was a sector that had, to all extents and purposes, abandoned debate and reflection in favour of a circling of the wagons. Their case for culture tended to be reactive and nearly always about the defence of funding of cultural activities.

Perhaps not a surprise in a sector that always has a sense of being under attack or underappreciated (regardless of the government) and with more than a little touchiness about its value: we have, it seems, a necessity to prove that we belong in the real world of grown-ups doing the real work of making money. In the process we have abdicated any serious discourse about the nature of culture and the public space. We’ve accepted the terms of reference of the so-called “real” world without ever challenging them. The defensive posture, the argument of the economic benefits of cultural activity, may be necessary as a tactical move, but if that is all there is, if it displaces the more fundamental questioning of the premises on which we build a foundation for the public realm and within it cultural activity than we have done ourselves grievous harm.

Not the least of the harm is in the narrowing of our spheres of thought. We do not pose questions that may render us uncomfortable because that kind of questioning is seen as undermining our case for the financial support of culture. For example, we repeatedly argue that culture is important because that is how we understand ourselves as a country. To me this is a cliché, one of those motherhood ideas that need to be rigorously questioned. How does it actually do so? What mechanisms are at work that distinguishes the impact of a Canadian work on our audiences from non-Canadian particularly when we note how overwhelming other cultural influences are? And so on. Yet, it is exactly that kind of questioning that is deemed taboo within the cultural sector because it would be seen to be granting aid and comfort to our perceived enemies.

Instead of debate, we take positions and we do so as collectivities. We tend to assert on behalf of a particular group representing artists, directors, producers, and so on. Again, an approach that may be useful tactically but, if that is all there is, it stifles the ability to think in a free and probing way. Innumerable times, I have had people say to me, “I can say this to you privately, but I couldn’t say it publicly.” That’s the nub of the problem. In a subsidized world with limited means of funding you don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you. You keep quiet. Self censorship is rampant in our industry.

The debate around these kinds of issues is not new. Culture, national identity and the role of the artist were hot points in a debate that roiled mid to late 18th century Europe. A vigorous correspondence criss-crossed Europe and involved such luminaries as Kant, Herder, Hume, Boyle and Goethe. Artists, scientists, writers, philosophers. What is striking is the breadth and depth of the exchanges. What is distinctive about our age is how culture has become impoverished. It is no longer part of a broad intellectual current. It is limited to what we find in the culture pages of the newspaper and whom we privilege as artists.

This is not an attack on artists; it is an attack of how we have debased the issues of cultural engagement. If, as a sector, we have come under attack it is partly because of that narrowing in which we have willingly collaborated not least for self-interest. We have made an implicit Faustian contract. We have limited the scope of who participates (artists however we wish to define them) and in what they participate. In return we seek financial support. It is why all the discourse around support for the arts inevitably comes to a question of money. And everything else we say about the importance of culture is little more than window dressing repeating a series of unquestioned and banal clichés. It is our trahison des clercs.

If I cited the comparison with the 18th century it is also for two other reasons. It was in those extensive cross-fertilizing exchanges that the modern notion of the public realm was born, that which is so under attack and eroded today. Secondly, it was a period of rapid social and technological change brought about by the relentless momentum of the industrial revolution.

We are going through a not dissimilar moment now. The digital revolution is as profound as the industrial one and the shifting social terrain is as radical.

That is why it is urgent to rethink the world and in particular the nature of the public realm and the role of culture within it. This is a long term project; and we are not used to acting for the long term. But I think it essential. I think it essential to set our horizons in years and decades and not simply today and tomorrow. It’s time to start now. I hope this moment can be one small start. I would like to thank Marie Anne Raulet, Philippe Baylaucq and RIDM for joining me in the launching of this adventure. And I would like to thank our panellists who have accepted to join the fray—a process whose outcome we cannot define.

What do you think? Do We Need Public Cultural Organizations?

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When Cousteau Came to Canada

Friday 23 October 2009

In the spring of 1980, legendary oceanographer Jacques Cousteau met with Canadian Government officials to discuss making a documentary on the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. The National Film Board was brought in early to these discussions. Producer Jacques Bobet met with Captain Cousteau in April to discuss the production and complicated logistics of making such a film. The NFB and the Cousteau Society quickly agreed to co-produce two 90-minute films for television, to be shot on 16 mm.

Cousteau would co-produce with Bobet and lead the expedition. Jacques Gagné of the NFB was brought on board to direct the films. Noted NFB documentary filmmaker Michel Brault was originally approached to direct, but he refused, saying that he didn’t feel he would have enough control over the final product.

Cousteau was no stranger to film and television: His films The Silent World (1956) and World Without Sun (1964) had both won Oscars® for best documentary. Cousteau followed this with several National Geographic specials as well as a long running television series, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau (1966 to 1976), which was hugely popular in the United States. As a result of these, he became world famous in marine life studies.

The famed ship Calypso arrived in Canada in June. Gagné and his crew (including cameraman Guy Dufaux) went aboard and proceeded to film over 100 hours of material over the next few months from Labrador all the way to Duluth, Minnesota, via the Great Lakes.

Cousteau was very interested in the effects of pollution on the fragile ecosystems of these great bodies of water. He was also very concerned with the precarious situation of whales in the St. Lawrence.

While Gagné was technically the director of the films, these were to be Jacques Cousteau films. The Captain was clearly the star. This led to many disagreements about what to film, with Cousteau usually getting his way. Bobet later declared that it was not an easy collaboration but that the chance to work with Cousteau and make two “prestige” films outweighed any trepidation he might have had.

Eventually some shooting was done in the winter to complement what had already been filmed. The budget reached over one million dollars per film, considerably more than what was originally planned. However, the films would pay for themselves in the long run with television sales around the world.

Once the shooting was completed, three editors were brought in to make sense of all the footage. Theodore Strauss was signed by the Cousteau Society to write the narration for both films, as well as to narrate the English versions (Georges Wilson narrated the French versions). The CBC and Radio-Canada were brought in as co-producers when they agreed to broadcast the films. Interestingly, the CTV television network had originally bid to broadcast the films in Canada but was outbid by the CBC.

TF1 a French broadcaster and Bavaria Atelier of Germany also contributed financing in exchange for TV rights in their respective countries. The Cousteau Society had all rights in the USA for these films as well as in most of the Francophone countries throughout Europe and Africa. The NFB retained rights for the rest of the world, with a few minor exceptions.

Editing on Les pièges de la mer (Cries from the Deep) was finished first, so it was decided to release the film theatrically in French in an abbreviated, 80-minute version throughout Quebec. The film premiered in Montreal on July 9th, 1982, and played for over three months. Reviews were mostly favourable. The Cousteau name, and the fact that the film was shot partly in Quebec, guaranteed reasonable box-office.

In October both English versions premiered on the full CBC network: Cries from the Deep on October 6th and St. Lawrence: Stairway to the Sea exactly a week later. The films drew audiences of 1.8 million and 1.7 million viewers respectively. Reviews were mixed, especially for Cries from the Deep, which reviewers found long and tiresome. The full 96-minute version was broadcast as opposed to the 80-minute version that played theatrically. Showing the shorter version might have helped.

Despite this, all the reviewers were impressed with the final sequence where the crew of the Calypso help free a whale entrapped in a fishing net. The music in both films is spectacular and kudos must go to François Cousineau and John Scott for composing such rousing scores.

One month later, on November 7th, Les pièges de la mer premiered on Radio-Canada television (in its full 96-minute version) with Du grand large aux Grands Lacs, playing on the 14th. Despite having already played theatrically so recently, Les pièges de la mer attracted a very respectable 877,000 viewers on television.

The films have their flaws, especially Cries from the Deep, which takes too long to get going, but they remain an exciting look at Canada’s most important bodies of water, as seen by the leading oceanographer of the time. The images captured in these films are spectacularly beautiful, and the message of how pollution is destroying these fragile ecosystems remains as pertinent today as it was in the early 1980s.

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Propaganda Cinema at the NFB – The World in Action

Wednesday 30 September 2009

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A few months back I wrote about the Canada Carries On series of propaganda films that were shot specifically for theatrical distribution in Canada during the early days of World War II. (You can read about this series here.)

These films were so successful that it was decided to produce a new series that would complement them by covering the war from a broader international point of view. This was The World in Action.  John Grierson, the NFB’s film commissioner as well as the head of the Wartime Information Board, envisaged a series for domestic and international audiences that would present the global strategy of the war. Patterned after the very popular American March of Time newsreels, The World in Action would have a Canadian view of things but would deal with international themes.

Grierson had obtained official access to all British and American film material as well as enemy footage intercepted by the Navy. Ottawa became the allied war repository for film material for the duration of the war.

With access to all this great material, one key thing remained to be done: find a distributor in the important American market. In early 1942, Grierson went to Hollywood and met with Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford of United Artists (UA). He convinced them of the importance of distributing these films. UA agreed, and a deal was made to distribute the first twelve issues throughout Canada, the USA and Great Britain. Stuart Legg was brought over from Canada Carries On to produce the new series. Lorne Greene narrated the films in his own inimitable style.

The very first issue, Inside Fighting Russia (a.k.a. Our Russian Ally), ran into trouble immediately. UA would not distribute it in the United States as they considered it to be communist propaganda. The film is a look at the Soviet Union’s fight against the Nazis. While well-intentioned, the film lays it on a bit thick as to the strength and power of the Soviet people. The view presented of the communist system is naively oversimplified. While the USA and Soviets were fighting a common enemy, America’s mistrust of communism could not be dispelled so easily.

After this unfortunate start, the films started appearing in theatres about once a month. They would screen in 6,000 cinemas stateside and 1,000 in Great Britain, being seen by 3 million people in the USA alone. In Canada 23 copies in English would be released to theatres with a further two copies going out in French. These would circulate for about six months throughout the country.

Controversy dogged this series from beginning to end. The January 1945 issue Balkan Powder Keg was released in three theatres in Canada before being pulled. The Canadian Government forced the withdrawal after complaints from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The British did not appreciate the criticism of their foreign policy in the Balkans as seen in the film. The whole thing was eventually cut down to 10 minutes and released in December 1945 after the war was over under the title Spotlight on the Balkans, basically a watered-down version of the original. Surprisingly, a shot of nude exotic dancers in Bucharest was retained in the new version. How this slipped by the censors is beyond me.

Sadly, very little of the horror of war was shown in these films. There was next to nothing about the persecution of Jews and other peoples by the Nazis. This was at the request of the government ,who wanted to avoid an influx of refugees from the conquered countries of Europe. Only at the very end of the war was the Holocaust hinted at in these films, but by then it was much too late to do anything about it.

Seven issues from the Canada Carries On series were also released as part of The World in Action, including the first Canadian Oscar®-winner Churchill’s Island as well as Warclouds in the Pacific and Corvette Port Arthur, directed by Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens.

As with Canada Carries On, some of the films were versioned into French and released in Quebec and New Brunswick as Le Monde en Action. One of these, Our Northern Neighbour, another film looking at the Soviet Union, was banned by the Quebec Censor Board as it was felt that the film was communist propaganda. Censorship was closely tied with the church in Quebec, and it was felt that communism was against everything the church stood for. The NFB tried to appeal the ban to no avail.

Once the films completed their theatrical run, they would continue in the non-theatrical market, playing as part of NFB film programs in schools, factories, church basements and service clubs. Copies were made on the more portable 16-mm film stock for these showings. Travelling projectionists, trained by the NFB, would play the films in as many small towns and rural areas as possible from coast to coast. The projectionists would supply their own 16-mm projectors and electric generators on their travels. There were about 250 travelling projectionists in 1945. This number would drop significantly once the war ended.

Unlike Canada Carries On, which continued production well after the war ended, The World in Action was stopped in 1945. Some 30 odd titles were produced in all, over a three-year period. One of the last films in the series, Now the Peace (released in May 1945), focused on the creation of the United Nations and its role in helping shape the post-war world. With the war at an end, a few more issues were produced until the series was suspended. It is highly probable that UA pulled the plug on distributing these films in the important American market and that the NFB had no choice but to end production.

The films in this series were the first Canadian films to receive extensive exposure throughout the world and more specifically in the United States. They served their purpose in educating and informing people about Canada’s view of the war. They were very well received and helped cement the NFB’s reputation as a producer of solid, professionally produced documentaries.

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