Before microdosing became the trend in Silicon Valley, some people used to just watch my film. The National Library and Archives has the last remaining 35mm print – and they won’t loan it out. But they made a digitized copy and we’ll be screening it for the first time tomorrow night.
When I set out to write and direct my first feature film, I knew I had to do something decidedly different or else it wouldn’t get done. Nor would it be remembered. I had written a couple of scripts about American characters in big budget scenarios, but that was a pipe dream. I couldn’t compete with my American neighbour. I had to get real; I had to embrace my roots; I had to get back to Canadiana.
The research began. In a collection of articles and excerpts from Take One I found a 1973 essay by Robert Fothergill which proved to be pivotal in crafting my story and leading me toward my goal. Coward, Bully or Clown: the Dream-life of a Younger Brother was a checklist about the radical inadequacy of the male protagonist in English Canadian film.
Jackpot! Eureka! I felt like I’d found the winning ticket for the lottery of losers.
I immediately set out to subvert and exaggerate this historical collective debility in the imagination of Canadian filmmakers – English ones, to be precise. (The Quebec filmmakers had their own crosses to bear.)
“Where are the monstrous depictions of smothering Moms?” Fothergill asked. (This kept me writing for weeks.) Castrating bitches? (Hmmm, definitely include one of those…) Faithless tramps? (I was off and running.) I lined up my bevy of fascinating females to counter the cowards, bullies and clowns choking beneath the phallic smokestacks of my factory town setting.
Years later, I booked the sound mixing theatre at Film House in Toronto – circa 1991 – to submit my film, The Grocer’s Wife, for the Toronto Festival of Festivals (now known as TIFF). It was finished but unassembled. I had plans to blow it up from 16mm to 35mm and I had not yet raised the money to get it to that stage. The judges would be watching it in 16mm, in ten minute segments – which is the maximum length for a reel of 35mm film. Between every reel there would be an intermission to reload the projector. I wasn’t sure how this was all going to play out. It was as much of a calculated risk as making the movie.
The judges arrived: Piers Handling, Cameron Bailey, and John Sharkey. After introductions and pleasantries, they took their seats, the lights went down and the experiment was under way. Plumes of smoke filled the screen; the giant smelter roared like a beast; and strange characters were upon us. (I can guarantee that they had never seen anything like this before.)
When the lights came up for the first reel change, they looked over at me quizzically. “Where is this place?” they asked. “It’s Trail, in British Columbia,” I answered. “The self-proclaimed ‘Home of Champions’.” They chuckled, “Really?” The lights went down and the next reel flickered to life.
Next break, a few more questions. “Who is this actor? Is he a Canadian?” “That’s Simon Webb. I believe he’s from England, but he lives in Vancouver.” “And where do you live?” they asked. “I live in Montreal. I’m doing my master of fine arts at Concordia.” They exchange hushed comments. The lights dim. (I think it’s going pretty well so far.)
Next break, a bit more confusion. “So, is this a Quebec film?” “Well, I shot it in B.C., and I’ve been editing it in Montreal.” I reply. “But I’ve probably spent the most money in Toronto. Sound mixing and opticals. It’s been expensive.” They nod knowingly and seem content to settle in and see where this smoky dream will take them next.
During the last reel change, they huddle, then ask, “Could we call this an Ontario film then?” I get my first sense of the national film politics at play. I’m cautious, but honest. “I don’t think that would be wholly accurate. I’d call it an all-Canadian film.” They nod in unison.
As I headed home later, I felt that the story and characters had resonated with them, despite the interruptions. I believed they’d fallen under its trance-like spell. After all, they had screened thousands of English Canadian films over the years. Perhaps they didn’t consciously realize that such a consistent diet of Canadian films would leave them with a pre-condition to accept it like a recurring dream.
Weeks later, they informed me that the film would have its world-premiere at their upcoming fest. The experiment was a success. John Sharkey wrote in the festival guide: It’s been a long time since such an odd, almost dangerous film arrived on the Festival’s doorstep. Cameron Bailey wrote: The Grocer’s Wife is what science might call a singularity – odd, fascinating and theoretically unrepeatable.
It’s funny how things work out. I had wanted to shape a cinematic dream into a distinctively Canadian reflection of life by embracing Fothergill’s thesis. It’s a dream I’ve never woken up from. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re curious, you can see it – with no interruptions – on April 3rd at 7PM at the Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver. Get advance tix here:
I first drove into the city of Trail, British Columbia, in 1986. The huge smelter was roaring; the air was swirling with smoke: and the radio news was in Italian. I had lived in British Columbia all my life but I’d never experienced anything like this: I felt lost, frightened and small. I was a stranger here.
The smelter in Trail sits atop a hill overlooking the town. It reminded me of the Acropolis of Athens, but re-imagined as a post-industrial nightmare. Being curious, I signed up for a tour through the factory, venturing down into the bowels of the operation where hot molten steel was processed and poured. The guide spoke about the environmental damage to the surrounding area, the “heavy water” plant that contributed to the making of atomic bombs, and the fact that Trail was on Hitler’s top ten ‘hit list’ of North American cities.
I happened upon this notorious little town by accident. I was taking a different route back to Vancouver, returning from a film shoot in the mountain town of Nelson where I’d been a director-observer on Scottish director Bill Forsyth‘s film Housekeeping. I was enrolled in the Masters Film Production program at the University of British Columbia and I had a goal to make a feature film for my thesis. Driving through the streets of Trail, I knew I had found the setting.
I returned with my actors and crew in the summer of 1989. We shot black and white 16mm film and re-photographed every finished frame to 35mm. The result is rich and grainy, like looking at the world through densely-particled air. The Grocer’s Wife went on to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1991 where it was recognized with a special jury citation for Best Canadian Film. In 1992, it was selected to open the International Critic’s Week at Cannes.
At a Q+A following a matinee screening at Cannes, a young French cinephile (who couldn’t have been older than 15) asked me ‘to explain the architectural intention of my compositions.’ I had done extensive research on this topic, but it wasn’t something I thought would translate in my film. I recounted my first impressions of Trail and how the smelter was built at a site that would have have historically been used for sacred religious architecture, like the Acropolis or Le Corbusier’s chapel at Ronchamp, France.
Religious architecture, in the Canadian context, diminished in scope and scale as the country expanded to the west. In Montreal, you see grand church steeples, domes and basilicas throughout the city. In Vancouver, the historic churches are few and tiny in comparison.
Western Canada was settled by the construction of the national railroad and the pervasive spread of industrial mechanization. Factories replaced churches as the center of towns; shift whistles replaced church bells; smokestacks replaced steeples. The absence of religious architectural landmarks and the re-organization of communities around machines changed the dominant values of society and created new psychological distortions: alienation, isolation and normlessness.
I could never truly capture my first impression of discovering Trail, but it had such an impact that I had to try. The Pacific Cinematheque will be screening a DCP of the 35mm print, courtesy of the National Library and Archives, as part of their History of Film in British Columbia program on April 3rd. Screening time and info.
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