Canadian cinema: Talent right under our noses
There is a tremendous lack of awareness among Canadians that a national cinema even exists here, or what it looks like.
Tina Hassannia
It is well-accepted that Canada has an inferiority complex. This often makes us lose sight of our own significance in international cinema and film history. Here’s a rhetorical question: Is it possible to discuss 1) body horror without mentioning David Cronenberg? 2) experimental cinema without including Michael Snow? 3) queer film theory without listing the contributions of Robin Wood? 4) governmental film institutes without a case study of the National Film Board?
Of course not.
And yet, of those four notable figures, most Canadians will only definitely be familiar with the NFB, because its films are aired on television. I’d be reluctant to call even Cronenberg a household name. There is a tremendous lack of awareness among Canadians that a national cinema even exists here, or what it looks like. Our video rental stores stock our own films in the foreign film section.
The only province where this is a non-issue is Quebec, which has its own respective and rich history. Francophone-Canadians will watch Quebecois films because it’s an act of cultural preservation. Anglophone-Canadians, on the other hand, suffer from cultural cringe.
There are a few reasons why Canadians are sceptical of our own talent. Canadian films never receive ample distribution and exhibition. Canadians equate “cinema” with “Hollywood” because that is the diet force-fed to us. The Canadian government has a track record of refusing cultural protection measures that would solve this problem. Our close relationship with Hollywood has made defining a film “Canadian” difficult to do, because so many American films are shot in Canada or with Canadian production crew. We’ve also remained quite ambivalent about defining Canadian identity, to the point that our ambivalence has actually become a cultural emblem. We’re not quite sure what would make a film “Canadian” (those are indeed, scare quotes, because conversations about national identity regularly raise the hairs on the back of our spines).
As a Canadian critic with a film studies background I find it difficult to discuss cinema with many Canadians that travels outside the well-known “movie lore” of Hollywood. But the optimist in me also sees an opportunity for education. Sure, there are information gaps. That should give Canadian film critics a sense of purpose then, to inform our countrymen of exciting new foreign films – even when they’re from our own backyard.
301 Moved Permanently