Why is No One Watching Canadian Film?

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Canadian film is like a species in

constant threat of Extinction but no one

can ever seem to figure out why people

have tried for example in 1998 esteemed

Canadian film critic Gerald pratley

wrote a searing article for the film

journal kinema in which he described

Canadian film as being quote mostly

embarrassingly bad harsh I know probably

was responding to a pattern in Canadian

film where media outlets and

institutional film bodies jump through

hoops to get Canadians to go and watch

their films which they claim are some of

the best in the world only for the

public to find out that they are in fact

mostly embarrassingly bad now pratley is

pretty ruthless in his article his

reasoning is that Canadian films don't

feature enough of a distinct Canadian

identity but I actually think it's kind

of the opposite if I were to pinpoint

what some might find bad about Canadian

films is that our industry has a

tendency to Pedal a purely Canadian

identity which is mostly unappealing to

the public because well there is no pure

Canadian identity in in my opinion to

ignore our geographical sparseness and

lack of cultural cohesion as well as the

undoubtable influence that our neighbors

South of the Border have on us is to

whether we like it or not peddle a

version of Canada that simply isn't

there but I do think he's getting at

something important here something

that's still plaguing the Canadian film

industry today

every film industry has its share of

good and bad films many of the films

proudly mentioned in his article are in

my opinion actually mostly good so were

a whole number of films that came out

just last year if you were to try and

tell me that therapy dog the maiden

queens of the Qing Dynasty rice boy

sleeps or brother are mostly

embarrassingly bad you'd just be

straight up wrong each of these films is

unique and culturally specific they are

experimental with their medium and push

the limits of what filmmaking can do but

they're also emotionally resonant and

profound so if Canadian films aren't

mostly embarrassingly bad what is it

well have you seen the films I just

mentioned maybe the better question to

ask then is why is no one watching

Canadian film

um

Canada is in a pretty unique situation

because we live right next to the

massive Global superpower that is the

United States and the way our economy

and culture has evolved behind theirs

has had a major impact on how our film

industry operates today this has

happened both indirectly and directly

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in the indirect sense the US is like an

older intimidating sibling and Canada is

like a teenager going through his

Perpetual awkward phase meaning that as

a country we are constantly going

through a crisis of identity which has

trickled into the way our films look and

the way that they received from a

cultural standpoint we were established

as a Western Country later than the US

so according to Communications scholar

manjunath pandakur we didn't have as

much time to develop an industry around

storytelling while the US was

establishing its Vaudeville tradition in

the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Canada was mostly producing

government-sponsored propaganda in an

effort to boost European immigration

into the country as you'd expect

Vaudeville and musical theater were way

more appealing to people wanting to take

part in the Razzle Dazzle which meant

that Canadians like Mary Pickford Norma

Shearer and Max Senate ran to the U.S in

search of bigger dreams which they very

much achieved and then there was the

Great War the US figured out early on

that film was the ultimate propaganda

tool its propaganda films produced by a

committee established by Woodrow Wilson

peddled a distinctly American cultural

identity on both the domestic and

international fronts this American

identity became even stronger during

World War II when the U.S became a

leading hegemonic power and this was

largely thanks to Hollywood as pentakur

explains about the dynamic that this

created the American film industry has

been a Pioneer in setting the pattern

for the one-way flow of cultural

Commodities to countries around the

world the American film producer

distributor combine through their

subsidiaries and Investments have also

set the pattern in exporting the

Hollywood style film with all its

attendant ideological ramifications as

part of the structure of domination okay

inhuman speak American cultural

domination was spread by way of

Hollywood pendergru calls Canada a

cultural colony of the United States

and we can separate cultural domination

from economic domination this is where

the direct part comes in

many mistakes were made early on which

undermined the growth of Canada's film

industry we messed up big time in the

1910s the major American film studios

moved quickly and effectively to secure

a monopoly on the film Market they did

this through a process called vertical

integration which for those of us who

fell asleep in economics class meant

that American Film Production and

equipment companies would control

multiple stages of production like think

of when Netflix started producing their

own contents and everyone was like

really mad about it it's kind of like

that by the 1920s the major Hollywood

Studios produced and distributed their

own films and often owned the theaters

that those films would be exhibited in

European film Industries also came out

of the threat of Hollywood domination in

the 1920s but most governments there

moved quickly to protect their domestic

Industries they typically controlled the

ownership of exhibition and distribution

companies or stimulated national

production Canada did No Such Thing

protectionism in the Canadian film

industry more like protecting the

interests of a few Canadian capitalists

one of these Fat Cats was Raymond's Peck

the director of the the Canadian

government Motion Picture Bureau which

was created to produce films that

nurtured Canadian trade and industry but

Peck had strong ties to Hollywood and

instead of nurturing domestic Canadian

film he pushed to bring American

investors and companies back over to

Canada so really rather than taking a

risk on Canadian films they buckled to

the will of the states and put their

bets in American ones now don't get me

wrong there have been people trying to

push for the Integrity of our film

industry the national film board has

long been considered a Bastion of Hope

in Canada it was established in 1939

with the intention of making distinctly

Canadian films but its formation upset

the Americans who didn't like that the

Canadian government was now actually

giving attention to Canada's industry I

mean after all the Canadian theaters

were making American Studios a whole lot

of money with the approval of the

Canadian government Motion Picture

Association of America initiated a

project in 1948 under the guise of

boosting Canadian films in the U.S but

the condition was that American

companies would have untaxed and

unrestricted access to Canadian theaters

so yet again we're seeing a sleight of

hand the national film boards director

at the time Ross McLean was very aware

that this project was no good he was

right in the 10 years of its existence

the most that came out of this project

was a few Hollywood shorts about Canada

being a viable tourism destination and

then the Casual throwaway mention of

Canada and Hollywood films like when you

hear someone be like a bandit he ran

away to Canada

there was no rise in Canadian films

being distributed or played in the US

luckily the national film board

withstood this hostile period and it

still exists today they're doing great

if you're wondering but this project

also reflected once again an overall

undermining of the Canadian film

industry in 1973 broadcasting executive

John Bassett came out with a report on

the Canadian film industry called the

Basset report he concluded that a film

industry did indeed exist but it's the

audience that needs to be nurtured

through theatrical exposure but even up

to this day American Film still

dominates Canadian box offices after

doing a comprehensive breakdown for the

Globe and Mail of box office revenue

from the best picture nominees at the

2014 Canadian screen Awards writer Simon

hoped offers a pretty harrowing

statistic English language Canadian

films make up only one to 1.5 percent of

total ticket sales each year okay that

was seven years ago maybe it's gotten

better well if we look at a 2019 report

by the Canadian media producers

Association U.S films that year had a

box office share of 91.3 English

language Canadian films brought in 3.1

million dollars as opposed to the 888

million brought in by English language

non-canadian films in Canada and

remember those are pre-pandemic numbers

when people were still able to go out to

the theaters at regular rates so yeah

it's pretty bad

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Canada has never really been able to

cultivate its own identity so our

cultural Industries have long been

considered super unalluring this lack of

identity led to a lack of confidence

where our industry and government

allowed American companies to intimidate

their way into our box offices by virtue

of this American hegemony and its

propaganda machine have eroded our

already dwindling sense of national

identity and has resulted in Canadians

being the most hostile towards homegrown

film after all it was Canada's leading

film critic that declared Canadian film

to be what was it again oh yeah mostly

embarrassingly bad Canada is my home and

I'm proud to be Canadian and quite

frankly I'm tired of watching Toronto

play New York on screen but how can

Canadian film reassert itself as a

watchable Enterprise on the home front

and abroad how can we break free of the

shadow of Hollywood join me in this

series chasing Hollywood as we take a

look at the Canadian film industry its

history how it operates today and just

what exactly we're doing to get out of

this mess

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