We absolutely agree with the statement that there is a clear concept of "national identity" in the cinematography, or simply the idea of a national cinema, which is a collection of the characteristics that can definitely be attributed to the culture of a particular country, its traditions, and so on. These features should not just be formally described on paper. On these grounds, the viewer should identify the country of the film production from the first shot. If there are such striking characteristics of film schools, then we need to understand what it is that determines the characteristics of the national cinema. Which factors influence the formation of a particular style of filmmaking around the world? As this concept does exist, in our opinion, we would like to give an example of characteristics of a national cinema in Canada. Canada is one of the mysterious countries in the world of cinema. Many believe that we cannot talk about the identity of the Canadian film industry. Some say that it is only a shadow of the United States. We will try to carry out a comprehensive analysis and determine whether Canada is a distinctive producer of films.
Is it a distinctive Canadian cinema or is it merely a shadow of the United States, on this question, we will try to give a comprehensive response, resulting in citing our examples. Canada is a hub for several studios, which are located in the three largest cities: Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. The main thrust of the film industry is regional and specific in nature. Since 1911, there were shot about 970 English-speaking and 620 French-speaking Canadian films, totally or partially produced with the help of the Canadian film industry. Most of these films made a huge emphasis on the part of the natural scenery. Also it is worth noting that Canada is divided essentially into two parts, Anglophone and Francophone ones, which is also a hallmark of the Canadian film industry. Among the filmmakers from English Canada, there can be mentioned David Paul Cronenberg, Guy Maddin, Atom Egoyan, Allan King and Michael Snow. In French Canada, Claude Jutra, Robert Lepage, Michel Brault, Gilles Carle, Denys Arcand, Denis Villeneuve were one of the most famous filmmakers.
If we take, for example, the National Council of Cinematography, among its key strategies is a requirement to film each year a hundred movies – mostly short documentaries (about Canada's geography, its peoples, and the like). If the council were structured as a mechanical bureaucracy, decisions about the movies would have taken by the top category. Stable film strategy would be formulated by a strategic apex, and its implementation would be entrusted to the lower levels of the hierarchy. If it had the structure of the professional bureaucracy, every director, year after year would make films on his standard, and the organization would have a number of regular thematic strategies growing out of the operating core. But as we see that in Canada all the movies are filmed strictly according to the national cinematic strategy, it is clear that the Council has an enormous impact on the entire process.
Being structured as operating adhocracy, the Film Board should follow other procedures. About a third of the films get the funds from the state. When directors are interested, they start shooting. The other two-thirds of the films got their themes from the Council's employees, and their shootung is financed from its budget. Applications for new movies are submitted to the Standing Committee, consisting of four directors, two marketing specialists, Director of Production and Director of Programs. Selection Committee should approve the head of the Council. Thus, we see a clear hierarchy in the Council of Canadian Cinema, which offers films with the theme of the movie according to the national strategy.
Take, for example, the National Council of Cinematography Canada. Among its key strategies required to be filming each year Launched into production - hundreds or so - mostly short documentaries (about Canada's geography, its peoples, and the like). If the council was structured as a mechanical bureaucracy, decisions about the movies would have taken top category. Stable film strategy to formulate strategic apex, and its implementation would be entrusted to the lower levels of the hierarchy. If he had the structure of the professional bureaucracy, every director, year after year have made films on their own standard repertoire of scenarios, and the organization would have a number of regular thematic strategies growing out of the operating core. But as we see that in Canada all recorded clearly on the national cinematic strategy, it is clear that the Council has an enormous impact on the entire process. It is structured as operating adhocracy, Film Board should other procedures. About a third of the state funded films. When directors are concerned, they start shooting. The other two-thirds of the films to determine the Council's employees, and their production is financed from its budget. Applications for new movies submitted to the Standing Committee, consisting of four directors, two marketing specialists, Director of Production and Director of Programs. Selection Committee should approve the head of the Council. Thus, we see a clear hierarchy in the Council of Canadian Cinema, which offers films with the theme of the movie udovletvaryayuschey national strategy.
Canada is very similar to its neighbor, the USA. The Canadian directors often shot in Hollywood or do a co-production with the United States (e.g. the famous film “American Psycho”, directed by Mary Harron). A lot of American TV shows broadcast on Canadian television, and fashion style of the Canadians does not differ from the Americans. However, despite the obvious similarities in the film, television, music and clothing, Canada formed its own not only common cultural traditions, but also its own cinema traditions. Of course, a great influence on the formation of the culture of Canada has been provided by the Indian culture. Indian peoples gave Canadians their songs, stories, rituals. But we would not say that in their films, Canadian filmmakers paid a lot of attention to these roots. Rather, it is expressed in a demonstration of harmony of man with nature in their films, although some producers are laying just the same emphasis on the Native American culture. Also, the majority of traditions and customs, brought here by English and French settlers, were kept. As a result, in Canada there have been formed two main people. As we said, those are the Francophone (French Canadians) and English (Anglo-Canadians) population. The official religion is Catholicism. Although the majority of believers are Catholics, many also profess Protestantism, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and indigenous Indians revere their customs and traditional beliefs. Despite the fact that in Canada there is a diversity of beliefs, Canadians consider themselves Catholics, and very often it is displayed in the movies (Akser, 2013).
Many elements of Canadian culture practically do not differ from the American culture. Canadians are watching American TV shows such as sports news, news of American politics and Hollywood. An important role in the development of the national culture of Canada has been played by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). This corporation is one of the first to form the Canadian identity in the industry, beginning, so to speak, to separate Canada from the United States of America.
We would like to consider the characteristics of Canadian cinema by the example of several films that are considered, let us say, as a part of the classic Canadian film industry. The first film is “Smoke Signals”, filmed in 1998 by the director Chris Eyre ("Smoke Signals (1998)"). To say briefly, it is a touching film about the eternal problem of the relationship between fathers and children, this time shown at an angle of perception of modern Native Americans, or rather the Indians. The film fascinates with its atmosphere, so as to show modern life of Native Americans. The viewer begins to feel all the hopelessness, the desperation of the situation, the desperation, with which they have to live on their own land, the oppressive atmosphere of total poverty and unemployment, giving birth to drunkenness and piece of land degradation, allotted to them by their new "more civilized" "masters".
We see this feeling in the eyes of the protagonist of the film named Victor, the same guy, no better and no worse than those who live outside the reservation - just so happened that he is "red-skinned", the second grade in the eyes of those smug chubby white people, who do not remember their own roots already. In this film, we would like to mention the acting – a magnificent cascade of Indian stars – Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard and Gary Farmer. They all looked original and have displayed the best feature of the Canadian national cinema and Canadians, who, in principle, do not forget their roots. Almost all Canadian filmmakers consider the most important the theme of family relationships and conflicts. (Pospíšil, 2013).
Another distinctive feature of Canadian cinema, especially in comparison with the US is the lack of special effects in films; or rather we can call it the deliberate rejection of them in favor of more complex storylines and more natural landscapes. Of course, it is not only opt for viewers, who like a lot of dialogues and little action. This is primarily a forced failure, because to compete with Hollywood or even some European studios for the implementation of know-how in the process of creating special effects business, would be at least ungrateful. But even if you do not pay attention to some competition by filmmakers, the audience immediately feels the difference between the latest technology and special effects of the United States compared with Canada. On this basis, Canadian filmmakers have decided to consciously reject the availability of any serious effects in their films (Moen, 2003).
And now we will show you an example of one of those movies where special effects in spite of the genre, were removed from the list of items, needed for the entertainment. A dystopia “Last Night”, directed by Don McKellar, is a vivid example of how without any special effect, you can keep the viewer in suspense the whole movie ("Last Night (1998)"). The film was shot in 1998 in the genre of science fiction without large-scale special effects. The world is crumbling. All the people know that today will be the end of the world. On the streets, there is a rampant violence. Cellular knocks, public transport does not work. The radio is constantly conducted countdown, and soothing music is being played. Director, screenwriter and the protagonist of the film at the same time, Don McKellar puts the viewer from the first minute in front of the fact that before the end of the world everyone has six hours and nothing can be done. However, this is not a low-budget apocalyptic, but rather pre-apocalyptic movie, without any effects at all. That is, the director decided to come up here so that fiction will be the story about the apocalypse, but the special effects are not to be used. Amid the mass chaos, the viewer is invited to follow the life stories of a few individual people who are somehow related to each other. These people know that six hours later something will happen, then the world will cease to exist, and therefore they pre-build plans for the last six hours of their life.
We would like to highlight in addition to the Canadian national cinema and the film industry of Quebec as a sufficiently distinctive industry, even within Canada. From the first years of its existence, the Quebec film industry constantly had to solve two challenges: to assert its identity and ensure loyalty to the public. Today, the independence of Quebec cinema has received unconditional acceptance. The periodic appearance of original creations still evidences the diversity of Quebec cinema. In this regard, we can recall a few pictures. “Les invasions barbares” is a continuation of the acclaimed “Le déclin de l'empire américain” and most successful film in Denys Arcand's career. “La grande seduction”, directed by Jean-François Pouliot remains to this day the only popular Quebec comedy that has achieved international recognition. Quebec cinema has been dogged by controversy. The problem is that at one pole is the profit-oriented commercial production, while on the other there is the author's cinema (sometimes it is to survive in difficult conditions), recognized on the international stage, but not at home: it is enough to recall the films, directed by Denis Côté, Rafaël Ouellet, Stéphane Lafleur and Anne Émond. This is a movie for film enthusiasts, which plays a role of stepson in its country, imbued with dizzy poetry, bitter humor and sadness. The fact that commercial cinema is rarely closely intertwined with national characteristics, but with regard to the author's cinema, it is that conveys the national colors of Canada, and separates it from Quebec alone. And if the Canadian film industry is constantly compared with the US, it is natural that Quebec cinema is considered through the prism of French filmmakers’ school. French cinema is usually either about love or about the rabid passion. Unlike the Italians, the French express passion usually not through emotions, but very sophisticated intrigue - that did not reduce the intensity of emotions. Quebec movies are diferrent, despite the fact that they are also filmed in French. They are about personal relationships and problems lurking in each character in the film. These problems can lead to some actions, sometimes they cannot. The action takes place not only in the outside world, but also in the inner world of the character or characters. In this sense, the Quebec cinema is something between a Polish and a Chilean-Argentine-Uruguayan cinema: more positive than the last, but more depressive than the first. Nevertheless, it characterizes the identity, it is not like other. It cannot accurately be called like some cinema school (Euvrard & Veronneau 1980).
We would like to see another movie, produced in Canada, called “Black Robe” filmed by the director Bruce Beresford upon the novel by Brian Moore in 1991 ("Black Robe (1991)"). Constant romanticism, the problem of discrimination and policies that are often inherent in the works with Native American themes, are inferior to a more primordial problem - the painful, tragic, but inevitable meeting of religious culture of paganism and Christianity. The picture is filmed in the genre of road movie, and it means that there is one of the most important characteristics of Canadian film – vibrant and diverse landscapes. The film is a leisurely narrative, where the difficulties of a long and dangerous road intertwined with ancient symbols of the way of becoming a human being. It is also a feature of the cultural specificity of cinema in Canada - the impact of Indian heritage. The film's protagonist, the priest sees the heathen Indians, whose heart and mind is under control of the devil. In the eyes of the tribe Hominy, with his flowing black robes, secret knowledge of the letter and the water sorcery, soul-consuming, he turns into a demon himself. This accentuated sense of identity is supported in the film by the idea of the inevitable similarities in the ritual aspects of life of the people, originating from the unity of human nature. The film is very realistic and even cruel. Its characters are like walking on a thin blade, each time uncertain balancing between the good and evil, and are forced to make a choice, leading them to the final goal. It is also a feature of the Canadian film: each character in his mind has his own problems and direction of the course of the film shows us the history of each of them from the inside.
Of course, you cannot ignore the fact that the Canadian film industry is evolving every year. There are new technologies, new directors, new concepts and views on cinema. But we would not say that it completely changes the film industry in Canada, or making significant adjustments to the national characteristics that evolved over the years. Yes, perhaps the author's cinema is not entirely accurate, and not fully reflects the life and culture of Canadians, but a film is an art. We need to make allowances on this undeniable fact. Many people say that there is no independent Canadian cinema, independent in the first place from the United States of America. But we will say more. Having performed a deep analysis of the culture of Canada, we would say that Canadian cinema is not only independent, but also original. Moreover, its identity is divided into two different from each other part of Canada. The English part of the Canadian filmmakers with their galaxy of directors, and the French, namely Quebec, is also full of its outstanding representatives. The fact that in Canada, there are in fact two schools of filmmakers and they produce films in two different languages, is also unprecedented. These are two absolutely equal Film Schools, and completely different movies.
References
Akser, M. (2013). Nation, Genre and Female Performance in Canadian Cinema. Cinej, 2(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2013.72
Black Robe (1991). IMDb. Retrieved 15 March 2016, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101465/?ref_=nv_sr_1
Euvrard, Michel, and Pierre Veronneau. “Direct Cinema.” Self Portrait: Essays on the Canadian and Quebec Cinemas (1980): 77-93.
Last Night (1998). (2016). IMDb. Retrieved 15 March 2016, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156729/
Moen, K. (2003). Canadian National Cinema. Screen, 44(1), 119-122. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/screen/44.1.119
Pospíšil, T. (2013). The five senses of Canadian cinema: introduction. Brno Studies In English, 39(2), 5-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/bse2013-2-1
Smoke Signals (1998). (2016). IMDb. Retrieved 15 March 2016, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120321/
