A quick glance at Canadian films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival shows an intriguing pattern: There sure are a lot of American stars in them, and not always where you might expect.
Along with high-profile Canadian productions such as Barney’s Version, with Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman, and Casino Jack, with Kevin Spacey, what is particularly striking is the presence of American talent in first-time films from English-Canadian directors. These include Michael Goldbach’s Daydream Nation, with Kat Dennings, Josh Lucas and Andie MacDowell; Jonathan Sobol’s A Beginner’s Guide to Endings, with Harvey Keitel, Scott Caan and J.K. Simmons; and Deborah Chow’s The High Cost of Living, with Zach Braff. As well, Larysa Kondracki’s first film, The Whistleblower, a German-Canadian co-production, is a Bosnian-set political thriller that has an international cast, including Rachel Weisz, Vanessa Redgrave and David Strathairn.
Does this represent a flourishing in Canadian film, to compete with low-budget American independents? Or is it a reversion to the bad old days of the seventies’ tax-shelter years, 1978 to 1981, which saw a boom in the volume of film production in Canada but came at a cost – generic stories, B-list American actors in lead roles and Canadian locations disguised as American cities? That era, defined by what director Allan King called the “coffee-boy syndrome” in Canadian film, left a stigma that has not entirely faded.
The short answer is no: The current economy is too lean for the kind of waste that the tax-shelter years represented. On the other hand, six years of Conservative government and an eight-year-old Telefilm Canada mandate to encourage more commercial films have had an effect. Noticeably, producers talk about the importance of recognizing the commercial realities of filmmaking, which demands an international audience.
Nicholas Tabarrok, who produced last year’s TIFF film Defendor, with Woody Harrelson, produced A Beginner’s Guide to Endings, which is about three brothers who discover, because of a decision made by their irresponsible father (Harvey Keitel), that they have only a week to live.
Harvey Keitel in a scene from Jonathan Sobol’s A Beginner’s Guide to Endings
Tabarrok, who has offices in Toronto and Los Angeles, says national distinctions simply do not apply when it comes to Canadian and American filmmaking. “It isn't Canadian or American; it’s the studio system versus the independent system. The business of making films is so expensive, I think you have to think of reaching audiences of tens or hundreds of thousands. Perhaps in a few cases – Passchendaele or Bon Cop, Bad Cop – you can reach a big enough audience in Canada, but the population is just too small to aim for a Canadian audience.”
What does it take to attract recognizable stars, and the financing that comes with them?
“Script, script and script,” Tabarrok says. “Though people can be cynical about it, the truth is actors are artists who are looking to do interesting work. Their priorities are first, script; second, director; and third, money. In many cases, I don’t think people believe they can actually get the best person for a role so they settle for someone else.”
With Tabarrok’s encouragement, director-writer Jonathan Sobol wrote personal letters to every actor they wanted in the film, along with a copy of the script, explaining why he needed to direct them in his movie.
Tabarrok said his first choice for the role of the irresponsible family patriarch was Keitel, who wanted to do the film but had a conflict. His second choice was Dennis Hopper, who agreed to do the film. However, when Hopper became sick with the prostate cancer that took his life last year, Keitel was available.
In the case of Daydream Nation, the film actually was in the U.S. studio system before it came to Vancouver-based producer Christine Haebler. Director-writer Michael Goldbach had worked for four years to get the film made before it eventually came back to Canada.
