Several years ago Maclean's ranked Pierre Elliott Trudeau fifth on their list of Canada's most influential prime ministers. Of the men who beat him out - King, Macdonald, Laurier and St. Laurent - only King's life has been made into a miniseries. Now it's Trudeau's turn, a man whose own flair for the dramatic makes dramatizing his life hard to resist. He was, arguably, one of Canada's most intelligent, elegant and debonair leaders. English or French, love him or hate him, Trudeau was the man.
"He was a guy who had it going on in both official languages," says Colm Feore, who plays Trudeau.
And he's a guy who still raises both hackles and accolades. Just hearing Trudeau's name in the House of Commons a few weeks ago, several Bloc Quebecois MPs booed heartily, unimpressed that the cast of CBC's Trudeau miniseries sat listening in the visitors gallery. Yet, even before shooting began, the biopic was front-page news across the country seven times. Distilling Trudeau's career, charisma and dichotomies into a four-hour drama would be no easy task, but it was obvious there'd be a big audience for it.
CBC chose TV scribe and former arts journalist Wayne Grigsby for the job. The network called in late October, 2000, weeks after Trudeau's funeral. Head
of CBC network programming Slawko Klymkiw says taking on the Trudeau legacy is something the public broadcaster ought to do. "Trudeau represents a kind of attitude about what being Canadian is, what better place to chronicle that than on CBC?" Talk about making a movie while the former prime minister was still alive never went anywhere, he says, which may explain the breakneck speed to get started "before anyone else thought it was a good idea."
Grigsby, whose TV credits include Mount Royal, North of 60 and Black Harbour, took a deep breath before stepping into the Trudeau legacy. "This is a project that can kill you if you don't give it your very best shot, and may still," he says. After two months of initial research he chose to focus on Trudeau's life between 1967 and 1982: Trudeaumania, the October Crisis, Maggie, the Quebec Referendum, Constitutional reform and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Then he started making calls. Trudeau's death made his job easier: "He passed on and people felt freer to talk."
From old colleagues to old girlfriends, Grigsby talked to anyone who'd spent time with the man. Guy Fornier, a personal friend of Trudeau's for 40 years and the film's story consultant, helped make those connections. (Only John Turner didn't return his calls, and considering past sparring between Turner and Trudeau, that's not surprising.) Hardly anyone volunteered their memories, but they did open up once asked because, Grigsby says, "I was a dramatist trying to understand this guy."
The actor trusted to portray the guy is Colm Feore. Officially he got the job last August, unofficially he'd been working on the role for five months prior. He read biographies, tributes and hatchet jobs, the Constitution, the Charter and watched documentaries, but avoided Martin Short's impersonations ("I hear he was too good," he says). Feore, who became famous playing Glenn Gould, in 1993's Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould says, "I've done dead Canadians before and I learned doing Glenn Gould that you have to move through impersonation and imitation, and finally into evocation." It's a long process, and one his wife watches with curiosity. Feore explains: "By osmosis, by dint of repetition and research, finally something comes out. One gesture. One shrug. One tic that's not me. And the moment she said, 'Oh no, there's Pierre Trudeau' I knew I had something." As he did with Glenn Gould, Feore slips into Pierre Trudeau. It's amazing to watch him disappear into the role with all the right moves and mannerisms, shifting smoothly from insouciant playboy to hard-nosed politician. Close your eyes during one of his impassioned speeches as Trudeau and you can turn back the clock. Grigsy calls Feore's
performance "scary," and his style "a lot better than trying to slavishly get the cheekbones absolutely right." Cheekbones or not, he even manages a convincing May-December chemistry with Polly Shannon, the 28-year-old Men With Brooms star who plays Maggie.
For all their background work, none of the actors or writers talked with members of Trudeau's family. Klymkiw says the family never responded once CBC told them - through the family's lawyer - that a movie was being made about their father and ex-husband. Margaret Trudeau-Kemper and sons Justin and Sacha also passed on the film's gala screening in Ottawa. "Unfortunately, Trudeau belonged to all of us and that's the nature of public life," says Grigsby. "I'm hoping that they look at this and say, 'Well, it's not totally out to lunch.'"
There is, however, a generation of younger Canadians who are out to lunch when it comes to Pierre Trudeau. It's an audience the film doesn't play to, despite its best efforts. Trudeau is a good film, but it was made by people who lived through the era and better understood by those old enough to have voted for Trudeau. Dates flash on the screen and situations such the October Crisis begin without much set up. Things move quickly, so that even with a good background in Canadian history the story can leave you behind trying to figure out who's who. Feore, however, says the movie works "even if you don't know a Heritage Minute from a Subaru commercial." "I want to tell everybody from the age of 10 there was a time in Canada's very recent history where someone with enormous vision shaped their future. You are living his legacy daily. Be aware of it."
Trudeau is a film that would be great to watch when studying the times (though teachers might want to fast forward scenes of Margaret smoking pot at 24 Sussex). To seduce those still learning our history, and partially to make the movie look really cool, director Jerry Ciccoritti filmed each of the four hours in different styles meant to evoke each era. Unless you're a film buff, you won't notice, except for the first wild hour on Trudeaumania that plays out like a Monkees episode. It's so over the top, you half expect Goldie Hawn or Arte Johnson to pop out a Parliament Hill window. Ciccoritti also uses lots of news footage to great effect, a much quicker, if pedestrian way to set the tone of the times. Grigsby and Feore say their kids enjoyed the film, but Grigsby concedes, "It's always going to mean more for people who were there because they bring their own souvenirs to it."
Trudeau is no valentine; it portrays him warts and all, with enough meaty stuff to amuse those who thrive on political minutiae. Last spring the Official Secrets Act ran out on cabinet documents surrounding the October Crisis and Grigsby condensed much of those old transcripts for the film. He also painstakingly recreates the 1981 constitutional conference and back room deals that broke the premiers' impasse, brought Canada's Constitution home, created the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and years later would open the door to another Quebec referendum. To set each scene, Grigsby made lots of calls: Roy Romanow, Peter Lougheed, Roy McMurtry and Bill Davis among others, to suss out the emotional drama, something political tomes don't supply. "It's 20 years later and guys are more prepared to talk. I'm asking what was he wearing, and was he really upset? Did anybody yell? When you went in the kitchen did you feel feel any sense of history hanging over your shoulders? Tell me what that felt like," explains Grigsby.
The backroom brouhaha's, a few well-aimed potshots at the RCMP, and fleshing out the private life of a very public man will provide more grist for anyone still gossiping about Trudeau's time in office.
Feore, however, gives the film a higher purpose, believing audiences will better understand the enigmatic man. "Look around at politicians who are in power and point to one who begins to scratch the surface of his magnetism, his vision, his intelligence, his clarity and straightforwardness. And can you name me one you'd like to sleep with?"
With any luck, the miniseries could influence the next magazine survey, one that might rank Pierre Elliott Trudeau a little higher.
Trudeau, Part 1: Sunday; Part 2: Monday, 8 p.m., CBC