The Power of Film and Its Influence

MR. DERRY:

Distinguished Past Presidents, members, and guests: Two years ago, Joanne Strong wrote in her column in The Globe and Mail on “The Informal Norman Jewison” – she wrote that at the time of her interview with him, Mr. Jewison was in Buffalo making his movie Best Friends, starring Goldie Hawn and Burt Reynolds. It seems that the Edmonton Oilers were also in town and Mr. Jewison was excited at the prospect of dinner that evening with Wayne Gretzky. Jewison wanted to meet a hockey hero and Gretzky had accepted since this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – to meet Goldie Hawn!

Now, I have been looking forward to a meal with Norman Jewison, but unlike Gretzky, it is Jewison that I have been wanting to spend time with. You see, his other area of fame is his maple syrup. I make maple syrup as well but my problem is that while my quantity produced is nothing like Norman’s, he also seems to have the secret to successful marketing! I can only assume that there is a distinct relationship between promoting maple syrup and films!

That explains some small part of my reasoning, but why has Norman Jewison taken a considerable amount of time in the midst of a very active schedule to address The Empire Club? It helped that the Honourable Mr. Justice Potts was a classmate and applied the might of the judiciary. I hope it also helped that this is one of Canada’s largest and oldest speakers’ forums, and that our members have a great interest in hearing Canada’s most successful, and one of North America’s most highly respected, movie producers and directors. What may also have influenced Mr. Jewison was that during our current season we were inviting several distinguished Canadians to talk on various aspects of the Arts, and, of course, we very much hoped Norman Jewison would be one of those people.

You will recall that last October we enjoyed tremendously the address and slide presentation by Roloff Beny on “What Is Wrong with Loving Canada?” and we were saddened three weeks ago to hear of his untimely death. He made a great contribution on a world scale as an artist and photographer, and Canada benefits from it. In December, Paul Fleck addressed us on the role and contribution to Canada of The Banff Centre – and now, we have the good fortune of celebrating the international success of Norman Jewison.

Everyone in this room, and those watching this address on television, must have enjoyed many of Mr. Jewison’s twenty films over the last two decades. They have won nine Academy awards, twenty-nine Oscar nominations, and more than a dozen other major international honours.

And he was born in Toronto! And graduated from the University of Toronto! And was with the CBC for six years, when it was starting into television in the early fifties! And after twenty years of television and film success in New York, Hollywood, and London, he returned to continue his career from Toronto in 1978!

It was during that twenty years that Mr. Jewison became internationally recognized. His success with the CBC caused CBS to hire him in 1958 and he did a number of very successful television specials with them. In 1962, he directed his first film, Forty Pounds of Trouble for Universal Studios, and in the mid-sixties, he went out on his own as a freelance director and producer. His films are easily recognized – The Cincinnati Kid in 1965, The Russians Are Coming, In the Heat of the Night, which took five Academy awards, The Thomas Crown Affair, Fiddler on the Roof in 1970, which grossed over $50 million, Jesus Christ Superstar, Dogs of War, and Best Friends in 1982 – to mention only a few. A week from today, Mr. Jewison’s new film, Iceman, which was filmed in Churchill, Manitoba, is to have its premiere, and his latest film, A Soldier’s Story, is currently being edited.

In addition to his many film honours and awards, Mr. Jewison has received an honorary degree from the University of Western Ontario, and in 1982, he was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada. It is my pleasure now to welcome Mr. Norman Jewison to address us on “The Power of Film and Its Influence.”

MR. JEWISON:

Thank you, Mr. Derry, and an auspicious head table, members of The Empire Club, and friends. Well, here we are at The Empire Club luncheon. How do I get into these situations? Douglas Derry, one of your more tenacious members, has tracked me down for over a year now, “It won’t be much. Just say a few words about your movies.” I believed him until I received three copies of beautifully bound annual Empire Club addresses. My God, they publish these speeches! If Mao had only seen these little red books!

Well, I was sitting on a stump in my maple bush at my farm in Caledon, minding my own business, smoking a cigar, when Douglas Derry got me. I looked over the names of illustrious Americans and Europeans who have spoken to the club, and it was easy to figure out where The Empire Club of Canada got its name. David Rockefeller, Henry Ford II, and Margaret Thatcher have all addressed the club.

People of power. It has come to have a new meaning in our time. The rich are the gods of the twentieth century. Not artists, teachers, or scientists, but people of economic worth. Men and women of money. Our culture has elevated the dollar to the position once held in ancient empires by the gifted and the mystical. Our icons are the Rockefellers, the Bronfmans, and the Conrad Blacks of this world. The most popular television show is Dallas: a look at the glittering lives of the rich. As the economy dims, our heroes shine even brighter, casting their light on the dreary lives of all us unfortunates.

What is happening here? What has happened to the Great White North? What has happened since the days of my childhood, when the air was fit to breathe, the water clear, and one could truly sing in the rain? The moneylenders left the temple long ago of their own free will. They have now become respectable. Their new temples are tax-free and, they tell us, in the public interest. They control our lives by controlling our desires, supplying our wants, and creating new diversions. In shock, we watch the so-called Third World emerge from a state of colonialism to find itself, once again, the economic, social, and military prey of so many helping hands.

We define ourselves by our American Express cards. Ownership is all. Your car, your home, your status tells people what you are… and not your talent, humanity, or personal accomplishments. Convincing someone you’ve got it all today is done by quoting bank balances, not poetry.

In the early part of this century, we were a country of weeds and frontiers; of open spaces and empty muskeg (just ask Pierre Berton); a country of unheard echoes, mystery, and isolation. This loneliness made us self-reliant, independent, thoughtful, and suspicious of others (just ask Brian Mulroney). The pioneer mentality developed individuals with courage to face great hardships alone. We became strong but we had little time for thought or culture. Artists were ignored or thought expendable (just ask Robert Goulet). There was no time for the luxury of music, poetry, or artistic expression. We had railroads and cities to build, vast prairies and land to till and tame, forests to cut, minerals to dig. Now, in the latter part of the century, we have begun to change – mature – and hopefully, we are coming of age.

In 1958, I left my home and native land for the lure of New York and the mass audiences of CBS. But I was also leaving at a time when this country was not yet really supportive of its artists. There was lack of confidence in the people, a lack of appreciation, a lack of encouragement. No one was really interested in Canadian talent. Somehow the encouragement and enthusiasm so necessary to the creative community was missing.

Our local and national press and magazines were more impressed with American and English artistic accomplishments. I realized that even well-established TV talents like Wayne and Shuster were not treated with respect until they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show from New York. Why was there no confidence in our writers, actors, painters, poets, musicians, and dancers? For years, institutions like the CBC and the National Film Board were treated with greater respect outside the country than from within. I was frustrated and disturbed by the lack of confidence in the Canadian spirit and frightened of becoming a part of a summer-stock mentality. Why did we take such pride in the Robertson screwdriver and ignore a Christopher Plummer? Just think – the Tony Awardwinning actress, Amanda Plummer, would have been Canadian had her father been appreciated at home.

Was it money and financing we lacked? No, there has never been any equation between money and art. Talent is not something that can be bought or manufactured. It was something deeper. It was not only a period of enormous inferiority complex; it was also a time when the people were perhaps more interested in the financial development of our natural resources than in the nurturing of our artistic expression. We really didn’t know who or what we were – we had lost sight of our identity. As Bruce Hutchison so succinctly put it, we were “the Unknown Country.”

Over twenty years passed. I lived and worked in New York and Hollywood, in London, Munich, Zagreb, and Jerusalem. In 1978, I came home. Like Mordecai Richler who had lived and worked abroad for so many years, I also came home in search of my roots. My arrival was less than auspicious. Arriving with my goods and chattels – a returning settler – I was confronted by an inspection officer at Toronto Airport. He examined the well-filled passport with its visas and residence documents of other countries and gave me that cold, official, and suspicious stare that all immigration people seem to possess. “Where do you live?” he asked. “Well, here, now,” I said, “I’ve come home.” “Where have you been a resident?” “Well, three years in New York, nine years in Los Angeles, and eight years in London.” He paused, looked at me with a quizzical expression, and said, “Well, why the hell are you coming back here?” I was shaken for a moment – had nothing changed? Was the inferiority complex still around? Did we still believe that we were second-rate? Had we remained a grey, dull, passionless northern people, still possessing that dour and Calvinistic meanness of spirit that we were so often criticized for? Had nothing changed? Did we still not dare to be different? Did our press still give more space to Peter Pocklington than to Robertson Davies? To feel helpless is never to attempt to make a difference. After being disillusioned by the American Dream, was I now forced to live in a country still not mature and lacking confidence? To know who you are, what you are, what you stand for, where you belong – all of these things are important to everyone.

Since my return in the summer of ’78, I am convinced that none of these things are true anymore. For the last five years, I have sensed a maturity – a confidence that comes with growing up and realizing that we as a people can take pride in our accomplishments; that we can make a significant contribution to North American life and influence world opinion. There is indisputable proof that in this age of video dominance – of Super Bowls and Dallas, of threatened separatism and provincial polarization, of even our continued suspicion and reluctance to create our own heroes, in spite of all these growing pains there is proof that our artists are reminding us of our history of progress, our heritage, and our traditions. And there is the beginning of an appreciation of individual initiative: from The King of Kensington to the genius of Glenn Gould; from Gordon Lightfoot to Margaret Atwood; from Wayne Gretzky to Carling Bassett; from Harold Town to Arthur Erikson; from the National Ballet and Leonard Cohen to Michel Tremblay and the exciting new George Gardiner Museum.

Every society needs its heroes. In 1979, a young Canadian demonstrated in a simple and courageous act the indomitable spirit which each of us possess – if we have the determination to use it. Terry Fox – in his attempt to run across this country from the eastern shores of the Atlantic to the western beaches of the Pacific, with only one leg to support him – captured the imaginations of all Canadians in a way no other individual has done in our history. The importance of his quest was finally recognized by the press. Journalists and television networks provided the window, and for one glorious moment, all of us – French, English, easterners, westerners, young and old, rich and poor, black or white – all of us identified and agonized with his every step. I will never forget the impact of that moment. We were one family, proud of our son who attempted the impossible dream. Watching the documentary of his long, arduous struggle on CBC television was for me one of the most moving experiences of my life, and I realized when it was all over that I was proud to be his fellow citizen, that I was proud to be a Canadian, and I’m glad we made a film of the Terry Fox story. Even though it was rejected at the cinemas in Canada, it successfully played to millions on HBO in the United States.

Since I’m primarily a filmmaker and secondly a farmer, let’s deal with film for a moment, the most important art to emerge in the twentieth century. It is our truly international medium of communication. It has become a permanent part of the intellectual and aesthetic life of our civilization. Film has reached more people in the first twenty years of its life than printing did in over two hundred years after its invention. Film has no boundary. It merges fact and fancy. A film is the sum total of the beliefs and principles of its maker. It has become our new literature.

The most successful Canadian film that has ever been made is Porky’s. The runner-up is Meatballs. Porky’s, the most successful in terms of gross, has passed the one-hundredmillion-dollar mark. Can we point with pride at these films and say that they illuminate a quality about the Canadian character which makes us think or feel something in a new way? Some would have us believe that the box office is the yardstick for the success of a film. Not true. Some of the greatest films ever made were not in “Variety’s” top ten.

Canada should measure its heritage with its heart. As Massey wrote, “It is the intangibles that give a nation not only its essential character but its vitality as well. What may seem unimportant and irrelevant under the pressure of daily life may well be the thing which endures, which gives a community its power to survive.” Societies are characterized by their creations, their actions, and their way of life.

As a Canadian, I have always felt we could view, more objectively, the problems that face our American neighbours. I became fascinated in the early fifties with the Americans’ almost paranoic fear of communists. They became hysterical at the very mention of Marx or Lenin. Communists were under every bed and behind every script. All Russians were communists and therefore evil and not to be trusted. The more I thought about this overreaction, the more the humour of the situation began to appear.

Then, by chance, I read a paperback called The Off-Islanders by Nat Beuchley. It was not a very good book. Not even that funny. But it did have a marvellous and unique idea. Beuchley, who lives on Nantucket Island, based his story on what would happen if a Russian submarine got stranded accidentally on a local American sandbar.

I loved the situation. It was full of visual images and smelled of satire. I would tell the studio executives this hilarious story about a bunch of Russians landing in a remote village on the American coast, and everybody panics and thinks it’s an invasion. The first studio group just sat there stunned, then made a move which looked suspiciously like a violent gesture, so I ran from the office. The next studio executive muttered something about “Commies aren’t funny” and that the whole idea sounded subversive to him. Some agent in the local press heard about my intentions to contact some Russian actors and immediately branded me as a Canadian Pinko. At that point, it looked like The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming would never reach the screen.

The next problem was the submarine. The U.S. Navy contact for the film industry felt the script put the Navy in a bad light. So, anyway … no co-operation or sub from the U.S. Navy. I tried the Russians, but they wanted to change my script. The Chilean government and the Canadians were both interested in renting us a sub but we would have to move the location of the picture. Finally, we decided to build one. So, with plywood, styrofoam, some World War ii armament, and lots of black paint, we built a 180-foot vessel that would float, sail at eight knots, and carry a full crew of Russian sailors. So what if it moved like a porpoise in heavy seas; in the harbour it looked great.

The film was a labour of love. We spent over four months isolated in a tiny community miles from any major city. But we all knew we were making an important film. It was not really just a comedy. It was a film about war and peace. It was about the fears and suspicions of one people for another because of a lack of communication and a surfeit of political propaganda. It was a film that dealt with the absurdity of international conflict. It was about love and hate and honour and real courage. It was our plea for international understanding. I made the film for Russians and Americans. I wanted them to see each other honestly revealed as 1, a Canadian, saw them.

Those were my reasons for making that film. In general, a film takes almost two years out of my life. Therefore, I could

not commit myself to this idea too easily. The statement the film made was important enough for our first screening to be held in Washington with the Vice-President of the United States as our guest of honour, and an assemblage of ambassadors, senators, and diplomats, including Senator Kennedy. It was gratifying for this Canadian to witness the effect the film had that night on that particular group.

When the general audience also responded well to the film, the Russian ambassador asked for a print. We sent him one which promptly disappeared for some months. Later, we learned it was screened in the Kremlin six times and at every Russian Embassy in Europe. They loved it.

Later that year, we opened the Berlin Film Festival – a thousand yards from the Wall – and Willy Brandt told me this would do more for American-Russian relations than any speeches about peaceful co-existence by political figures. A month later, I was invited to Moscow. After the film was screened at the Soviet Film Workers Union, many of the audience burst into tears. That was the moment when I realized the importance of film and its power to communicate ideas. It was a deeply moving discovery. So, those were my reasons for making The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming. I hope it didn’t look like a message picture. Films must entertain, grip the audience, and totally suspend belief for that short time we are together in the darkness. If they fail, they have no audience. A film without an audience, playing to an empty theatre, is not a living thing and it will end up as just another forgotten can on the shelf (ask any Canadian producer). This is the true standard by which the success of a film should be judged.

The power of television is its mass audience. I spent nine years in live television and found myself always struggling with network officials, advertising agency executives, and the sponsors themselves as to creative content of the programs. With hardly a single exception, their interests had nothing to do with responsibility to the viewer, with truth, with improving the artistic level of programming, with self-criticism.

Indeed, we witnessed the television industry in the United States actually become a mere extension of Madison Avenue and the advertising interests. CTV may have the glitz and hot American shows, but thank God for the CBC. I guess I had good training at the BBC and CBC, because in all those years of directing television, I never shot or was involved in one commercial.

When I turned to film as a new form of expression, I was determined to continue this struggle for artistic freedom. My first four films at Universal were compromised in many ways by pressures from various individuals and groups. Because the film studios, distributors, and exhibitors are all primarily interested in gross, the dollar once again becomes the criterion for success. Everyone wants a hit. A blockbuster. Jaws I, Jaws 2, Jaws 3, Rocky 1,2,3 – can you imagine making a sequel to Ordinary People or Terms of Endearment Revisited? During the last few years, many American filmmakers have begun to assert more creative control over their films in an attempt to produce films of quality. It’s a tough struggle; a lonely, and never-ending defensive action. But occasionally, one gets the opportunity to make a film of content and substance.

Therefore, you can appreciate, I’m sure, my position in regard to controls, restrictions, restraints, boards, and codes; and censorship, that malevolent big brother who watches over us here in Ontario. Imagine the uproar that would be caused if the police were granted the right to prior approval of newspapers and magazines. This basic right of free expression is the very issue at stake in film censorship. The freedom to convey the truth as he or she sees it is no less the province, the basic right, and duty of the serious filmmaker than it is for the newspaper reporter or novelist.

Film censors refuse to accept the truth that films, movies, the cinema have become the primary vehicle of creative expression for an entire generation thirty and under. Not literature, not the theatre, but film. A language more visual than verbal, a new cinematic language. And the Ontario provincial government wants to protect your morals and manners. Just like they control my consumption of wines and spirits, they also want to censor the films I might see. I sure hope they don’t set up the Ontario Birth Control Board – then all business will be closed on Sunday.

Government prejudice can be dangerous. In the thirties in the United States, a man by the name of Martin Quigley and the “Legion of Decency” established the “production code,” a mechanism for the censorship of movies. The movies obediently began to do their share to foster prudery, complacency, jingoism, sexism, racism, and so on. What was the result? Unquestionably, much of the power of fantasy in America today – the expectation of instant gratification, the commitment to selfhood overall, the waning concern for reason, discipline, and achievement – is related to the cheap fantasy life so sedulously manufactured in Hollywood over the years. Movies were often dismissive of defenseless minorities, especially women and blacks.

Why are young artists attracted to the hazardous, expensive process of filmmaking to relate their ideas instead of the more traditional, more accessible modes of communication? Because for them, film is the medium which attracts and stimulates the public they want to reach – their peers. It is through the power and the force of film that they are affected and, in turn, affect others. Films speak directly to the young, whether it’s through fashion trends established by Flashdance or through the nuclear protests encouraged by If You Love This Planet, a Canadian film that had the rare honour of being banned in the United States by the Reagan administration.

What I am saying is that film, as a medium of expression, is viewed with a basic difference in attitude by two varying levels of society. One group, the censorship board, dictates the type of film permitted to be shown to the other younger group, without ever basically understanding the import, or even the language, which these films have for many of the younger generation. Good Lord, our censors even cut The Tin Drum, a film that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.

There is no question that film has the ability to cause strong emotion in the viewer, but I doubt that the danger of this is as strong as our provincial fathers fear. But there is danger in the power of censorship, which grows and extends itself until it progresses far beyond even the intentions of its propagators. “Like pregnancy, a little bit goes a long way,” to quote Abe Ginnes. The Toronto Festival of Festivals is in fact the only international film festival in the world subject to provincial censorship.

In 1915, Vachel Lindsay wrote, anticipating our own Marshall McLuhan, “Edison is the new Gutenberg. He has invented the new printing.” Seventy years later, we are only dimly grasping the implications of the electronic language. We are in the middle of moving from the linear, sequential thought processes of print to the instantaneous and simultaneous multiform ways of seeing and experiencing that mark the electronic age. The theory of Marx, that history is determined by changes in the modes of production, is now challenged by the theory of McLuhan, that history is determined by changes in the modes of communication.

The problems of film censorship are representative of the problems which face the lives of Canadians today, problems which touch the lives of the powerful and powerless. How can we stop the realities of George Orwell’s fateful year from becoming part of our lives? The novel was written in 1948. Nineteen Eighty-Four was a warning, not so much of a particular year to be wary of, though with the growing threat of nuclear war, this does seem to be a possibility. The arrival of 1985 should not bring with it a sigh of relief. It should be a year to regroup, to realize that the everpresent threat of Big Brother, and I don’t mean Bill Davis, is with us and must be reckoned with. And that is the responsibility of our modern “deities,” our gods of power and influence.

How, as Canadians, can we combat the ills of society? Organization of power. For something as simple as Santa Claus. Two years ago, Eaton’s could no longer afford to sponsor Toronto’s Santa Claus Parade. The Toronto business community answered the challenge and organized the Metro Santa Claus Parade, which kept North America’s oldest annual Christmas parade marching on. A seventy-five-year-old tradition was saved by enough of the powerful who cared. This time, the Americans came here – every year CBS covers our parade for its American viewers.

The Stratford Festival is another cause which the “Canadian Establishment” has not only supported, but has also enabled to mature to become one of the most internationally respected classical theatres in the world. It is this relationship between art and finance which truly benefits Canadians. The emergence of Canada’s darling, Karen Kain, SCTV, the Shaw and Stratford festivals are all elements of Canada’s artistic scene that we as Canadians should be proud to share with other countries. They are truly our national resources. The Canadian brain drain to the south can be avoided. John Hirsch, the artistic director of Stratford, aptly describes this experience with an episode from his own youth. “Most Europeans who come to the Canadian prairies start to put it down and start talking about the fact that people there are without culture; that this is a terrible place, and so on. I arrived out west at the age of sixteen, and you can’t do that as a teenager because you have too much energy. As far as I could see, Winnipeg was a marvellous city. When I was introduced to the local artists, I was in for a terrible shock. They were all talking about when they were going to leave for London. Nobody was interested in staying in Winnipeg. This made me feel terrible because I had just got there, and I had no way of getting out. There were a few fascinating people [who stayed] – James Reaney, Adele Wiseman, etc.” These are the people who have successfully used the Canadian focus for their art. John Hirsch has gone far from the “marvellous city,” Winnipeg – to Stratford, Ontario, to be exact, to shepherd the festival. We must stand behind our talent, whether it be scientific or artistic in nature. It is our most precious commodity, the image through which we can see and understand ourselves, the power of our culture. The power of our arts is the essence of Canada.

We all want to dwell in an iridescent landscape of secret hopes and daring desires; where there is a gift of promise in one’s work and the prospect of pleasure after the chores are done. We hope that the superhighways of technology will lead us to the Great Canadian Dream. These dreams and hopes and aspirations are desperately needed by all of us. Now, we must turn to our artists. For in our art we will find the highest attainment of our culture. It is time for us to push aside the material things of life and begin to look into our own souls.

The appreciation of the audience was expressed by The Honourable Mr. Justice Joseph H. Potts, a Past President of The Empire Club of Canada.