Mulroney: The educational Opera

Only in Canada would we turn the story of a mediocre Prime Minister into an opera. Perhaps we're a more cultured bunch, but equally unique is our ability to produce films with little intention of ever recouping the invested capital.

Yes, I'm talking about Mulroney: The Opera.  Having never seen the film I'm not yet ready to pass judgement on it, but it does look like a glowing example of Canadian tax payers money put hard to work. And it actually looks kind of entertaining.

But it was an interview featured on TV Ontario's The Agenda that planted a curious question in my overworked cerebral cortex. What was this films raison d'etre -- its purpose? To give some context, interviewer Steve Paikin asked the films director Larry Weinstein why the film had such a small release. Weinstein nonchalantly replied that 72 screens nationwide was a lot for a Canadian film -- despite an extremely short theatrical run of a only two days. Seeing that the project was initially financed by the CBC, I'm guessing Weinstein didn't have too much at stake if the thing bombed.

Part of me was proud of Weinstein's "whatever" attitude towards the financial profitability of the film. Somehow I couldn't picture his hypothetical American counterpart saying the same thing.

But the other half of me felt like throwing an Iraqi shoe at the guy. Not that he wasn't charming and well spoken. He was. It's just that his viewpoint, be it true to reality as it was, did not represent my expectations of what the Canadian Film Industry should be.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think an Avatar type investment/return in every Canadian production is what were looking for here. Nor does my philosophy preclude a complete abandonment of our unique Canadian-esque heritage or creative processes (whatever that looks like).

If I heard Weinstein right, he saw his five year labour of love as a investment in Canadian culture, possibly influencing and educating future generations of Canadians. I guess this "film as educational tool" attitude is somewhat justified considering the majority of the financing for Mulroney came from the tax payers themselves.

But it says very little for future projects, especially those which strive to reach a larger, more international and in particular -- a more commercially oriented market. Being the hungry beast that it is, a feature film requires a huge capital investment-- an investment which needs to be recouped if one ever expects to have an opportunity to make another film.

This isn't such a problem in Canada where so few films are made anyway, and where content is often highly scrutinized for its Canadianishness before it ever sees the light of production. But is it possible that Canada will ever see an American style movie industry with all its private venture trappings and blockbuster appeal?

Given that Canada's market is approximately 10% the size of a comparative US market, Mulroney: The Operas opening on 72 screens equates to about 720 screens south of the border. This sounds like a lot, until we consider that The Tourist opened on 2756 screens. Given a run of two days, my hunch is that the theaters involved didn't see much commercial benefit in showing the flick. This shouldn't be seen as unusual, as only 1% of Canadian box office receipts actually come from Canadian films.

This isn't to say that our films aren't interesting or are culturally insignificant. It speaks more to an inherent Canadian bias against private investment in “Hollywood North” then it does anything else. Ironically, the price of the public controlling the Canadian film industries purse strings is simply that the general movie going public would rather see more of something else from somewhere other than here.

The barriers erected by the Canadian government to prevent well known American talent from appearing in publicly funded films is an example of such protectionism. Though understandably justifiable (after all, who wants some pretty American actress walking off with Canadian taxpayers money) – the policy inevitably curtails creative and entrepreneurial efforts to capitalize on a film stars global popularity and special talents.

The situation we've created for ourselves is a self-perpetuating and all too familiar one – our most talented and promising actors head South, get a big gig on some big US network and buy a mansion in LA. Without a doubt their suntanned hides end up getting featured on the ever-eager-to-promote-anything Canadian Entertainment Tonight: Canada, where they fondly reminisce about the good life back “home” and reassure us that, yes, they are still essentially Canadian.

But of course we true Canucks are too polite to resent their backstabbing ways, and we wish them well in their new found life of wealth and fame. We accept their defection to the land of pay-for-it yourself health care and selfish individualism -- only to claim them as our own during those identity searing conversations about what it is to be an insecure Canadian.

Okay, so I'm being a little facetious. But what of the Canadian film industry, eh? It certainly isn't suffering for lack of talent. But is our socialist bent hurting more than it's helping?

I once heard Paul Gross (Due North, Passchendaele) discuss the hurdles he had to jump through to get financing for his films. His conclusion was that private funding was absolutely necessary and mostly missing from the Canadian filmmaking experience; that government funding still had a role to play; and that for better or worse things in the Canadian entertainment industry had to change.

Quite understandably, the big American studio system that developed in the 1920's through 50's never developed in Canada. Companies like Warner Bros, Columbia, Fox and Paramount have no Northern equivalent. And unlike the publicly funded system in Canada at the time, Hollywood was for the most part profit driven. The studios controlled pretty much every aspect of the movie making process – from filming on the massive sound stages, to production, to distribution -- even extending to control and ownership of the movie theatres themselves.

That wasn't so much the case after the 1948 Supreme court ruling abolishing such practices, but the foundation of an effective and thriving entertainment industry had already been established. In Canada, the CBC was pretty much the be all and end all of production. Nearly everything that was made featured a satirical political slant, and because the industry was publicly funded content primarily promoted the values and beliefs of the average Canadian.

There's been a host of Canadian directorial success stories too- David Cronenburg, Atom Egoyan, Ivan Reitman, Paul Haggis, James Cameron – just to name a few. But rarely did their notoriety come as a result of a truly Canadian project.

That's not to say that Canada hasn't had a few random hits. Passchendaele ( a big budget war movie which included a $5 M dollar grant from the Alberta government), Bon Cop, Bad Cop, Mike Clattenburg's hilariously vulgar Trailer Park Boys TV show and film, The Trotsky -- are all examples of fairly recent breakthroughs that “made it” and had notable Canadian and international recognition. For the most part however these works were still products of the Canadian tax payer.

But I can't remember the last time I heard an American producer crying for more government involvement in getting a film made. Perhaps this is due to their legacy of self-determination slash fear of tyranny mentality that drives them to seek a profit margin with their films. By allowing for substantial private investment, they seem be able to maintain and support an industry which makes available future funds to both deserving and talented filmmakers.

Then again, perhaps the Canadian film industry is simply too fragile to stand on its own, or the population base too few to validate the huge capital investment these films entail. Perhaps government should be there to ensure Canadian culture is promoted and protected from the polluting influence of the those damn Yankees.

But like so many other incidents of Canadian brain drain, if we don't allow for reduced government regulation and increased private funding, it is likely we'll get more of the same culturally significant yet rarely seen films. All I know is that if I had spent five years making a film, I would want it to end up as something more than a high school teaching aid.