Charting the course of the Pacific New Wave.

Burgess, Diane

The first time that I heard about the Pacific New Waxe was at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 1999. Then Canadian Images Programmer, Ken Anderlini, had been asked about this new west coast filmmaking movement ay Cori Howard of the National Post. With an unprecedented six BC fiction features in the Canadian Images program, it seemed possible that we were witnessing the beginnings of "something comparable to that earlier moment in Ontario when a lea, group of filmmakers focussed attention on Canadian cinema. (1) Anderlini proceeded to write a short article for the festival newsletter assessing whether or not there might be a "West Coast Nouvelle Vague." But, faced with a diverse group of films that includes Mort Ransen's glossy Touched (1999), Scott Smith's gritty rollercoaster (1999) and Ryan Bonder's magical DayDrift (1999), he concludes that the notion of a new wave "might be stretching it, but [that] these films do prove that BC is more that just a Hollywood back lot." (2) The only "clear connection" he cites is the films share "emotional intensity and integrity." (3) At the 2000 festival, the number of BC fiction features rose to eight, including five debuts. In the introductory essay for the Canadian Images section, the Pacific New Wave reference is re-deployed with the suggestion that the films "honestly explore our West Coast culture." (4)

Meanwhile, in a Georgia Straight cover story, local film critic Ken Eisner notes that four of the debut features--Protection (2000), Middlemen (2000), We All Fall Down (1999) and No More Monkeys Jumpin' on the Bed (2000)--share "an uncommon grit, not to mention rampant dysfunction and drug use ... all in a doggedly naturalistic style and with remarkably similar settings." (5) Linking the films to Canada's "longstanding documentary tradition," Eisner describes the new wave in terms of "new realism" and explains that each of these first-timers "indicated that more money and market concerns wouldn't have too much bearing on their styles, which all aim, with varying techniques, for the purity of experience." (6) Finally, the term Pacific New Wave gained headline status in the fall of 2001 with Mark Peranson's Globe and Mail feature on Bruce Sweeney's Last Wedding (2001). According to Peranson, the inclusion of five BC films in the 2001 Toronto International Film Festival along with the selection of Last Wedding "as the first BC film ever to open this trendsetting event" suggests that the talk of a west coast new wave may in fact have "some basis in reality." (7) In particular, he argues that "to match the flowering of filmmakers in Ontario in the 1980's ... A-list" (8) directors like Sweeney will begin to emerge from the West. So, if the moment is indeed taking root, perhaps it is a good time to ask what Pacific New Wave means. This term has tended to be applied by those who, despite their links to the BC film community, are relative outsiders, while within the community, the label has been greeted with great skepticism.

The first reference to a Pacific New Wave can be found in Cori Howard's article "The Irony of the Anti-blockbuster," which appeared in the August 7, 1999 issue of the National Post. Howard's discussion focuses on Canada's first two Dogme films: Set in an abandoned Vancouver shipyard, Marc Retailleau's feature debut Noroc ("good luck") is a "largely autobiographical tale about a Romanian immigrant's struggle to survive in Canada," while Carl Bessai's Johnny follows a group of "disaffected squeegee kids" living on the streets of Toronto. (9) Both films attempt to conform to the ten tenets of Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg's 1995 Dogme Vow of Chastity with varying degrees of success. Noroc's co-producer and cinematographer James Tocher explains that "If you follow the rules and don't see the joke, you've missed the point. We didn't feel the rules were meant to be taken literally." (10) Re-dubbing it as the "vow of fertility," Tocher states that "the Dogme philosophy helps remind filmmakers what's necessary and unnecessary." (11) Consequently, Noroc exemplifies the type of affective bare-bones storytelling that can be accomplished with almost no budget. Director Retailleau had been living in the shipyard warehouse that would serve as the film's key setting and, from his office window, he was able to observe the big budget Hollywood features and MOW's that also made use of this popular location. Ironically, since the Dogme rules preclude post-production sound mixing, Noroc had to "incorporate the sound of guns in the background," (12) a move that reinforces both the grittiness of Retailleau's narrative and the overshadowing of local independent production by Hollywood North.

For Howard, the irony of anti-blockbusters like Noroc and Johnny is that the trendiness of the Dogme aesthetic has given these filmmakers invaluable exposure such that ultra low-budget production can potentially serve as a stepping-stone to bigger projects. During the interview, Bessai mentions his plan to re-locate to Vancouver in order "to work with other independent filmmakers on a post-dogma trend ... [that] he calls 'the Pacific New Wave.'" (13) With this as the extent of the article's reference to new directions in west coast filmmaking, Howard's pursuit of further information is understandable, although the somewhat baffled response of Vancouver programmers must have been unexpected. Perhaps the key to Bessai's comment has something to do with the growth of digital production in Vancouver. Lacking funding for a 35 mm blow-up, Retailleau's film became the first feature to be screened on D-9 at the Vancouver International Film Festival, also marking the Festival's first foray into the projection of digital formats. Similarly, Ross Weber's No More Monkeys Jumpin' on the Bed never made it to film, screening instead on DigiBeta the following year. As a cinematographer, James Tocher proceeded to shoot Simon Capet's short film Evirati (1999) which was then transferred to 35mm by Digital Film Group; Tocher's Vancouver company is also responsible for the digital to film transfer of Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) (2001).

Yet, the significance of Bessai's comments must also be traced to their Toronto context. By the late 1990's, the moniker Toronto New Wave was in its heyday as the descriptor for a group of filmmakers--including (among others) Atom Egoyan, Bruce McDonald, Patricia Rozema and Don McKellar--that has been credited with revolutionizing independent feature filmmaking in Canada. (14) The indigenous industry was enjoying unprecedented exposure and it seemed as though contemporary Canadian cinema was finally in reach of the critical mass that critics and policymakers had been dreaming of for so long. Egoyan and Rozema had recently completed international co-productions while McKellar was enjoying the success of his first feature as a director. Perhaps then, Cameron Bailey's "Secret History of the Toronto New Wave" from Take One's Summer 2000 Special Issue on Ontario Cinema can provide some insight into the historical characteristics of this type of movement. Bailey begins with McDonald's manifesto from Cinema Canada's 1988 Outlaw Edition in which he stresses the necessity of freedom from the constraints of commercial influences. (15) Although there is not a corresponding west coast proclamation of cinematic independence, Vancouver filmmaking carves out a marginal space for itself in opposition to the thriving production presence of American runaway productions.

At the same time, it is important to note that the Pacific variant of the new wave is more an assertion of regional specificity than an attempt to create a "new Canadian Feature Film;" (16) yet, it could also be argued that counteracting centralist notions of Canadian cinema offers a fresh perspective on national specificity. Bailey sums up the Toronto New Wave as "urban, intimate, underdog, migrant. Educated and art-fuelled. Not political. Not commercial. And not literary." (17) A similar delineation of the Pacific New Wave would be urban, educated, ensemble-driven, political, local, neo-realist, ambivalent, digital, fragmented, and certainly not commercial. A tentative list of core players would include Bruce Sweeney, Ross Weber, Reg Harkema, Bruce Spangler and cinematographers Bob Aschmann, Brian Johnson, James Tocher and David Pelletier. The list remains both short and tentative as it remains to be seen what will come next from first time helmers like Scott Smith, Marc Retailleau and Davor Marjanovic. An absence of women from this list suggests a boys' club; however, as several BC women are currently in the process of transitioning from shorts to features, membership in this club should soon change.

Just as Bailey points out that the Toronto New Wave favours certain directors at the expense of others, the designation of a Pacific New Wave would likely not include Lynne Stopkewich or Greg Middleton. Despite their significant presence and participation in the local film community, their films do not really correspond to the aforementioned characteristics. The thematic concerns of Stopkewich's films are less specifically local while Middleton brings a more fluid and refined cinematographic style than that of Johnson or Aschmann, both of whom rely less on cranes and dollies as tools for character study. (18) Designating the turn of the millennium as the focal point of Pacific filmmaking also overlooks the contributions through the 1980's and 1990's of Sandy Wilson as well as 1970% indie pioneers Jack Darcus, Larry Kent and Sylvia Spring. Due to these exclusions, the view presented by the Pacific New Wave does not encompass either the full range or historical emergence of independent filmmaking in Vancouver. Meanwhile, looking beyond the Rockies might lead to the inclusion of Gary Burns given that waydowntown (2000) provides a dystopic look at Calgary's Plus 15 walkway system; in addition, Burns' Kitchen Party (1997) served as a starting point for several BC actors.

Largely drawn from the city's two university film schools, Vancouver's kitchen party attendees remain actively involved in supporting new graduates; however, activity has not coalesced around Cineworks in the same way as the Torontonions gravitated toward LIFT. Ensemble casting is exemplified by Sweeney regulars Tom Scholte, Nancy Sivak, Babz Chula, Ben Ratner and Vincent Gale, several of whom also star in Weber's No More Monkeys. Both Sweeney and Weber paint wry portraits of dysfunctional urban interrelationships in which hapless characters negotiate imperfect personal lives that are set against unsatisfying work-lives. For instance, in No More Monkeys Jumpin' on the Bed, when Peter discovers that his girlfriend Fiona refuses to end her sexual relationship with a bisexual man, he turns to his ex Claire who is caught up in her own unhappy living arrangements with her boyfriend Lyle; their friends include borderline alcoholic Susan who is unable to succeed either personally or professionally and Rick, the charming womaniser. Meanwhile, A Girl is a Girl (1999) maps the trysts of a serial monogamist while rollercoaster follows a group of high risk youth who break into an amusement park With their disaffected characters and gritty outlook, the Pacific New Wave films react against the use of Vancouver as an attractive Hollywood back lot, stressing instead an ambivalent response to urban life. In his discussion of Last Wedding, Peranson explains that this is "the Vancouver left out of tourist Brochures," (19) thereby providing an inadvertent reminder that the province's first film development office operated "under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism." (20) The dual nature of the city's drug culture encompasses the trendiness and hippiness of marijuana alongside the devastations of HIV in the downtown eastside--a range that corresponds to the recreational drug use of A Girl is a Girl and Dirty (1998) as well as the ravaging effects of addiction in We All Fall Down and Protection (2000). In contrast to the charming rural community of The Lotus Eaters (1993) or the stunning vistas of Touched, these films make unapologetically honest use of Vancouver's spaces, with a particular focus on the downtown core. In the spring of 2002, an overturned, bullet-ridden car graced the steps of the public library for Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas' new thriller Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002). This grand coliseum-like building also provided the setting for the party scenes in Arnold Schwarzenegger's The 6th Day (2000). In an innovative move, the beginning of No More Monkeys includes a chance run-in between Peter and Clair outside this local landmark where we find out that she works as a librarian. During their brief encounter, they discuss the building's odd architectural presence. Peter points out that, if you look at it a certain way, the library resembles a roll of toilet paper.

It may be due to inattention to capturing a sense of place that Carl Bessai's Vancouver-feature Lola (2001) does not seem to fit in with the Pacific New Wave. The urban scenes in the first part of the film distort geographical space in a way that could be jarring to the local viewer. Although Lola experiences life in a discontinuous and detached way, it is arguable that Sandra could just as well be saving her from stepping in front of a TTC streetcar rather than a Translink electric bus. Thus, despite the film's intimate documentary style, that bears lingering traces of the Dogme aesthetic, Bessai's story could easily have been set elsewhere. Conversely, the characters of Last Wedding find their lives inescapably shaped by the west coast landscape. Noah, a waterproofing specialist, lives in a leaky condo with his new bride Zipporah, whose love of horses and dream of country music stardom suggest that she hails from outside the lower mainland. The tension over architectural styles between Shane and his girlfriend Sarah, who takes a job at a high-powered firm, evokes anxieties over Vancouver's rapid gentrification; from Yaletown through the old Expo site and into the southern downtown core, the skyline is rapidly being filled up with new condominium high-rises. At one point, Sarah even mentions Vancouver's tendency to disregard the preservation of historical landmarks in favour of new building developments. Not limited to downtown settings, Bruce Spangler's Protection provides an exploration of a family torn apart by addiction that effectively captures Surrey's suburban squalor in much the same way that Sweeney's Dirty exposes the underbelly of Vancouver life.

Even though Mark Peranson spends a portion of each year living in Vancouver and working at the film festival, it is significant that his Globe and Mail article about the Pacific New Wave coincides with the Toronto International Film Festival. Not only does this approach flame west coast filmmaking from a Toronto perspective, the implication is also that national recognition is required to legitimate a regional film scene. Additional coverage, in both national and local newspapers, depicts the arrival of Last Wedding stars Molly Parker, Ben Ratner and Tom Scholte at the film's gala screening. Scholte contrasts their limousine ride and red carpet walk with the 1995 presentation of Live Bait for which he "and Sweeney had to make their way around Toronto on the TTC ... clutching the only [film] print," (21) thereby making it seem as though the young creative talent from the west had finally officially arrived six years later. These observations are reminiscent of Janine Marchessault's analysis of the Toronto film scene in her article "Film Scenes: Paris, New York, Toronto." Extrapolating from Fredric Jameson's argument that "a national film culture needs its stars in order to take root," Marchessault adds that "it also needs its scenes and its cities, the setting where stars come into being." (22) She proceeds to trace a brief overview of the emergence of the TIFF as an international event that would "outdo the New York Film Festival," while concurrently fostering a thriving local scene. (23)

In this context, Peranson's A-listing of Sweeney along with the Vancouver Province's pictorials of western participation at the Toronto festival (24) suggest that the Vancouver scene is filtered through its relationship to Canada's pre-eminent film scene. My intention here is not to suggest that Vancouver's film scene is trapped in the type of "perpetual self-other, centre-margin binary" that Noreen Golfman has associated with "the co-dependent grand narratives of Canadian cultural life." (25) Rather than generating a reductive perspective of west coast filmmaking as rural, it seems instead that scenes are defined in relation to other scenes, whether international as in the case of Toronto with New York or intranational as with Vancouver and Toronto. Yet, it remains interesting that the term Pacific New Wave continues to lack currency on the west coast. Katherine Monk explains that the new Vancouver International Film Centre aspires to satisfy the dual "hopes of revitalizing the south downtown core and bringing the fragmented local film scene together." (26) Over the course of the past several years, the closing of theatres such as the Caprice, Paradise and Vancouver Centre has forced the Film Festival further and further away from the Granville strip, making it increasingly difficult for festival goers to take part in the "[s]eeing and being seen [that] is done at the scene." (27) At its proposed location at the corner of Seymour and Davie streets, the Film Centre will include permanent offices for the VIFF, a multi-format screening venue and office space for local productions. (28)

This project is linked to a residential and commercial development for which Amacon-Omni receives a density bonus as part of a City Council program that "permits developers to increase their on-site density in new construction in exchange for providing a public amenity of a social, recreational or cultural nature." (29) According to Sharon Zukin, the creation of gentrified downtown scenes expand and revitalize the physical landscape in a way that "suggests a diffusion outward from the geographical center of downtown's cultural power." (30) As such, the contingent classificatory value of the Pacific New Wave lies in its ability to unify local filmmaking trends just as the film centre strives to (re)focus an independent scene within a constellation of downtown venues. In this way a local imagined community provides a site for addressing the political and marketing aims of national cinemas by mediating between regional, national and international concerns.

The term new wave ultimately may prove incapable of adequately describing the range of western Canadian film production. In particular, it suggests a break that leaves out the continuing presence of filmmakers like Sandy Wilson and Anne Wheeler and can't seem to find a space for Lynne Stopkewich; but, the terms also draws a distinction between the overwhelming presence of American runaway production and recent growth in a locally-driven independent film scene. Nevertheless, regardless of discrepancies between the identities of their festivals and the corresponding local scenes, Vancouver's burgeoning cosmopolitanism will unavoidably find itself framed in relation to Toronto. And, even if time is unkind to the terminology and the Pacific New Wave consequently appears to ebb, it is worthwhile to remember that festival programmers tossed around the notion of "new Canadian cinema" in the late 1980's as they attempted to provide a name for what they saw.

Notes

(1) Ken Anderlini, "A West Coast Nouvelle Vague?," Film Festival Fresh Sheet 2 (Oct. 1999): 4.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Diane Burgess and Michael Ghent, "Canadian Images" (Introductory essay), 19th Vancouver International Film Festival (Fall, 2000): 72.

(5) Ken Eisner, "New Realism," The Georgia Straight (Sept. 14-21, 2000): 18.

(6) Ibid.

(7) Mark Peranson, "Riding the Pacific New Wave," The Globe and Mail (Sept. 3, 2001): RI.

(8) Ibid.

(9) Cori Howard, "The Irony of the Anti-blockbuster," National Post (Aug. 7, 1999): 4.

(10) Ibid.

(11) Ibid.

(12) Ibid.

(13) Ibid.

(14) Geoff Pevere refers to this movement as the Ontario New Wave in "Middle of Nowhere: Ontario Movies after 1980," Post Script 15:1 (Fall 1995): 9-22, while Kass Banning also invokes the term "new wave" in her discussion of Canadian cinema--"Editorial," CineAction 28 (1992): 2.

(15) Cameron Bailey, "Standing in the Kitchen all Night: A Secret History of the Toronto New Wave," Take One 9:28 (Summer 2000): 6.

(16) Ibid. McDonald's manifesto referred to "'the creation of the new Canadian Feature Film."

(17) Ibid, 10.

(18) Anderlini

(19) Peranson.

(20) Mike Gasher, Hollywood North: The Feature Film Industry in British Columbia, Vancouver: UBC Press (2002): 69. Gasher traces the evolution of BC film policy, stressing its predominantly industrial focus. He attributes the drafting of a "comprehensive cultural policy position" to Mike Harcourt's NDP government which took power from the right-leaning Social Credit party in the 1991 election (94).

(21) Christina Lopes, "Last Wedding's Scholte Basks in Gala Spotlight," www.globeandmail.com/special/filmfestival (Sept. 7, 2001).

(22) Janine Marchessault, "Film Scenes: Paris, New York, Toronto" Public: Cities/Scenes 22/23 eds. Janine Marchessault and Will Straw (2002): 68.

(23) Ibid, 72.

(24) For example: David Spaner, "Objective: Toronto," The Province (Sept. 6, 2001): C4. David Spaner, "Big Night for Wedding," The Province (Sept. 7, 2001): C2.

(25) Noreen Golfman, "Imagining Region: A Survey of Newfoundland Film," North of Everything: English-Canadian Cinema Since 1980, Eds: William Beard & Jerry White, Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press (2002): 47.

(26) Katherine Monk, "Council Approves New Vancouver Film Centre," The Vancouver Sun (Sept. 22, 2001): B4.

(27) Alan Blum, "Scenes," Public: Cities/Scenes 22/23 eds. Janine Marchessault and Will Straw (2002): 14.

(28) Monk.

(29) Fiona Hughes, "Film Festival Plans to Open its Own Movie House," The Vancouver Courier (Sept. 9, 2001): 26.

(30) Sharon Zukin, Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World Berkeley: University of California Press (1991): 187.

Diane Burgess is a PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University and programs the Canadian Images section of the Vancouver International Film Festival.