The War Room

CRONENBERG AND POLLEY ARE THE CENSORS

I have wanted to write about this issue for some time in more depth but many things have made it very difficult, not the least of which is encroaching parenthood and career opportunities.


But this article in the Globe I did want to comment on.


David Cronenberg on Bill C-10:


"In essence, all Canadian filmmaking is independent filmmaking and we are very dependent on government money to have a film industry, and so denial of that money is tantamount to censorship. Everybody knows it. They can put up their façade all they want, but everybody, including them, knows it."


Cronenberg wants us to buy into a view of defacto censorship. The problem with this is that Cronenberg incorrectly assumes that there is not already censorship that occurs at the funding agencies as to what films will or will not get financed and who gets the money.


As a screenwriter in Canada, I have no problem telling you that there - is - defacto censorship in the English Canadian Film Industry as to what films get financed, what subject matter is chosen and how much money people will get. The Quebec system is very different and they have a good merging of art and commerce.


I had lunch with a former reader at one of the funding agencies last summer. She told me that when she started she would be - told - to refuse development money for well written mainstram scripts by unknown writers in favour of lesser quality scripts by more esoteric filmmakers who were already in the system and depended on the money for support.


Much like the Human Rights Commissions which started out with noble intentions and then morphed into a place where they just need to be torn down, that is what is wrong with this system. That does not mean that there have not been good films or filmmakers produced under the system. People like Atom Egoyan, Bruce McDonald, Paul Gross and many others are very talented but there are too many sub-tier "artists" that get money that are not.


Let's put it another way...we all know and love American film.


Imagine if you looked back on the history of American film and there were no films about football. No films about baseball. No films about Vietnam, WWII or Iraq.


No superhero movies.


No Raiders of the Lost Ark, no Star Wars. No Field of Dreams, no Knute Rockne. No Apocalypse Now, no Green Berets. No It's a Wonderful Life. No Foxy Brown, no QT. No John Wayne or John Ford. No Oliver Stone, no George Clooney.


What if the only films America made were by Todd Haynes and Todd Solondz.


Don't know who there are. Look at the resumes. That's what we have in Canada. Mostly films made by extremist fringe "artists" and "personalities" who do not have to answer to the public to get their films made. It is a gravy train that keeps on moving. It is an impenetrable system to those who are not in the loop.


The rules for funding regulations constantly get re-written and you never know if you qualify. And if you do qualify but are unknown, you might get a call telling you that you do not qualify and will have to fight to get through (that happend to me and two other people I know). If you do not qualify but know people in the agency...it doesn't matter. I know one person who did not qualify but was friends with readers at the agency and said he was promised thousands. There are no checks and balances and nobody ever gets questioned.


A corporation knows it might get audited. With Canadian film funding agencies, there are no such scenarios.


It is a corrupt, broken system.


Cronenberg must know this and is also being disingenuous because the majority of funding for his films comes from either Britain and America. Cronenberg (who is wealthy by any common defintion I might add) takes token amounts from the funding agencies for script development so that he can qualify for Canadian awards. He does not need the money and has had numerous offers to direct Hollywood blockbusters throughout his entire career. He has been offered everything from Top Gun to Beverly Hills Cop 2 to Basic Instinct 2. And I say this as someone who is a fan and loves the man's work. I even loved his most controversial work Crash. I even defended him in film school when the feminists said he was a misogynist and not a "true" Canadian filmmaker.


Cronenberg does not have a dog in this fight. Neither does Sarah Polley who is also a Hollywood darling and very wealthy. They have no problem getting work.


What bothers me are the multitudes of filmmakers (writers, actors, directors etc.) who are getting conned by these two into buying into a system that will - NEVER - allow them to make the films they want.


Young film school students who are buying into a myth that they are fighting alongside their heroes like Polley and Cronenberg for free speech when the very system that they are fighting for will see them out of the industry in 5 years waiting tables.


Cronenberg says this is defacto censorship because Canada has an independant system. The problem is, the reason we have that system is because left-wing filmmakers like Polley and Cronenberg do not want a system based on private capital. They will take private capital gigs when they want to...they just do not want other artists to have the same opportunity.


Bill C- 10 will not change the industry. It will be this way for a long time. But plenty of filmmakers out there are not being heard who - do - want change. Not even conservatives, just people tired of the same people getting the same funding to make films that nobody wants to see.


I do not want a conservative film industry. I just want a level playing field where all Canadian voices are heard. That is not happening now.


Bill C- 10 is not a solution, but it is a step in the right direction.


Anyone who defends the current system is the true censor.

posted by Nicol DuMoulin @ 7:56 AM