Canadian Film

Gail L. Cox was Librarian, Audio Visual Services, Metro Toronto Reference Library.

Clandfield has written a chronological perspective on Canadian film as part of Oxford University Press’s Perspectives on Canadian Culture series. The six chapters deal with the origins of the industry in 1896, Grierson, documentary since 1939 in English and in French, fictional film since 1939 in English and in French, and animated and experimental film. The chronology reaches to 1987 with mention of Roxema’s (I’ve heard the mermaids singing) success at Cannes.

Comments are succinct and well founded. On the work of Janis Cold and Holly Dale, Clandfield writes, “they display a passionate humanism” (p. 35). When discussing the work of Pierre Perrault, “His desire to explore through the creative word acts as Pierre’s foil for the raw self-assurance of the characters whose experience he tries to share” (p. 49). The chapters on dramatic film give precise critique of films, the film industry, and film criticism as evidenced in the chapters on Paul Almond’s trilogy (p. 97). The section on animated films accords due homage to the NFB and Norman McLaren. Only brief mention is made of other animators and studios, such as Gerald Potterton, Frédéric Bach, or Nelvana, or the Winnipeg Film Group. Clandfield’s paragraphs on experimentalists such as Joyce Wieland and Bruce Elder are brief, yet enticing.

Films and books are recommended for further study and there is an “Index (chiefly of Filmmakers).” An index of films would have been helpful. Throughout the text filmmakers’ names appear in bold-face type, film titles are italicized.

There is a wealth of information packed into this slight paperback. Clandfield’s style is smooth, his insights perceptive. He teaches cinema studies at the University of Toronto; he reviews books on film for the University of Toronto Quarterly, and his articles on Canadian cinema have appeared in numerous periodicals. Canadian Film stands as a companion piece to Eleanor Beattie’s Handbook of Canadian Film (1977) and Seth Feldman’s Canadian Film Reader (1977).