Politics and Art

A couple of days ago I was over at Andy’s place for a meeting with our new post production team on TV was the Democratic National Convention. Of course there aren’t many people who don’t know Barack Obama, and there are a lot of people who would like to see him become the next President of the Unites States.
The next day, we Canadians were informed that we would be voting for our country’s leader this coming autumn as well. Unfortunately, we don’t have any interesting or electrifying candidate like Obama running in our election. Oh-oh he’s talking politics, quick let’s leave the blog. Wait, don’t go! Seriously, I’m leading into something on film.
I was never into politics, I never really understood it and it never really affected me. And to be honest, I voted only once in my life. I always thought that no matter what joker was in power my life would ultimately remain the same as the quality of life went down and the cost of living went up. Recently though, (here’s the stuff on film—see I didn’t lie) our wonderful politicians in Ottawa began introducing wild ideas like Bill C-10 which made me start paying attention to who runs my country. The Bill is best described in the words of CBC as “an omnibus bill amending the Income Tax Act and contains a series of amendments affecting a variety of different industries, funds and individuals… The issue that concerns Canada’s film and television community is Section 120, which would allow the Heritage Minister (currently Josée Verner) to withdraw tax credits from productions determined to be ‘contrary to public policy.’” If you’re thinking that this sounds like censorship, well you’re thinking like a lot of film and TV people in Canada. Basically, the Heritage Minister would create a set of guidelines (the guidelines are yet to be established—because its always better to pass a Bill while it still hasn’t been fully thought out) to be monitored by committees within the heritage and justice departments. These guidelines would surely cover such things as violence, hatred, drug usage, racism and sexual content. So I guess we can’t make any after school specials in Canada. Of course the minister said: “Bill C-10 has nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with the integrity of the tax system. The goal is to ensure public trust in how tax dollars are spent.”
My opinion is a simple, either tax dollars go to art or they don’t. You can’t pick and choose what gets it and not, artists have a hard enough with that from the private sector with corporate sponsors who don’t want to damage their image by be associated with a specific type of artistic message. If the government does that any unique voices in the Canadian film industry will be destroyed. Besides, a truly insane person (and there are one or two of those in this country) will take offense to almost anything—in fact a quick Google search will give you interesting results who find such Canadian milestone children’s shows like Mr. Dressup and The Friendly Giant as offensive and not suitable for children. So, with this wonderful melting pot that is my country how can a government committee decide what goes against the entire public’s interest? An Afghani news show on cable that depends on grants to survive may be found offensive by a little old conservative racist white lady out west or an internationally acclaimed movie like C.R.A.Z.Y. from Quebec, which deals with drug use and homosexuality, may be offensive to a housewife somewhere in the Maritimes. But you know what? Canada is all of this. Like it our not, Canada is Muslim as it Jewish, Christian and everything else. Canada is gay as it is straight. The idea that the government can decide what kind art and ergo what type of thinking our tax dollars finance is false. No other country has such silly ideas where the government tells its people what is best for them… oh wait, China does that… as do Cuba and North Korea.

Maybe I will pay quite a lot of attention to this next election.

Its a Mad Mad World

Recently I discovered Mad Men, I bought the box set thanks to a gift card I received from my friend Kirsty—and I literally bought it blind. I had no idea what the show was about, or I fit was any good. I was impressed, very impressed. It is an incredible show with all the subtleties of the era in which is takes place. Watching Mad Men is a lot like watching an old movie from the 1960s the pacing, the cinematography all reminiscent of the era. The thing about Mad Men, they don’t hold anything back from the shovenist era. Much like one of my favorite films, Chinatown (1974 directed by Roman Polanski starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway) everybody in the show smokes and drinks. Men smack women, women use men and everybody has a dirty little secret. Funny, that sounds a lot like Ashita. Mad Men is yet another affirmation that I am not insane (and me looking forward to the padded cells and the three square meals a day of the funny farm). I was a little weary when making Ashita, I had been getting a lot of comments about the level of alcohol and tobacco consumption seen in the film. Literally, every character smokes and drinks in the film. Andy, the editor, and I were joking about how we will go down as the worst influence on young minds in cinema history (cool). Of course, most of my characters are women with a contemporary setting, so I can’t hide behind the “it was the 60s that what everyone did” banner. Instead I will hide behind the “they’re Japanese that’s what they do” banner.
When I was in Japan a few years ago, everywhere I went 80% of people smoked and more than that drank actively. Simply put, it’s a way of life for the Japanese. Maybe they’re not as “health enlightened” as us North Americans or maybe they just don’t care. So when making a movie about Japanese I needed to incorporate their character traits. And besides most people who are troubled or lonely tend to smoke and drink anyway. Don’t get me wrong I smoke cigars on occasion and I am a social drinker (long live the Irish Car Bomb) but I, honestly, take offence when someone comments that my film will promote smoking and drinking. If the message a view gets when the see someone smoke or drink on the screen is that smoking and drinking is cool, well then they’re in the wrong part of the ball park (unless you’re watching things like Pineapple Express or Cheech and Chong, which are movies about casual self medication). My hope is that when you see Ashita and see my characters, their cigarettes and booze will fit in naturally with their characters. These are lonely, sad and depressed characters it is natural for them to seek some kind of dependence (oddly enough the one who doesn’t smoke has become dependant on adultery).
My point is simple, as a filmmaker I would never glorify anything or put anything in my film simply because it looks cool, that is for the young and foolish. It is progresses the story, enhances the character or makes a statement about the character then it should be used. Much like violence, I would never put in a violent scene just to put one in. For example in one of Ashita’s stories “The Gift” the Toshio character violently smacks his wife. I’ve seen the edited scene a number of times now and Andy and I have the same view, the smack needs to be brutal and, believe me, it is. The reason it has to be brutal is because it needs to show people the sheer destructive nature of domestic violence. There is nothing pretty about that scene, nor is there anything pretty about a man who hits his wife. Like Roman Polanski once said: “You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity.”
It’s the same with smoking, drinking or sex. These are all things that may intrude on people’s sensitivities, but if they say something in art, then the artist should not be afraid to hide them. Filmmaking is art. Art is interpretive. No matter what it is, art always risks offending and always risks being disliked. That’s the nature of the beast.

Shooting Can Be Fun

In reading the July issue of American Cinematographer it was nice to read about the shooting of The Dark Knight, probably my favorite film of the year and one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Though some of you may disagree with me, I connected with the style and look of the film. To me it mixed a lot of experimental and classical elements of filmmaking together into what is a visually assaulting piece of storytelling. The Dark Knight was shot on 35mm film with some sequences shot in IMAX (a Canadian invention, thank you very much), which is something that has never been done before.
For those of you who know me, know that I am a big fan of trying new things and its nice to see a studio like Warner Bros. taking a chance with such a costly experiment. Those who have seen the film in IMAX (if you haven’t you should) will attest to the sheer beauty of the scenes. I love what the movie’s cinematographer, Wally Pfister, said about shooting in IMAX: “We just needed to shoot and learn…There’s a whole booklet about how to film in Imax, but our inclination was to break all those rules. In the end, we incorporated some of the ideas to a degree, but for the most part, we did what felt right to us and addressed composition shot-by-shot.” Which, to me, is refreshing and it’s a great learning point for me and any aspiring filmmaker out there. Anybody can take a film class, anybody can read American Cinematographer or any book on how to shoot a movie—and odds are if you learn that way, you will be able to shoot a movie—a rather generic looking movie, but a movie nonetheless. In all my films I teach myself how to shoot all over again. I often try to keep my film education as far away as possible when I approach shooting a movie. I want the approach for everything I do to be completely different and unique. Ashita was probably my effort at learning to shoot. First, I was shooting in PAL for the first time (more on PAL some other time) and I was shooting entirely at night, which are both two things I’ve never done before. I watched a lot of film noir along with a lot of films that inspire me, but I wanted to craft my own look for the film. A look of loneliness in the big city. Andy, Ashita’s editor, once commented that I really enjoy solitary people in big spaces—and for Ashita I do—it’s a look that I wanted.
Actually I never intended on shooting the film myself, I had originally hired a cinematographer and after the first two days of shooting, we let him go—it was both a combination of lack of visual style and paying too much of the wrong type of my attention to my all female, all Japanese cast members. When I came to the painful realization that I had to do my own camera work as well as work with actors in a language I don’t speak, I got rather ill. To overcome those very obstacles I had to preplan even more than I normally do. Some people story board, some people don’t story board (for The Meatball Story I didn’t story board, for Truant Café I did) in the case of Ashita, I decided to do a detailed shot list and literally cross off the shots right after I did them. What was almost unconscious about my shooting of Ashita was the beauty of some of the shots. My office is located downtown Toronto, so I often spend an hour or more a day walking through the streets of downtown—which is pretty much how I did my location scouting for Ashita. Most of the exteriors for the film are shot using existing light from the locations, which turned out surprisingly well. Before I shot I went to each location at night with my camera and looked through the viewfinder to get an idea of what my shot would look like. Some of the shots in Ashita are truly majestic. What’s funny in reading the American Cinematographer article on The Dark Knight, was how Wally Pfister and director Chris Nolan first tested the IMAX camera in Nolan’s backyard and then to test the night shots they put it in the back of a pick up truck and drove down Sunset Blvd. It must be nice to be able to test a $3 000,000 camera in your back yard and then put in your flatbed and drive around with it!