4 - Wednesday, February 4, 1987 - North Shore News Bob Hunter ® strictly personal ® ONCE YOU get outside of Canada, Canadians tend to become invisible, even in the English-speaking world, where you would think we have been around long enough to have something to offer, or at Icast to be respected or remembered for. The fact is that Canada is viewed as having made just about zero contribution to modern culture. In the field of movie-making, this is particularly painfully ob- vious, Movies such as Gallipoli, The Year of Living Dangerously and My Brilliant’ Career have put Australian film-makers squarely on the artistic map. Their stuff appeals not only to Brits, but to Americans, French, everybody. It is because they use an almost documentary style to record their own indigenous truths, their own distinct reality. By portraying themselves ex- actly as they were or are, the Aussies have given the worid something unique, and hence ar- tistically important. Canadian stuff still doesn’t cut it as being recognizable. At best, we're Americans with an accent — or rather, a lack of accent, Even Margaret) Atwood’s award-winning novel, A HMand- maid’s Tale, is set in the future United States. Canada is only a place to escape to. That's amazingly typical, by the way, of the kind of invisibili- ty Canadians enjoy abroad. It is galling in the extreme to ask an Aussic, who has a rude slang name for every type of human being, what the word for Canadian is, only to be told with” a shrug: ‘‘Oh, I guess Yank.”’ They sincerely do not distinguish us from Yanks, unless the point is brought home through forceful insistence that there is, indeed, a difference, eh? Here is a personal experience which illustrates the problem of the vanishing Canuck: Last year, | spent no less that Watertrort three months working on a script for a feature-length movie about the sinking of the Rainbow War- rior in Auckland Harbour. One of my producers was a Canadian, that is, a chap who had moved here from Holland. The other was an expatriate South African, tiving in] New Zealand. The director was an ex- patriate American, also living in New Zealand. During our sessions, | was the token native-born Canadian, if you like. We spent much of our time down in Hollywood, surrounded by Americans, whose Hollywood-style script. formula we were trying to follow. American advisors were, in fact, brought in, to tel! me, ig- norant pup that | was — merely having been there — about char- acter ‘‘arcs,"’ plot points, anthem endings, signatures, etc. The main character in our somewhat fictionalized — that is, dramatized — movie version of the events leading up to the sink- ing of the ecology ship, happened to be a Canadian. That is, it was based on a composite of characters, most of whom had definitely been Cana- dians, since the struggle against French nuclear testing in the South Pacific owes slightly more to Canadians than it does any other nationality, believe it or not. The fact wis, the Rainbow Warrior's feader, in the movie version of reality, could quite le- xitimately be oa Canadian. Gee wiv, that was kind of remarkable in itself, eh? But all it turned out to mean, in terms of a script, was that, while all the other characters were identified with one country or another, the jead role was lett open —— that is, blank — so that it could hopefully be piayed by a famous American name star, ideally Harrison Ford, or, God, maybe even Paul Newman! Although he didn't have to be American. He might also be Sean Connery, a Brit. What counted was that he be a famous actor, That way, the whole project would be more successful, you sec. Big studios would like it. Cash) flow would occur. A “‘name’’ would guarantee worldwide distribution. None of which would happen if we merely scripted in a Cana- dian to play a role that had in fact been performed in real life originally by Canadians. It was a case of an American being able ta portray a Canadian without any important segment of the global audience noticing the difference — an intriguing reversal on the usual theme of Canadian actors and actresses going down ta Hollywood to play the part of Americans, or, equal fy absurdly, Donald Sutherland straining to play a British officer in a smovie about the American tevaltition. Itimakes me begin to wonder if we actualy do exist, Canadians, that ois. Maybe that’s the message. My theory is we have been basically swallawed. folks. Enjoy it. Its not so bad here in the belly of the beast. 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