Home
for Christmas description 50 minutes 16mm 1978
"Here
is the quintessential Hancox 'personal documentary,'
a film in which both the production and role of traditional documentary and
autobiographical filmmaking are thrown into question. Using his camera to
record a visit out east by train to spend Christmas with the family, Hancox ....
used his familiarization with the annual ritual as a
form of a script... Although we see the journey through the subjective judgment
of Hancox’s eyes, it is his intent to transfer the
material from original event to camera, to editing, and finally to the
audience, so that the personal content of the film... becomes universal.”
Michael
“It
is the honesty of portrayal which is staggering, for instead of an idyllic
image which many filmmakers present of themselves, Hancox
presents (and thus, sees) himself without cinematic make-up... with ‘wild sync’
sound (reminiscent of an early film), and with the use of only available
natural light.” Richard Stanford
“Home for Christmas is a unique
exploration of the Canadian mythos—winter, trains, booze, the family and
solitude. In penetrating the essence of the mythical, Hancox
has combined the home movie with the technological epic, to achieve a profound
filmic archaeology of the warmth of Northern existence, in the Pierre Perrault sense, that if you are cold in this country, you
must be a tourist.” Michael Dorland
“The most
hotly debated of all the personal films shown at the Grierson.”
Available
from: Canadian Filmmakers' Distribution Centre
telephone:
416-588-0725, e-mail: bookings@cfmdc.org
web:
www.cfmdc.org
Reviews, Articles, Text & Notes:
Home For Christmas by Rick Hancox, August 18, 1978 Autobiography: Film/Video/Photography ed. John Stuart Katz (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1978)
Application for Home for Chrismas Grant
Final Report to the Canada Council on Home for Christmas
Thoughts on: Alternate Film: Rick Hancox’s Home for Christmas, Budworks, Island Memories by Neal Livingston, January 8, 1979