Thoughts on: Alternate Film: Rick Hancox’s Home for Christmas,
Budworks, Island Memories by Neal Livingston (January 8, 1979)
Alternate film in Canada today goes Ignored and presently faces a, crisis in
which it may come close to extinction. In my mind such a crisis exists partially
as a result of the emphasis of government funding shifting more to independent
cinema, to cover the N.F.B. and other cutbacks, and a result of the lack of
alternate filmmakers understanding their common values, through which to stand
together and be recognized as a significant body of Canadian Film producers.
Acknowledging how and why historical and regional differences exist, and understanding
how they differentiate Alternate film would be a necessary first step.
In August of 1978 Rick Hancox produced a small treatise on autobiographical film which to my Knowledge is the only recent written explanation of a facet of Alternate film, from English Canada. My purpose here is to examine his statement, and expand upon it to explain some of the principles and motivations I and I believe others have in producing Alternate film.
Alternate film has as it's basic value 'something to say.’ Whether representational or abstract the purpose is to arouse in the viewer a sense of responsibility as a subjective individual (opinion forming). Presently such production values are unacceptable in the mainstream film thereby making our task also one of redefining Canadian cinema. “The task of awakening an awareness of individual existence is not possible with the objective stance of conformist cinema". -Rick Hancox
The objective of alternate film is to communicate "the truth of human experience." This is morality. It assumes that the filmmaker is a responsible individual who in approaching a subject wishes to communicate an understanding of it. Film is the vehicle through which one to one communication is attempted. 'rlhat one's objectives are suddenly becomes important recognizing"cinema as manipulation". Every film is different yet there are connecting principles, contrasted to comme cial cinema and the hollywood formula Budworks comes fronthe need to have a film that could aid in organizing people against the human and ecosystem massacre from the aerial insecticide spraying of forests.
My purpose was to illustrate what I knew and felt about a high profile issue. Home for Christmas is a personal treatise on the middle class family. Both film treatments are personalized as much as each topic allows. Each topic dictates a different set of working rules.
My impression on the need to work with a 'materialist dialectic' are twofold: Alternate filmmakers seem to have a particular need to balance their film involvement /evolvement with their personal lives. From David Rimmer in the West, to Walter Delorey in the Fast, filmmakers strive to be people involved in their social communities in their chosen environments. This is the antithesis of the commercial oriented Hollywood bound, success fashion, and style movie-makers. Within each alternate film there is a dialectic of production principles. Budworks does it on simple levels bureaucrats at their desks -formalized camera work, others at home-hand held. Island Memories by John Brett is more confusing to most viewers, who see an apparently normal documentary lacking a defined statement. They fail to recognize the viewing experience as subjective orientation, or simply stated as a dream. The dialectic stretches from being 'about' the camera to the totality of a film’s events.
Alternate film is rooted in an understanding that as film ideas differ so does each films form. Communicating is the basic essence, so structure and forms obviously vary. (Hollywood moulds its films to standard forms). The Alternate film viewer is often perplexed at being unable to arrive at an objective stance not realizing that it is he or she that is being asked to be involved, resulting in confusion or irritation-vis a vis Aura-Gone.
As each film differs in a filmmakers repertoire so does each film have its production values,' sometimes seemingly useless but actually specifically directed, as the films' personalized inner codes. Hancox describes Home for Christmas "as an actual reflection of my subjective experience of the trip." Budworks' values were to record fact while simultaneously communicating my subjective response of the subject to the viewer. Film people often see this film as taking heads receptive audiences as talking hearts.' Here, the even older tired values of talking heads take on meaning as the viewer is given time to respond to a subject like a personal encounter, forming impressions which in film style are nearly taboo today. This is where I see Budworks political stance to exist, in relying on cinematic truth. Neither does Budworks suffer from "voyeristic" candour, but is a document of mine and the crews involvement/encounters with each subjectt who is treated with subjective response (partially in editing order), and dignity. Interim Sketches the stylistic forefather of Budworks searches to abandon film styles, or a visual simplicity that focuses the viewer and the film subjects in
personal confrontation with each other (angst-humour).
Hancox whose style is so involved with camera presence says it's "no big deal.' Such a style is not a “concerned documentary validating a middle class filmmakers 'phony' confrontation with the pain of his bourgeois roots." This is Home for Christmas’s excellence. It wallows in the contemporary confrontations documentary process yet transcends it perfectly. People who don't understand this film are left confused expecting 'concern" and not understanding the necessary subjective interpretation. Viewer response is a strange semi-understandable combination of personal and collective perception and interpretation. Film people see Budworks as rough and unacceptable to viewing. Green Fountain films sees it as Grass roots excellence in environmental documentary. Bill Sloane sees it as important contemporary documentary, and condemns Island Memories as poor cinema, while others see it as brilliant. Alternate filmmakers decide that their particular genre-such as the downtown Toronto urban experimental malaise film is 'new cinema,' not understanding their environmental and geographical factors as determining forces. Obviously more communication is needed.
Hancox lays down a set of guiding principles which do seem agreeable on and functional for Alternate cinema. They are an intimate knowledge of and personal involvement or commitment to a subject usually offer a period of years,and the fact that out of this commitment 'archetypes 'emerge, become apparent and function. This is where the truth of cinematic enquiry lies. Budworks followed such a pattern, a long term awareness of the specific problem, and a desire to turn incident, investigation and topic, outward, to be broadly identifiable and comparable like an archetype. Island Memories follows its own archetypal investigation , similarily involved in a specific place its history and contemporary memories. “I simply begin with the assumption that subjective truth is waiting to be discovered and translated through the process of shooting and editing." -Rick Hancox
The problem in appreciating Alternate cinema comes from the inability of the viewer to learn to open himself or herself as a translator of events-a subjective vs. objective receptor. This is understandable after being raised on Hollywood which by keeping you objective can splatter the screen with anything. The viewer is only required to hold oneself sufficiently blinded in perception to be appreciative.
Finally Hancox understands the first and last notions that keep alternative cinema alive. This is the knowledge that the creation of alternative works are enriched by “the passage of time.” Canada’s wealth of Alternate cinema, tomorrow’s classics, today are being sloughed off as mediocre or ignored.
Only through greater understanding and communication can Alternate filmmakers enrich each other and begin to reach the viewing audience that craves truth and value, and isn’t finding it in their total submission to commercial cinema today.
(quotations where applicable are from R. Hancox’s article of August 18, 1978)
Neal Livingston
C/o AFCO-op
1671 Argyle Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia