To: Danielle Roy

Media Arts Assistant Canada Council Ottawa, Ontario

October 15, 1992

I have just seen a video copy of Richard Hancox's new film, Moose Jaw. I think it is a very strong film and deserves the council's support.

The film maintains a delicate balance between nostalgia and irony, history and autobiography, documentary objectivity and subjective expression; humour and lamentation, patriotic fervour, and the sad recognition of economic priorities that not only ignore local allegiances, and regional identities, but relegate national institutions, like Canada's transcontinental railroads^-, to exhibits in a "Museum of Transportation'.'"

Straddling the border between documentary and experimental film, Moose Jaw challenges viewers to find their own ways of responding to its poignant, yet devastating, images of a Canadian community gone down hill. It also refuses to provide a single, unambiguous characterization of the filmaker as observer-commentator-participant seeking unsullied memories (i.e. images) of his childhood and home town.

Unlike most documentaries, Hancox's film does not tell us how to think about its images of Moose Jaw—past and present. (I can't think of a better film to juxtapose with, for example, the NFB's City Of Gold and September 5 In St. Henri.) Unlike many experimental films, on the other hand, it never sacrifices "content" to "form"-which is not to say that the film is not formally innovative, but simply that it$• sounds and images are always relevant to the film's complex layering of personal and political points of view on the fate of small Canadian cities like Moose Jaw.

The film's soundtrack is especially rich in nuances, ironies, jokes, echoes of the past and intrusions of the present. Sometimes straightforward, sometimes mysterious and intangible, the sound subtly but powerfully compliments and deepens the film's visual impression of a unique but at the same time representative intersection of Canada's past and present.

In addition to its intrinsic worth as a work of art, the film's relevance to the past, present and (likely) future of Canada, make it an important work for Canadians to see- and think about. Therefore, I urge the Council to support this film with a grant equivalent to its costs of completion.

Sincerely,

William C. Wees, Associate Professor, Dept. of English, McGill University