Zach Braff, the American star of the TV show Scrubs, stars in Deborah Chow’s The High Cost of Living.Jan Thijs
A quick glance at Canadian films at this year's Toronto International Film Festival shows an intriguing pattern: There sure are a lot of American stars in them, and not always where you might expect.
Along with high-profile Canadian productions such as Barney's Version, with Paul Giamatti and Dustin Hoffman, and Casino Jack, with Kevin Spacey, what is particularly striking is the presence of American talent in first-time films from English-Canadian directors. These include Michael Goldbach's Daydream Nation, with Kat Dennings, Josh Lucas and Andie MacDowell; Jonathan Sobol's A Beginner's Guide to Endings, with Harvey Keitel, Scott Caan and J.K. Simmons; and Deborah Chow's The High Cost of Living, with Zach Braff. As well, Larysa Kondracki's first film, The Whistleblower, a German-Canadian co-production, is a Bosnian-set political thriller that has an international cast, including Rachel Weisz, Vanessa Redgrave and David Strathairn.
Does this represent a flourishing in Canadian film, to compete with low-budget American independents? Or is it a reversion to the bad old days of the seventies' tax-shelter years, 1978 to 1981, which saw a boom in the volume of film production in Canada but came at a cost – generic stories, B-list American actors in lead roles and Canadian locations disguised as American cities? That era, defined by what director Allan King called the "coffee-boy syndrome" in Canadian film, left a stigma that has not entirely faded.
The short answer is no: The current economy is too lean for the kind of waste that the tax-shelter years represented. On the other hand, six years of Conservative government and an eight-year-old Telefilm Canada mandate to encourage more commercial films have had an effect. Noticeably, producers talk about the importance of recognizing the commercial realities of filmmaking, which demands an international audience.
Nicholas Tabarrok, who produced last year's TIFF film Defendor, with Woody Harrelson, produced A Beginner's Guide to Endings, which is about three brothers who discover, because of a decision made by their irresponsible father (Harvey Keitel), that they have only a week to live.
Tabarrok, who has offices in Toronto and Los Angeles, says national distinctions simply do not apply when it comes to Canadian and American filmmaking. "It isn't Canadian or American; it's the studio system versus the independent system. The business of making films is so expensive, I think you have to think of reaching audiences of tens or hundreds of thousands. Perhaps in a few cases – Passchendaele or Bon Cop, Bad Cop – you can reach a big enough audience in Canada, but the population is just too small to aim for a Canadian audience."
What does it take to attract recognizable stars, and the financing that comes with them?
"Script, script and script," Tabarrok says. "Though people can be cynical about it, the truth is actors are artists who are looking to do interesting work. Their priorities are first, script; second, director; and third, money. In many cases, I don't think people believe they can actually get the best person for a role so they settle for someone else."
With Tabarrok's encouragement, director-writer Jonathan Sobol wrote personal letters to every actor they wanted in the film, along with a copy of the script, explaining why he needed to direct them in his movie.
Tabarrok said his first choice for the role of the irresponsible family patriarch was Keitel, who wanted to do the film but had a conflict. His second choice was Dennis Hopper, who agreed to do the film. However, when Hopper became sick with the prostate cancer that took his life last year, Keitel was available.
In the case of Daydream Nation, the film actually was in the U.S. studio system before it came to Vancouver-based producer Christine Haebler. Director-writer Michael Goldbach had worked for four years to get the film made before it eventually came back to Canada.
"There are two things going on," Haebler says. "First, dwindling financing for American films has made Canada more attractive. Actors want to work and because of what's happened to independent film in the United States, there are fewer opportunities. You can attract very big talent. We wanted the right actors and, in this case, Kat Dennings was so specifically right for it. Telefilm is no longer a bad word; it means real money is available. At the same time, I think Canadian producers have matured to meet the new realities. We're more interested in stars that are going to reach the widest possible audience."
Haebler, who cut her teeth as a producer on Bruce McDonald's Hard Core Logo (1996), points to herself as an example of a mid-level producer (as opposed to a senior producer such as Robert Lantos) who is increasingly conscious of the commercial imperative. After Hard Core Logo, which was a critical and cult success, she realized that the film simply didn't reach enough people: "This job is just too hard not to reach a big audience."
She says the concern with producing a commercially successful film made her leery of working with a novice director on Daydream Nation: "I totally grilled him for two days. Does this guy know what he's doing? What I liked was that he knew what he knew and he knew what he didn't know, and he was forthright about that. When he told me what he didn't know, I could say, 'Okay. I can take care of that.' I will always think of myself as a creative producer, but now I also think of myself as a business person. I am a business person. That's a paradigm shift."
Kim Berlin and Susan Schneir of Suki Films, producers of Deborah Chow's Montreal-set The High Cost of Living, were keenly aware that they needed a star to play opposite Quebec actress Isabelle Blais. The dark drama is about a pregnant woman whose life becomes entwined with a man dealing with addiction issues. "When you're trying to raise money, you promise someone high-profile, but, of course, everyone says that," Schneir says. "Then you cast your net and hope. And, in this case, we got who we needed. Telefilm was thrilled."
They credit the script and timing for their success at attracting Zach Braff, star of the television series Scrubs and director, writer and star of the indie hit Garden State. "Zach was looking to do a drama. He got the script on Friday, read it Saturday and agreed to be in the movie on Monday," Schneir says. "If he'd been looking for something else at that point, we would have been out of luck."
Again, they both emphasize the paramount importance of the script: Berlin's formula is 60 per cent script, 30 per cent luck and 10 per cent casting. But the casting can have ancillary benefits down the line. The producers say Braff has been unstinting in his praise for co-star Blais and his enthusiasm for the project.
That leads to increased connections. Steve Gravestock, Canadian programmer for the TIFF, points out: "The interesting thing is that the American actors come back. Kat Dennings was in Defendor last year and now she's returning in a bigger role."
Apart from the wider availability of out-of-work American talent, another advantage for Canadian filmmakers may be a slightly different approach to genre, Gravestock says. Even in the independent and quasi-independent U.S. movie sector, American filmmakers tend to be more straightforward and the Canadian twist can be refreshing.
At the same time, Gravestock feels that English-Canadian films have shifted in the past six or seven years to be closer to American films, if not exactly the same.
Haebler adds: "I still send out scripts and get back the response 'too Canadian,' though I'm not exactly sure what that means."