They are the stories we tell ourselves. Canadians to Canadians. Canadian news stories.
But does the rest of the world care about what we read in the paper or watch on the news?
The Toronto International Film Festival – the world’s largest public film festival features more than 300 films from more than 60 countries, 20 of them Canadian, will have four this year based on real-life Canadian news headlines.
Four directors – two Canadian, one British and one Hollywood director have chosen Canadian news stories as the inspiration for two documentaries and two features films, a couple with well-known Hollywood actors and one Hollywood director.
Below are the four Canadian news stories that inspired TIFF – 9.79*, Argo, Still, Showstopper: The Theatrical Life of Garth Drabinsky.
Still
It’s one of those stories that you read about in the paper and think, “wow that would make a great movie” and that’s exactly what Michael McGowan did when he read the story about Craig and Irene Morrison from St. Martin’s, New Brunswick. He read about their story in the paper and flew out to New Brunswick the next day.
Their story is of enduring love, family, hard-work, self-reliance and a battle between David and Goliath or in this case Craig Morrison and a local planning commission who objected to the house he was building overlooking the Bay of Fundy for his wife, Irene who has Alzheimer’s.
Craig Morrison is 94, has seven children, 14 grand-children and eight great-grandchildren. He has built five homes by himself with his own hands and yet he found himself being dragged into court six times by a local planning commission who objected to his latest home, even though it was certified by an independent inspector as being beyond “code”. The courts wanted the house demolished, the Morrisons removed and Craig sent to jail.
McGowan was inspired by the true events and turned the Morrison love story into a feature film starring James Cromwell and Genevieve Bujold.
9.79*
Directed by Daniel Gordon
9.79, Ben Johnson, 1988, Seoul. The words conjure up painful memories for Canadians who watched that day when a Canadian won the 100 metre sprint at the Seoul Olympics in 9.79 seconds and became the fastest man in the world, only to lose the gold medal days later after he was found to have tested positive for doping.
It was the negative equivalent of our greatest hockey moment when we beat the Russians in 1972. People remember where they were when they watched the race and when they heard the news. We had held our heads high only to bow our heads low with international shame. Books have been written about it, even as late as this year. 14 years later, an English writer has penned a book called The Dirtiest Race in History.
Now, a documentary has been made about the Olympic event which also includes the intense rivalry between American Carl Lewis and Canadian Ben Johnson.
British documentarian Daniel Gordon interviews all eight of the men who ran that race to get their side of the story and uncovers all of the human elements that lead to the rise and fall of a great Canadian athlete.
Argo
Directed by Ben Affleck
It was 1979. Jimmy Carter was the President of the United States. Joe Clark was Prime Minister of Canada. And revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini was in power in Iran. On November 4, 1979, 3, 000 Iranian students stormed the walls of the American embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage. It would take 14 harrowing months before they would be free.
Meanwhile, six of their colleagues had managed to walk out of the embassy and found shelter in the homes of two Canadian diplomats. It took 79 days but Canada, the U.S., the C.I.A. and Canadian embassy staff managed to not only keep the six Americans safe but eventually got them out of Iran, without the world knowing about it (except for two journalists). It was then called “Operation Ex-filtration” of the American hostages. Today we Canadians know it as The Canadian Caper.
Fake Canadian passports were made for the Americans who would pose as Canadians scouting locations in Iran for a fake film called “Argo”. There was a real fake studio set up in Los Angeles with real people answering phone calls. Fake ads were placed in Hollywood publications. A make-up artist who had worked on Planet of the Apes and shaped Leonard Nimoy’s ears for the Star Trek character Spock, worked as a key CIA agent. It was all in an effort to get six Americans through the airport and on a flight to Zurich without being suspected and without endangering the other American hostages still in the embassy.
George Clooney is a producer. Ben Affleck is the director and also plays the lead C.I.A. operative Tony Mendez. Victor Garber plays the heroic Canadian Ambassador to Iran Ken Taylor. John Goodman plays the CIA agent/make-up artist.
Showstopper: The Theatrical Life of Garth Drabinsky
Directed by Barry Avrich
In the late 1970’s Drabinsky and a partner brought the multiplex theatre concept to the Toronto Eaton Centre with 18 screens. That theatre would form the basis for Cineplex Odeon which became the largest movie theatre chain in North America in the 1980’s. You can blame Drabinsky for the advertising before you watch a film, he invented that too.
When Drabinsky and his parter Myron Gottlieb were forced out of the company they formed Livent – a live theatre production company that brought Phantom of the Opera to Toronto and expanded to New York. Livent went on to produce Ragtime, Showboat, Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Fosse and was nominated for 61 Tony Awards and won 19 for productions that began in Toronto, which is now known as a live theatre destination, behind London and New York.
Drabinsky and Gottlieb saw their good fortune in 1998 when they declared Livent bankrupt. In 1999, while Fosse was winning a Tony Award for best musical, the two men behind the production were being charged by New York authorities with misappropriating millions of dollars from investors. The two came back to Canada and would eventually be charged with similar offences here.
Ten years later, on March 25, 2009, Myron Gottlieb and Garth Drabinsky were convicted in an Ontario court for fraud. Just days after making his last appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, 2011, for his latest production, Barrymore, a film based on the play, starring Chrisopher Plummer, Drabinsky began serving his five year sentence at a minimum security facility in Graverhurst, Ontario.
In 1995, Drabinsky received the Order of Canada (an honour he may one day lose.)
Garth Drabinsky is the subject of Showstopper: The Theatrical Life of Garth Drabinsky, directed by Barry Avrich. The documentary looks at the rise and fall of the man once referred to as “the great impresario”. Avrich interviews Drabinsky’s friends, foes and media to tell the tale of his rise and fall.
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