The Peanut Butter Solution March 14th @ The Mayfair Theatre

March Matinee of The Peanut Butter Solution
1985, PG, 94mins, Mayfair Theatre, 3pm March 14th, 35mm

From the director of Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller comes this endearing tale about a kid, a couple of friendly ghosts and a magical cure for baldness that comes with one important caveat: take it easy on the peanut butter.

Interview with Mike Dubue of the HILOTRONS

Mike Dubue is a musican, composer and a member of the Ottawa-based band HILOTRONS.

Paul Gordon of the Lost Dominion Screening Collective interviewed Mike about composing music for silent films. Mike and the HILOTRONS will be playing live March 28th at the Bytowne Cinema as part of the Canadian Cult Revue film series.


Mike Dubue (right) conducting Night of the Living Dead LIVE.  

Interview recorded (February 27th 2012)

PG: So Mike, you have been involved in scoring for films for a while now, but how did you get involved with scoring silent films?

MD: Well, it started with Metropolis and the 2009 opening of the Mayfair Theatre. It was sort of a hefty idea as it’s a really long film, but we said "Hey, let’s try this" and well, I became really addicted to scoring silent films.

PG: What was involved with scoring Metropolis considering it's over 2 hours long. It’s a well-known film, what did it take to pull it off?

MD: Well, the original score for Metropolis is brilliant so we didn’t really stray far away from it. However, it is arranged for an eighty piece Orchestra and we were a five-piece band. So we sort of broke it down but we had a lot to work with already, so really the job ahead of time was learning the material and doing a lot of rearranging and a slight bit of writing. Metropolis gave us a good scope of what the work is like to score a silent film. Whether we want to start from scratch and score it note for note or if we want to work with existing material.

PG: What were the instruments used for Metropolis and who were the musicians?

MD: Drums and percussion - Mike Essoudry. Paul Hogan played electric guitar. Linsey Wellman played bass clarinet, alto flute, flute, and alto sax. I played left-hand bass, right-hand organ, some synths, and bass.

PG: Since Metropolis you have scored a number of silent films including running a silent film festival. Can you name some of those films for us?

MD: Sure. So Metropolis, Nosferatu, The Rail Rodder, Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , Back to God’s Country, The Bear, Boy and Dog, Carry on Sergeant! (1928), Man from Glengarry, Tim’s Tiny Tooth, Wireless Telephony, Graphite Mining in Calabogie and Night of the Living Dead.

PG: Tell me a bit about Night of the Living Dead, that’s a bit of a different one because it’s not a silent film.

MD: The idea was to work with films in the public domain that weren’t silent but turn them into silent films in the sense of turning off the sound and then recreating the full sound design live. So I’d have voice actors on microphones in sync with actors on screen, then foley artists in sync doing all the sound effects with the film. Then I had a small chamber group orchestra of five strings, bass clarinet, guitar, prepared piano, vibes, and flute. It was all performed live to the film.

PG: Night of the Living Dead was one of your most successful shows including the shows at Bluesfest.

MD: That’s right, we did three shows at the Mayfair and two at Bluesfest.

PG: Are you ever going to do it again?

MD: Yep, when we can afford to do it. (Laughs)

PG: Ok what has been your favorite film to score so far?

MD: Well, Night of the Living Dead - it’s a tossup of three for three different reasons.

The Night of the Living Dead was really interesting because I directed a lot of how it actually worked live...I transcribed the whole script and created one of the first post-production scripts for the film because there was none in existence for whatever reason. Then I got to make a real Foley score, the way you would score Foley for something like an animated cartoon, like Looney Tunes. So that was kind of exciting...I got to work with the original music that George Romero had used but because it was all public domain I got to rearrange a bunch of ideas because the music editing in that film has always been kinda choppy. So I got to work with existing music but also rearrange, recompose. It was kind of fun to amalgamate it all together.

Then Cagliari is my favorite because I got to score it note for note. Then Back to God’s Country - it’s an original score but I kind of used lots of different music that would have been played or existed in Canada at the time, whether it be Canadian folk music, Acadian music, different Klezmer music.

PG: So right now you’re doing a mini tour with the HILOTRONS of Caligari plus four Canadian short films. How’s that going, and what’s involved with that?

MD: So far it’s going alright. We're trying to strategically book it for time and cost efficiency for the band on the road, because it’s a trying production to bring on the road. Trying might be the wrong word as we are enjoying it, there’s nothing trying about it - but it’s a lot of rehearsing to get it to the point where it is. It’s hard to treat the shows just like band shows so we are being selective of where we are playing. Then with the material itself it’s fun because with the four films as a band we are able to split the composing duties to everybody, we are all able to write for the films. So that’s a nice opportunity for the band.

PG: Speaking about the band, the HILOTRONS are pretty much a rock band, so what do they think about playing and composing for silent films?

MD: Well, the cool thing about this situation is that a lot of us come from and have somewhat of a background with scoring for cinema or live theatre, or dance. So we were able to utilize that experience in working with visual imagery. The band is good at wearing two hats, the hat of being a pop band playing on stage in rock concert format or we can work with a film, sort of like a chamber ensemble.

PG: Any major future plans?

MD: Well - as much work as I can do with the silent films. As much as I’m a musician, I’m also a real big film buff. A lot of what I’m trying to do with the silent films isn’t really necessarily about the music. The music is only there to kind of heighten the films and bring some attention to the actual picture. For me it’s all about the cinema and about people seeing the stuff because otherwise they might not see it without this opportunity. It’s exciting for the people to watch, especially the Canadian stuff that we are working with.

PG: Do you think silent films are having a bit of a renaissance? With The Artist winning Best Picture and Hugo.

MD: Yes, absolutely. Here is the interesting thing about the silent era: it is what it is and when talkies came out cinema became a different art form. Needless to say the silent era was pretty much completely squashed just because industry standards had changed, which is fine because we have had amazing cinema since then, but the art of the way silent films were made was kind of left unexplored. 30 years of the silent era is really not a long time for any art form so hopfully the renaissance that you mention maybe has a lot to do with people wanting to re-explore the idea an see what we can do with it now.

PG: Cool. Thanks for the talk and I’m looking forward to the screening this Friday (March 2nd 2012) in Montreal and the one at the Bytowne Cinema in Ottawa, March 28th, 2012.

For more on the project go here

The River of Life, Or The Case Against Certainty leap day screening

The River Of Life, Or The Case Against Certainty

World Premiere
71mins, DCP 2K, Feb. 29th, 6:50pm Bytowne Cinema

Directed by:  Edward Folger

In a tribute to the work of his friend, the late Canadian/Bolivian/Dutch artist Juan Geuer, Canadian/American filmmaker/poet Edward Folger builds a jig-saw vision of his life in Ottawa, in the form of a graphic raga, evolving, like classical Indian music, from a leisurely beginning, into a frenzied ride on the force of nature. He draws from his history with media – still photography, feature films, early consumer video; moving on to standard digital and state of the art, high definition video; and finally, into online virtual worlds.

From New York, New England, Ottawa, rural Ontario, and the vast digital world of Second Life, in concert with artists from France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark, each stanza of this video poem twists in a new direction – drama, documentary, animation, still montage, experimental, music video. The worldview that Folger shared with Juan Geuer is the glue holding all the pieces together. Portions of the film have been screened previously at various galleries and international film festivals and some chapters were produced with the support of the City of Ottawa and SAW Video Media Arts Centre.

– Lost Dominion Screening Collective

Folger’s work leaps forward into the Twenty-First Century, visualizing String Theory and M-Theory, vibrating in the full eleven dimensions of reality.

– László Fontoskodó, Director of the Institute for Post-Quantum Critical Studies

One of the Lost Films Playing March 28th

THE MAN FROM GLENGARRY, 35mm, Reel 3 of 6
Playing March 28th at the Bytowne Cinema with Live music.

Ottawa Film Productions, Ltd., 1922

Directed by Henry MacRae; Script by Kenneth O’Hara, Faith Green; Cinematography by Jacques Bizeul, Barney McGill; Editor, Elmer J. McGovern.

Cast: Anders Randolph, Warner P. Richmond, Harlan E. Knight, Pauline Garon, Marion Swayne, E.L. Fernandez, Frank C. Badgley, Jack Newton, William G. Colvin, Marion Lloyd.

The Canadian premiere of Cameron of the Royal Mounted at the Imperial Theatre in Ottawa on February 10, 1922 afforded the perfect occasion for producer Ernest Shipman to publicize his forthcoming film. Before an invited audience of local investors and politicians, Shipman announced to great fanfare the creation of Ottawa Film Productions Ltd., his new company that would specifically make films based on author Ralph Connor’s novels of the Glengarry lumber industry. For the inaugural project, Shipman chose to adapt “The Man from Glengarry; a Tale of the Ottawa”, the popular 1901 novel about a young man’s trials and tribulations at a lumber camp that was considered to be Connor’s best work.

The Man from Glengarry is set at the St. Clair lumber camp run by Big ‘Mac’ Macdonald (Anders Randolph), a hard-fighting Scotsman whose dogmatic religious beliefs are guided by Reverend Alexander Murray (Harlan E. Knight). Mac’s authority is challenged by Louis Lenoir (E.L. Fernandez), a godless renegade French-Canadian who runs a rival lumber camp in Glengarry County. When Lenoir ultimately kills Mac in a bar room brawl, his son Ranald (Warner P. Richmond) initiates a blood feud to avenge his father’s death. Though he initially refrains from direct confrontation with Lenoir at the pleadings of his sweetheart, Kate Murray (Marion Swayne), Ranald is eventually provoked into a gang fight between the rival camps that erupts on the log slides on the river. The climactic duel between Ranald and Lenoir is suddenly interrupted by Kate, who attempts to stop their struggle but ends up slipping between the grinding logs and is swept away towards the torrential rapids down river. Abandoning his attack on Lenoir, Ranald successfully rescues Kate just before the brink of disaster at the edge of a whirlpool. Grateful for the intervention that spared his life, Lenoir experiences a reformation that later proves to be of service when Ranald finds himself out of his element in the city, stumbling into a crooked deal with Frank De Lacey (Frank Badgley) and Mamie St. Clair (Pauline Garon), the jealous daughter of Eugene St. Clair (Jack Newton), the owner of the lumber camp. With Lenoir’s help, Ranald virtuously refuses involvement in the scheme, scorns the advances of Mamie, and ultimately marries Kate to finally prove himself worthy of his father’s legacy.

For Shipman and his production team, the key challenge in filming The Man from Glengarry as a faithful adaptation was staying true to the environments of the story rather than slavishly adhering to the novel. To accurately represent the physical and social milieus depicted in Connor’s novel, the resources and amenities of the greater Ottawa area were fully utilized in order to retain a sense of authenticity in the film. The grandeur of the wild forests in the Mattawa area served as the natural scenery for the film’s many outdoor action sequences that showcased the log slides driving down river towards Ottawa. For the city sequences in the film, actual Ottawa landmarks such as the Chateau Laurier and Rockcliffe Park were used to contribute a sense of actuality to the exterior settings. The most crucial detail of the film in this context was the ability to present a realistic portrayal of life in a lumber camp. This was made possible by the Booth Lumber Company, who offered their facilities for location shooting and lodging, as well as providing an actual crew of their lumbermen to serve as extras. It was left to director Henry MacRae to present these elements in a genuine and convincing fashion, and the fact that he was the “locally born” son of a Glengarry lumberman gave him an extra layer of credibility with the cast and crew with respect to his ideas of authenticity and verisimilitude .

During the shooting of The Man from Glengarry, MacRae insisted that the cast be immersed in the world of the lumber camps in order for them to fully live their parts throughout the two month shoot, to the extent that the actors were looked upon as their characters by the entire crew. Thus, Anders Randolph was treated as Big MacDonald and was accordingly respected, whereas E.L. Fernandez was ostracized as if he were actually Lenoir. MacRae’s approach to performance authenticity also extended to his direction of the action sequences, where he tended to place higher priority in athletic ability over acting ability. Actors were expected to perform their own stunts for the sake of realism, which led to near tragedies on location during shooting. Such was the case of Ralph Faulkner, the actor originally cast as Ranald, who was replaced by Warner Richmond after a miscalculated stunt during rehearsal left him unable to work. MacRae’s intense attention to verisimilitude in this context informed his overall approach to the structure of the film, trimming the tale down to stark essentials: rapid action, colour, balance, contrast, climax, and denouement.

The Man from Glengarry was publicly previewed in Ottawa on December 11, 1922, under the distinguished patronage of the Governor General, Lord Byng. The initial response to the film was dominated by praise for the “sure-fire realism” of the spectacular forestry that was shot “amidst the scenes which inspired the writer” . The authentic representation of the real-life locations was seen to be the most appealing quality of the film, a welcome alternative to the popular cinematic images of Canada as a perpetual land of ice and snow and a move away from the use of “makeshift and incongruous sets in a foreign studio” . When the film was commercially released on March 18, 1923, the international reception noticeably lacked the nationalist enthusiasm evidenced in the domestic reception. While American and British critics generally acknowledged the film’s magnificent scenic features, these observations were balanced by blunt criticisms regarding the poor quality of the acting, the weakness of the characterizations, and the blandness of the melodrama. These critical differences highlight the discursive tensions surrounding the film (national and international, realism and melodrama, athleticism and acting), all of which were duly noted in the mixed reception which may ultimately account for its modest box-office success.

The Man from Glengarry is not entirely a lost film, though it no longer exists in its complete form. Library and Archives Canada holds excerpts from the first and third reels of the film, alongside a small collection of photos of the production and promotional material. These remnants provide us our only glimpses of this super-production of Canadian life that was entirely shot, processed and edited in Ottawa. What these glimpses also provide are insights into an early conception of a Canadian cinema that tried to contribute to the viability of a Canadian film industry.

Nick Nguyen

Tina Harvey

Videodrome, Jan. 25th Bytowne Cinema

Videodrome, 1983, rated R, 90mins, 35mm Archival print, 7pm Jan 25th at the Bytowne Cinema

Anyone familiar with pioneering Toronto television station City-TV, particularly its daring, fly-by-the-seat-of-its-pants incarnation in the 1970’s and 80’s, will recognize the inspiration for the fictional CIVIC-TV station in David Cronenberg’s Videodrome. CIVIC is where Max Renn (James Woods) works as a producer seeking out the most provocative programming to drive up the ratings, always keeping an eye on finding the next big thing to scoop the competition. It’s this search that leads Renn to uncover an international conspiracy involving a mind- and flesh- altering signal hidden within violent images originating from the United States.

Videodrome still has the power to provoke philosophical reflection and disturb in equal measure nearly thirty years since its release. Like many of Cronenberg’s early films, it’s constructed around tropes of out-of-control technology, physical mutation, and sex and violence as social contagion. It’s the triumphant culmination of the first phase of his career, blending elements of science fiction, horror, and film noir in a deftly executed mix of genres. It’s noteworthy for being the first film where he started getting respect as a filmmaker of real intellectual substance, and not just a shockmeister intent on delivering cheap gory thrills.

For Canadian viewers, the fact that the film is set largely in an identifiable Toronto, and makes such great use of uber-Canuck references like Moses Znaimer and Marshall McLuhan, makes it all the more fun. Oscar-winner James Woods, always an interesting actor, makes for a compellingly flawed anti-hero, and he shares the screen with a cadre of fine supporting players, including rock star Deborah Harry, Sonja Smits (CBC’s ‘Street Legal’) and the perfectly-cast Jack Creley (Dr. Strangelove and TVO’s ‘Write On!’), who plays the McLuhanesque video-theorist Dr. Brian O’Blivion. To that we say: Long live the New Flesh!

– Lost Dominion Screening Collective

The Dog Who Stopped the War, Dec. 28th 1pm

The Dog Who Stopped the War, Dec. 28th 1pm, 35mm, Mayfair Theatre

English-language version of the Quebec film "La Guerre des tuques". From the height of the Cold War comes a tale of a real cold war: kids competing over a giant snow fort. A super-smart dog, toboggans, plenty of snowballs, and a subtle anti-war message make for wintertime fun that the whole family can adore.  

Also from the same producer we have the Peanut Butter Solution in March!

Janis, Dec 7th 7pm at the Bytowne

Janis, 1975, 35mm, 96mins. A beautiful print provided by Library and Archives Canada.
One night only! December 7th at 7pm, Bytowne Cinema

Ottawa filmmaker Budge Crawley produced Janis through his company, Crawley Films, Canada`s largest independent film studio. This rock`n`roll documentary is one of the many highlights of an astonishing film career that lasted from the late 1930`s until the early 1980`s, with over 5000 films produced during that time.

In 1970, Budge Crawley decided to make the film after seeing Joplin during the Festival Express concert tour, which crossed Canada just months before Joplin died of a heroin overdose.

Crawley spent the next four years, and many thousands of dollars, securing the rights to concert performances, rehearsals and interviews — all of the footage available — including sequences from the Woodstock and Monterey Pop festivals.

Janis is a unique rock documentary that is as compelling for its musical sections as it is for its frank interviews with Joplin. The film was completed and released with the approval of Joplin's parents.

Janis won an Etrog as best nonfiction feature at the Canadian Film Awards in 1975 and was a considerable box office success.”

- Canadian Film Encyclopedia