Identity Crisis in Canadian Film Essay -- Canada Movie Movies Films es

Identity Crisis in Canadian Film Much has been written about the slipway in which Canadas state as a nation is, as Peter Harcourt writes, described and hence, imagined (Harcourt, The Canadian acres -- An Unfinished Text, 6) through the cultural products that it produces. Harcourts ground are justifiably elusive. The familiar concept of Canadian enculturation, and hence Canadian cinema, within lively terminology is essentially based on the ruler that the ideology of a national identity, supposedly limited by such tangible parameters as lines on a map, emerges from a common geographical and unreal experience among its people. The concept that cultural products produced in Canada will be somehow innately Canadian in form and content first presupposes the existence of such things as inherently Canadian qualities that can be observed. Second, it presupposes a certain commonality to all Canadian artists and posits them as vessels through which these said inherently Canadian qualiti es can naturally flow. Third, it also assumes the loosely Lacanian principle that Canadian consumers of culture are predisposed to expose and enjoy the semiotic and mythological systems of their nation, and further connotes that Canadians deplete fair access to their own cultural products. Since these assumptions are indeed flawed but not wholly false, this paper will deal with the general birth between the concept of Canada, its cultural texts, and its mythological and critical discourse as an unresolved problematic that should be left open in order to increase the meaning potential of films as cultural texts within the context of national identity, an ideological construct that body constantly in flux. However pr... ...cate American recreation films. But what was the cost to the development of Canadas supposed cultural identity and the perogative of the Canadian filmmaker to make a film without mimicking Classic Hollywood style and approximation? Toward the mid-1980s, fol lowing the demise of the Capital Cost Allowance tax shelter in 1982, the success of a Canadian film was determined less by its forecast box office potential. The trend in the late 1970s and the early 1980s towards what Ted Magder calls the If you cant dither em join em (Magder, 169) relationship with the commercial message Hollywood production infrastructure, was met in the mid-1980s by an equally vehement movement, which maintained that the infiltration of American culture and the adoption of their economic or big-business approach was precisely the problem with the Canadian film industry, and hence Canadian films. Identity Crisis in Canadian Film Essay -- Canada Movie Movies Films esIdentity Crisis in Canadian Film Much has been written about the ways in which Canadas state as a nation is, as Peter Harcourt writes, described and hence, imagined (Harcourt, The Canadian Nation -- An Unfinished Text, 6) through the cultural products that it produces. Harcourts ter ms are justifiably elusive. The familiar concept of Canadian culture, and hence Canadian cinema, within critical terminology is essentially based on the principle that the ideology of a national identity, supposedly limited by such tangible parameters as lines on a map, emerges from a common geographical and mythological experience among its people. The concept that cultural products produced in Canada will be somehow innately Canadian in form and content first presupposes the existence of such things as inherently Canadian qualities that can be observed. Second, it presupposes a certain commonality to all Canadian artists and posits them as vessels through which these said inherently Canadian qualities can naturally flow. Third, it also assumes the loosely Lacanian principle that Canadian consumers of culture are predisposed to identify and enjoy the semiotic and mythological systems of their nation, and further connotes that Canadians have fair access to their own cultural product s. Since these assumptions are indeed flawed but not altogether false, this paper will deal with the general relationship between the concept of Canada, its cultural texts, and its mythological and critical discourse as an unresolved problematic that should be left open in order to maximize the meaning potential of films as cultural texts within the context of national identity, an ideological construct that remains constantly in flux. However pr... ...cate American entertainment films. But what was the cost to the development of Canadas supposed cultural identity and the perogative of the Canadian filmmaker to make a film without mimicking Classic Hollywood style and theme? Toward the mid-1980s, following the demise of the Capital Cost Allowance tax shelter in 1982, the success of a Canadian film was determined less by its forecast box office potential. The trend in the late 1970s and the early 1980s towards what Ted Magder calls the If you cant beat em join em (Magder, 169) relat ionship with the commercial Hollywood production infrastructure, was met in the mid-1980s by an equally vehement movement, which maintained that the infiltration of American culture and the adoption of their economic or big-business approach was precisely the problem with the Canadian film industry, and hence Canadian films.