Canadian director John Greyson has reportedly stated that Canadians “make films for adults, where Americans makes films for 14-year-old boys.” To which the obvious rejoinder is that the two largest grossing Canadian films of all time are Porky’s and Meatballs. Nonetheless, our neighbors to the north have consistently produced innovative and thoughtful films. The Canadian film industry emerged from near collapse in the 1930s to become a world leader in documentaries, animation and experimental films throughout the last 50 years.
In 1969, then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau told an audience at the National Press Club that living next to the U.S. “is like sleeping with an elephant; no matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” In the later days of silent film and the beginning of the talkies, the slumbering creature rolled-over and nearly crushed the Canadian film industry. Hollywood simply dominated and made Canadian film seem redundant and irrelevant. In 1922, Hollywood producer Lewis Selznick responded to a question about the prospects of a healthy Canadian industry: “If Canadian stories are worthwhile making into films, American companies will be sent into Canada to make them.” And in fact, from 1910 to late ’50s, Hollywood made over 500 features about Canada while Canada only made around 50 about itself. As stars such as Mary Pickford, Fay Wray and Walter Pidgeon in the ’30s left for the U.S., the industry hit a nadir that would take some 30 years to fully emerge from. Only 13 feature films are known to have been made in Canada in the ’30s and no prints of those remain.
In 1939, Canada formed the National Film Board (NFB), not to compete with Hollywood but to develop an alternative. The NFB experienced early success in documentaries, and soon thereafter in animation. NFB funding and Canada’s unique, fluctuating and diverse national identity (and the related struggles) allowed many unique voices in documentary to emerge.
The government-funded infrastructure and a distinct aesthetic (developed partly as an attempt to avoid competition with Hollywood) also attracted many visiting and immigrating animators, helping make Canada a world animation leader in pioneering technique and quality product. Key figures in Canadian animation include Norman McLaren (who often sketched, painted and cut directly on film stock), Caroline Leaf (who used paint on glass, film etching and other techniques), and especially Frédéric Back, who dominated in international awards for animation.