The Ottawa Journal from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Page 37

-7- Saturday, November 19, 1977 37 Omens good for film awards show Brian O'Hosra views the tube i wc ''V ''Jl 9l il iliiiiiiiisiiiil iSd jL it Vvi I XV-; La Scouine a 20th anniversary celebration Harry Paterson, left, Louise Dore and Michael Brown of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens La Scouine: story of a gossip who becomes village outcast Indian docu-drama kicks series off Sunday at 8:30 the CBC will telecast the first program in the much publicized film series Imperial Oil to celebrate Its centennial in 1980. The series is entitled The Newcomers and consists of seven one hour films, six of which dramatize the lives of Canadian immigrants from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds; each story is situated in a different time period in Canadian history. The first film, called Prologue, portrays life among the Tsimshian Indians in the interior of British Columbia, was conceived by the Indians themselves and is performed by the Ksan performing arts group which is composed of non-professional Indian actors. It was a truly co-operative venture between the filmmakers and the natives. Unfortunately, it doesn't work at least not as drama.

The problem which faced the producers Ntelson-Ferns Ltd. and one which they failed to solve was how to combine an accurate, sensitive rendition of Indian life and culture that would satisfy the Ksan tribe with a strong dramatic component that would entertain television viewers. Fails as drama Prologue succeeds as documentry but fails as drama, and that's no what docu-drama is supposed to do. The cinematography in Pologue is stunning. Director Eric Till captures the tone and atmosphere of the Indians' vision of themselves.

The rugged landscape, the rivers and lakes, the sense of nature's grandeur is nicely caught by his camera. The camera lingers in close-up, almost carressing at moments, the lived-ln craggy face of DaVld Milton who plays Chief Sagawait; using the same techniques. Till renders the majesty and nobility of the Indian natives through the physical beauty of 16-year-old Tina Hamill, who plays Neeloak, who loves the young warrior destined to be chief but is forbidden, by Indian custom, to marry him. Till spends a deal of time filming rituals dancing and cultural activities evoking the sense of spiritual mystery which the Indians felt about their lives and about their gods. But as drama, the film is dull and it makes tough demands on the viewer.

The actors are all amateurs and there is no dialogue. The drama is almost pantomime with monologues heard in voice-overs which were added after the film was completed. No reference points The plot, which concerns a young man's initiation into the rites of leadership and his truncated love affair with Neeloak, is thin. There is very little dramatic confrontation; the script is weak. The film is asking its viewers to relate to a whole bygone way of life when those viewers don't possess a single reference point from which they can relate to it.

Human drama, -of course, provides universal reference points from which the audience, regardless of cultural background, can connect with the dramatic action. This drama is not about individuals in conflict but is a visual tableau of another place, another time. The actors are merely marionettes. I don't pretend to have a solution to the problem, but it's unfortunate the producers couldn't solve it because many potential viewers may not watch the second film about the lives of an immigrant Irish family which will be telecast on Jan. 8.

1 saw a ten minute film clip of the drama and it looks good. By Frank Daley Joaraal Film Critic This year's Canadian Film Awards should be a fascinating event partly because of the way in which the TV show surrounding it (CBC Sunday night at 10 p.m.) will be handled and partly because this year there are a a lot of exciting films that are getting attention at home and abroad and making money. Oh heresy! Three of the four films nominated best film have been winning awards or getting great reveiws or both. J. A.

Martin, Photographs won the best actress, award for Monlque Mercure at Cannes last May the first time a Canadian has ever won that award and director Jean Beaudin won an award as well. Why Shoot The Teacher has racked up over $1 million in gross receipts in Canada alone and although it doesn't yet have a U. S. distributor, it soon will. Outrageous has been getting rave reviews in the U.

S. where it has been released in selected areas and in 'Canada whereever it has opened. The fourth film is One Man, a thriller from director Robin Spry of' the NFB with strong performances from Len Cariou and August Shellenberg. In the feature documentary class Homage to Chagall, by theCBC's Harry Rasky, has won plaudits at home when it was shown on the CBC last season, and abroad, where it has been released in theatres in major U. S.

cities. It's chief competition is the Games of the XXI Olympiad, a stunning NFB production, Famllle et Variations (NFB) and The Inquiry Film neither of which I've seen. In the documentary film under' 60 minutes Donald Brittain's Henry Ford's America vies with Marty Gross' Potters At Work, Kalle Lasn's Ritual and Mi-' chael Chechik's Greenpeace: Voyages to Save the Whales. For best actress Monique Mercure is the favorite to repeat her Cannes success for J. A.

Martin, Photographs, Holds MacLaren (Outrageous) is next in line. Jayne Eastwood was not taxed in One Man and Carole Laure will likely not be cited for her work in L'Ange et la Femme. The best actor award could go either to Craig Russell for his female impersonations In Outrageous or Marcel Sa-bourin for J. A. Martin.

Len Cariou's work in One Man is good too but the role isn't of the same complexity. I have not seen David Peterson in Skip Tracer. For best director Allan King (Who Has Seen The Wind) which opened here Friday; Siovio Narizzano (Why shoot The Teacher); Jean Beaudin (J. A. Martin, Photographs); and Robin Spry (One Man) are the competitors.

Narizzano would seem to be the favorite with Jean Beaudin the next in line. Best original screenplay will likely go to Marcel Sabourin (J. A. Martin). Others in the running are Zale R.

Dalen (Skip Tracer); Robin Srpy, Peter Pearson and Peter Madden (One Man); and Ratch Wallace (Ragtime Summer). Best screenplay adaption will be a fight among Richard Benner (Outrageous); James DeFelice (Why Shoot The Teacher); Patricia Watson (Who Has Seen The Wind); and Stephen Zoller (Metal Messiah). The awards program or Its. highlights will be carried by the CBC as a documentary special. Producer Don Brown hopes it will tell more about the films than the usual TV awards show.

Instead of showing teasers' from films he'll show longer clips so the audience will get a better idea of the films in question. The program will be called All About The Canadian Film Awards and will show how the award winning films arc put together. panies such as the American Ballet Theatre, the Joffrey, Harkness, Colorado, and Lousiville ballets, and most recently for the Maryland Ballet company. His Nut- cracker will be performed this Christmas in Quebec and Montreal. In 1976 Nault was awarded a special prize for choreography at the eighthlntematlonal Ballet Competition at Varna, Bulgaria for his ballet Inchoherence.

This fall he was invested by the Governor General with the Order of Canada. V. La Scouine is danced by Louise Dore, also born and trained in Montreal. She studied at the National Ballet School from 1966-68 and joined LGBC as an apprentice and later a member of the company. After a year fn New York studying and dancing with the Joffrey Ballet, she returned to LGBC in 1972 as a demi-soloist.

She took last year off from the company, studying and teaching throughout Quebec. The frothy dessert on the program is a revival of Graduation Ball, choreographed by David Li-chine to music by Johann Strauss. Originally created forolonel de-Basil's Ballets Russes in 1940, Li-chine himself set the work on LGBC in 1963 as part of the opening festival for Place des Arts. (He had danced with Ludmilla Chiriaeff, founder of the company, at the Ballets Russes.) It takes place in Vienna at the end of the 19th century when cadets from the military academy are invited to a ball at the girls' boarding school. The music for the Balanchlne and Lichine will be played live, mostly by members of the Montreal Symphony, becaue the NAC Orchestra is on tour.

There will be two performances of the whole program in the Opera of the National Arts Centre on November 25 'and 26 at 8: 30. She has always loved dance and imagined the scenes in movement and wrote a scenario for a ballet. She interested Nault and Mmc. Chiriaeff of LGBC in the project, but Nault couldn't find music he felt was appropriate. He was finally put in touch with composer and fiddler, Dominique Tremblay, and the score was commissioned.

Tremblay worked with six musicians on improvising, so the music is on tape for performances. La Scouine is the story of a poor farmer in mid-I9th century Quebec and the trials and tribulations' he faced with his family in trying to eke out a meagre existence. The youngest daughter, Marie Pauli-ma, turns out to be clumsy, mean, and a spiteful gossip earning the nickname La Scouine from the people of the village. She is a misfit in the community and is rejected. She finally can no longer take the mocking by the villagers and retreats totally into herself.

The ballet is a number of scenes in her life: her birth, the death of a village idiot, her sister's wedding, betrayal, an election and a village festival. Company organizers recommend the audience members allow themselves plenty of time to read the program notes, as they will get more from the performance with an understanding of the conflict being portrayed. The book is now published in French and is also available in an English translation, under the title Bitter Bread. Fernand Nault was born in Quebec and trained in Montreal as well as In the U. S.

and Europe. From 1944-65 he was associated with the American Ballet Theatre in New York. He returned to Montreal to become resident choreographer and co-artistic director of LGBC-Since 1974 he has been director of the company's schools, as well as resident choreographer for the company. He has created ballets for com By Audrey Gill Journal Dance Critic For their annual visit next weekend, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens are bringing a varied menu: a classical opening as the appetizer; a dramatic new piece for the main course; and an amusing romp as the frothy dessert. The 2Qth anniversary year of the company is being celebrated with a mixture of the best ballets from the past, and new creations.

The classical opening Is George Balanchine's Theme and Variations to Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 3 in G. LGBC is the only company outside New York that dances the abstract, elegant ballet reminiscent of the classical ballets of the Russian Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg. The new work is by resident choreographer Femand Nault, creator of 17 ballets, including the famous rock ballet Tommy and the exquisite Carolina Burana performed here last year.

It is called La Scouine, was premiered in Sherbrooke on November 1 and is now in performance at the Place des Arts, Montreal. The ballet has been a long time in coming to he stage. Odette Le Borgne was studying Quebecoise literature at the Universite de Montreal nearly 10 years ago when a reference to an early novel by Albert Laberge intrigued her. She was able to find the last copy of a privately published, limited edition of La Scouine. Madame Le Borgne says it seemed as though she had found a precursor of Marie-Claire Blais.

"It was the same bitter song, the same strong colors In the text, a bold, honest, realistic picture of Quebec life at this time. How did Albert Laberge manage to write in this way of his native land, when all around him were writing about romantic subjects of little consequence (at the turn of the century)? For me, It was a revelation." Numbers game Two years ago the ABC network was a perennial loser In the ratings race. They hired Fred Silverman, television's top programmer, away from CBS. And Silverman came up with a light line-up that certainly appealed to younger viewers: programs like Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days, Charlie's Angels, Donny and Marie, The Six Million Dollar Man and lots more. ABC has never looked back.

It's now number one for the second straight year. Success, as the old adage goes, breeds success. But there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to it. NBC and CBS have recently announced they are cancelling six new shows. And it would be difficult to make a case for retaining any of them particularly Mulligan's Stew.

As far as I'm concerned they can cancel the season. But why are shows like Soap and the San Pedro Beach Bums popular enough to survive when Rafferty and The Betty White Show are not. It seems like ABC can't make a mistake. One could invoke H.L. Mencken who once noted: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people." But it's not quite that simple.

While dlmwitted programs like Charlie's Angels and The Six Million Dollar Man have been successful, so have well written shows like All In The Family and Mash along with some good dramas like The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman. It doesn't make sense. Surely the same people who watched Catholics by Brian Moore aren't the same viewers who watch The Bionic Woman. Or are they? I haven't seen a ratings analysis catagorizing audiences, although one might exist. Maybe NBC's Irwin Sicgelstcin is right.

He's the guy who developed the "least objectionable form program" theory of TV viewing, a theory that claims audiences don't watch particular programs, they just watch television. And at this moment In time I guess ABC has the majority of the least objectionable programs. At least It's an Obviously has some things to say A convincing artist, de Iurgh charms his fans 'if7 He eveji has mastered com-. munication-of that predictable. English fascinations with the French language and sensibilities.

What self-respecting British pop star could resist a song about an evening in Paris? And, class troubadour that he is, there Is stuff inspired by English literature, in this case about a painting that could be called My Last Duchess, just like the poem it is drawn from. To his fans I have only one piece of advice: Yes, buy the records, sing the songs, worship his poster, anything but donTHsk the concerts. You could wind up doaf 4n- a few years. and guitar and microphone. With the standard four-man back-up (second guitar, bass, drums and keyboard) he starts to sound like too many other four-four rhythm maniacs.

But alone he Is convincing as an artist, not just a performer. His scheduled Christmas hit, A Spaceman came Travelling, is a charmer, not perhaps in the riveting, irresitable category of Spanish Train, with which be closed the first show for a spellbound audience, but a charmer nonetheless. It has a kind of latter-day Christian charm that Donovan mastered so. well. This newesMBritish pep idoTat least knows who to listen to and learn from.

By Maureen Peterson Musk and DramaCritic If you crossed a Rod, Stewart with a Donovan yoh might come up with a Chris de Burgh. On the other hand you might like to think of him as Alan a Dale via the Beatles. J. He is at any rate an English troubadour with the winsome off-beat erotic quality of a Stewart, the sweet mystic exoticism of a Donovan and the mass appeal, cagey professionalism of a John, Paul, George or Rlngo. 5 You might also say that he was preaching to the converted Friday night in the NAC opera.

The packed4iouse was determined to have a good time, determined I regret, to hear the songs off the albums. Why Is it that pop music fans will only allow their heroes (and de Burgh is obviously the latest edition) to recreate instead of create? You might also say, fellow Canadians, that he is Andre Gagnon with lyrics, English lyrics. There is more to dome with de Burgh, I suspect. Anyone who can come up with a lyric I like "what would you do If your 1 dreams came true?" obviously has some things to say. Barring a possible overtaking by the slick moguls of mass disc distribution, the man (boy?) just might get those things across.

It He was at his besr Friday nlsht alone, race-track silks InsideEntertainment Page 38 Page Page 44 Page 47 U.S. art In Ottawa Not Just another pretty face Mak'ng of a Canadian film Pfiter Shaw's Jazz column Cathedral organ concert Latest TV listings Chris de Burgft first-rote troubodour.