Canadian
history is boring and not fit for popular attention. This is the recent musing
of a Globe and Mail journalist who concluded by announcing Canada’s
dramatic equivalents to Napoleon and Lincoln -- the Manitoba Schools
Question, and the Reciprocity Debate of 1911.1
Such comparisons
highlight the need for a greater awareness of our nation’s past -- a
familiar rant to those employed in the country’s archives, museums, and
universities. The challenge is in transmitting to the general public, that our
history is indeed relevant, interesting, and yes, exciting.
To that end, the
National Archives entered into a unique collaboration with the
CBC/Radio-Canada which saw the culmination, beginning in autumn 2000, of a thirty hour television documentary series entitled Canada: A People’s
History / Le Canada: Une Histoire Populaire. By providing office space and
support to a project staffer and facilitating access to its collections, the
Archives exemplified the type of co-operation necessary to bring such an
ambitious project to fruition. This unprecedented series aims to make Canadian
history accessible and engaging to a vast audience and by doing so, showcases
the documentary, visual, and material treasures of the National Archives, as
well as of other archives, museums, and libraries across the country.
In this large scale
collaboration of Canadian filmmakers and historians, some of the leading
thinkers in the field were retained as consultants. Academics are
traditionally wary of such ventures, one criticism being that many such
productions are too isolated in time and context; another is historical
inaccuracy. The series addresses the former by documenting Canadian prehistory
to the advent of the third millennium, thus depicting the chronological
"grand sweep" and the process of change inherent. At the same time
it strives to expose the values and underlying assumptions of past Canadians
from all regions. This approach places people and events in perspective and by
connecting the past to the present, allows us a better understanding of our
own times. Accuracy is sought by meticulous research and attention to the
established historical record and its primary sources, as well as consultation
with experts.
Canadian historians have
done an outstanding job writing analytical texts without which such a
documentary series could not exist. If, as historian Daniel Walkowitz
maintains, more people receive history from the media than from the scholarly
pen, then serious filmmakers have a responsibility to seek out these quality
works for guidance in their projects.2 Not all
historians confine themselves to text however, some produce visual histories
and others make films.3 A faction of the latter
group believe that using all the creative devices available to other
filmmakers does not compromise their rigorous standards, albeit history as
portrayed on film and television has by its very nature, other considerations
not present in the textual format.
One of these aspects is
the emphasis on the visual. The series obtained from the National Archives
alone, over some twelve hundred works of documentary art (in transparency
format) and over some two thousand photographs. Many of these images fall
victim to the editor mostly for reasons of contextual or visual continuity, or
simple aesthetics. Some factors in preliminary visuals research are: access to
good quality and informative works, accurate supporting documentation, and the
extent to which artistic license was used in its creation. The latter is a
concern particularly with non-contemporary artists whose works are used when
there is a dearth of contemporary illustrative material. A similar issue can
arise with photographic images, some practitioners having been masters at
fashioning their own reality rather than accurately recording it. For example
William Notman who, with his "Nature" series, was lauded to have
authentically portrayed the great Canadian outdoors in the comfort of his
Montreal studio.4 And Edward Curtis’
photographs of North American Indians portray few candid shots -- his
subjects were often posed or portrayed in an unrealistic fashion.5
The opposite problem is
poor-quality photographic prints featuring spontaneous images of
"history-in-the-making." For instance many of the rare shots
captured by Captain James Peters, a member of the regiment sent to quell the
Northwest Rebellion in 1885, are blurry and the contrast is low. No negatives
are known to exist though the approximately 3 x 4 inch-size prints were pasted
in albums, two of which were subsequently deposited in the National Archives.6
Copy negatives were made, and although excellent in their depiction of the
action at Fish Creek and Batoche, the resulting prints are barely
television-quality. Fortunately, modern technology, including high-resolution
scanning and further computer enhancement of contrast and detail, render most
of the images useful. Bill Cobban, director of the episode featuring the
prints, found that filming them in the album yielded a slightly better result,
but camera movements were too restricted on the small subjects.
Works of art tempt many
film and television directors to set up the camera rather than acquire and
scan reproductions, but this is impractical with up to seven images airing
over thirty seconds. Jim Williamson, director of "The Great
Enterprise" episode, explained that the textual rendering of the
paintbrush or other artistic medium does not always adequately transfer to the
screen via the negative. This was demonstrated by Peter Ingles, director of
"Rebellion and Reform", by filming selected pieces at the Archives’
Gatineau Preservation Centre, and simultaneously screening the same images
scanned from transparencies. He added that further benefits of filming
originals include a resulting truer representation of colour, and more control
over the "pan." The CBC/SRC filmed over a hundred paintings,
engravings, posters, maps, and documents at the Gatineau Centre, where the
photographic studio served well as the production’s primary archival filming
locale.
The National Archives
preserves a century of unique and gripping moving images. Like pioneer
photography, the degree of authenticity in early "real-life" films
was often questionable. Newsreels from the Great War for example, demonstrate
this by having regularly featured staged events and selective omissions.7
These early films can also provide a rare glimpse of our past, and critically
viewed, are a valid historical source. Canada: A People’s History is
airing selections spanning the entire twentieth century, some seen on
television for the first time.
As part of the
partnership between the National Archives and the CBC/SRC, history project
staff were able to view original film on-site at the Gatineau Centre. This
enabled researchers like Radio-Canada’s Hélène Bourgeault to view fragile
images in such obsolete formats as the silent era 28mm film, and allowed her
to select or reject material without having to initially order reference
copies. In addition, the two sides worked together to create the best possible
video images for the series using the combined expertise of the CBC/SRC
technicians and the Archives’ preservation staff.
Moving and still images
are essential factors in the integrative representation of the past that
filmmakers seek to present. Threading them together and providing a framework
for the whole is the narrative. Narration for Canada: A People’s History
is based on the correspondence, journals, and memoirs of Canadian men and
women from all walks of life. The seventeenth-century concerns expressed by
Jeanne Mance around her founding of the Hôtel-Dieu in Montreal, contrast with
the ambitions of Charles Aubert de la Chesnaye, engrossed in his thriving
business transactions and compounding fortunes in New France. Joseph Brant
negotiates the terms of the Six Nations’ homeland near the Grand River,
while on the coast, Mary Bradley of New Brunswick recounts the pitiful state
of the refugee loyalists passing by her door. The voice of privilege from
Mercy Ann Coles, a young woman delighted to witness the revelry around the
1864 Charlottetown Conference, highlights the frustration of Mary Ann Shadd, a
black abolitionist living in Canada and fighting for the lives and freedom of
her American countrymen and women who are still enslaved.
These first-hand
testimonies help to create an intimacy with the viewer and to provide the
context and insight important to an understanding of the topic. It also
presented a daunting assignment. Despite the above-mentioned examples, women,
native peoples, and other non-white groups are not well represented in the
manuscript collections of our country’s pre-twentieth century archives. And
finding contemporary words to illuminate that which only recent historical
research has made understandable, was challenging; significant trends and
influential people are sometimes revealed as such only when viewed in
historical perspective.
By the same token, some
people and events immediately ingrain themselves in the national psyche. Over
the years, through a grand array of oral, textual, and visual reinforcement,
their images can become progressively more distorted and eventually approach
the realm of the mythological. Competent portrayal of history in text, film,
television, museum exhibit, or other guise, can serve to amend these myths and
debunk similarly existing stereotypes. This was a motivation of Ken Burns’
in producing his Civil War series and by most measures, he succeeded.8
Unlike academic pursuits, his primary goal was not to create new scholarship
but to present that which already existed. Despite this, The Civil War
was one of the first of its kind to spur both academic praise and criticism in
professional journals -- a healthy development for the genre.
The merger of history,
education, and entertainment is not without difficulties and finding a good
balance for each can be delicate, but the opportunities it presents far
outweigh the limitations. Such collaborations as that between the CBC/SRC and
the NA on "Canada:
A People’s History", also stimulate the staff on both sides and
leads to a greater respective understanding of the others’ role in serving
the public. Connecting Canadians through our shared past, the series
should spark an exciting dialogue and prompt viewers to continue on
their own voyage of exploration and discovery at our nations’s heritage
institutions.
Notes
1. |
Robert
Fulford, "Is it Possible to be too Patriotic about Canadian
History?" The Globe and Mail, May 22, 1999, p. D9. |
2. |
Daniel
Walkowitz, "The Craft of the Historian/Filmmaker," The
Public Historian, vol. 7, no. 1, Winter 1985, p. 53. |
3. |
For
example, Canada’s Visual History series, National Museum of
Man, co-published by the National Film Board, 1974-1981.
Walkowitz,
"The Craft of the Historian/Filmmaker," p. 53-64.
For discussion on
the pioneer stages of this field see John. E. O’Connor,
"Historians and Film: Some Problems and Prospects," The
History Teacher, vol. VI, no. 1, August 1973, p. 543-552. |
4. |
Joan
M. Schwartz, "William Notman’s Hunting Photographs, 1866," The
Archivist, no. 117, 1998, p. 20-29. |
5. |
Edward
S. Curtis, The North American Indian: Being a Series of Volumes
Picturing and Describing the Indians of the United States, and Alaska.
Seattle, Wash.: E.E. Curtis, 1907-1930 (for Canadian-based photographs
see vols. IX, X, XI).
Also, Daniel
Francis, Copying People, 1860-1940: Photographing British Columbia’s
First Nations. Saskatoon and Calgary: Fifth House, 1996, p. 2-4. |
6. |
Frederick
Hatheway Peters Collection, National Archives accession number 1958-179,
isn 3029. |
7. |
David
Mould and Charles Berg, "Fact and Fantasy in the Films of World War
I," Film and History, vol. 14, no. 3, 1984, p. 50-59. |
8. |
Gary
Edgerton, "Ken Burns’ Rebirth of a Nation: Television, Narrative,
and Popular History," Film and History, vol. XXII, no. 4,
December 1992, p. 119. |
|