this is not an anchor, this boat is not an anchor will be included in a series surveying the Escarpment School movement…
THE ROAD ENDED AT THE BEACH
AND OTHER LEGENDS:
PARSING THE “ESCARPMENT SCHOOL”
The Road Ended at the Beach and Other Legends represents the first critical survey of Canada’s mythic and amorphous “Escarpment School,” a loosely knit band of Ontario-based filmmakers that came together in the late-70s at Sheridan College, under the tutelage of Rick Hancox and Jeffrey Paull. Its assumed “members” include Hancox, Carl Brown, Philip Hoffman, Mike Hoolboom, Richard Kerr, Gary Popovich and Steve Sanguedolce, while Janis Cole, Holly Dale, Marian McMahon, and Mike Cartmell are occasionally linked to the group. A number of other accomplished filmmakers and cultural producers, such as Lorne Marin, Lorraine Segato (of The Parachute Club), and Alan Zweig overlapped with and intersected this circle, through acts of collaboration, social interactions, inspiration, and friendship. The American filmmaker and scholar George Semsel, Hancox’s first teacher and mentor, also deserves mention, as many of the concerns expressed in the films of the “Escarpment School” can be located in Semsel’s own cinematic work.
Paradoxically, what is most noteworthy about the “Escarpment School” today, whether seen as a legitimate art-historical movement or as a PR strategy concocted from within, is its absence from the annals of Canadian cinema, despite the influence and accolades of the aforementioned individuals. Did the “Escarpment School” ever exist, and if so, what did it look like, what might it look like now (with the hindsight of historical perspective), and how do we evaluate its legacy? This four-part series seeks to celebrate the “Escarpment School” as a unique confluence in Canadian film history and to simultaneously expand the frame, by offering an inclusive, inter-generational interpretation of its membership.
Part IV.
Echoes
Thursday, December 1st @ 6:30pm
CinemaSpace- Segal Centre for the Performing Arts
5170 ch. de la Cote-Ste-Catherine
Montréal, QC
Introduced by Brett Kashmere
The final installment of The Road Ended at the Beach and Other Legends focuses on the legacy of the “Escarpment School” through a consideration of its teaching influence. Three of the filmmakers most closely affiliated with the “Escarpment School” – Rick Hancox, Phil Hoffman, and Richard Kerr – have sustained long and distinguished careers in the academy, spreading their insight across a number of institutions and provinces for multiple decades. Others, including Steve Sanguedolce, Mike Hoolboom, and the late Marian McMahon, have also made significant contributions to the cultivation of a Canadian first-person cinema as instructors and mentors, and in Hoolboom’s case, as a profuse and generous writer.
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The youngest filmmaker in this program, Marianna Milhorat, represents the latest generation to be influenced by the “Escarpment School.” Studying under Kerr and some of his former students at Concordia, Milhorat’s work forms a link from George Semsel and ‘60s New American Cinema, to Hancox and the “Escarpment School” filmmakers of the late-70s and early-80s, to their students, surveyed here, of the ‘90s and ‘00s; thereby connecting five generations of educators and pupils. Regardless of whether the “Escarpment School” started as an off-the-cuff joke, or an earnest attempt at self-definition and promotion, the proof of its importance can be found in the thirty-plus years of intensely subjective, formally daring films, films that continue to be made and celebrated to this day.
Full program information can be found here: http://brettkashmere.com/escarpment.html