ON THE FOURTH SCREENING OF REEL POLITICS, MY LOCAL INDIE CINEMA GAVE ME: A TALE OF FORTUNE BY PETER MANSBRIDGE, AN ALARMINGLY TOPICAL MOVIE BY ELIA KAZAN, FREE POPCORN, AND A PARTRIDGE IN A PEAR TREE.
On Jan. 8, Bruce and Mollie Anderson’s new film series, REEL Politics, reached its halfway mark with a screening of Elia Kazan’s “A Face in the Crowd” at ByTowne Cinema. This two-hour drama from the 50s shines a critical light on how the profit motive in network television encourages popular personalities (and the corporations behind them) to exploit their audience. Through protagonist Larry (Lonesome Rhodes), a “demagogue in denim,” Kazan drives home how this motive lends itself to corruption elsewhere, namely in the political sphere.
Kazan’s film is an exceptional fit for the REEL series, which recognizes the movie medium’s capacity to capture, criticize, and clarify social trends and injustices, all while respecting audiences’ intelligence and making them laugh. That said, “A Face in the Crowd” failed to draw in young audience members. I mean, did you hear about it?
The pre-show, filled with speeches, set the event apart from a regular ByTowne evening, and their reception highlighted the generational gap seen across the theatre’s aisles. After a brief introduction by Mollie Anderson, Peter Mansbridge, a retired news anchor and chief correspondent for CBC News, took the stage with an anecdote from ‘68.
Joking that this would never slide with today’s human resources departments, Mansbridge took the audience back a couple of decades to a time when charisma, not a packed resume or exhaustive list of degrees, set off his career. The Ottawa local shared how shortly after dropping out of Glebe Collegiate Institute, he started picking up odd jobs around the country and was announcing plane departures at a Manitoba airport when he was suddenly discovered by CBC Radio.
While there weren’t many young people in the audience, considering high youth unemployment rates in Ontario and the summer without summer jobs at U of O, I can imagine those who were there didn’t quite relate to Mansbridge’s story. Older community members nodded along to the nostalgic anecdote, as I, for one, felt the full weight of how foreign this reality was.
Mansbridge certainly set the tone for the movie’s opening scene, where Larry is unexpectedly discovered by a local radio station and earmarked for fame and fortune thereafter. However, given the morally dubious path Larry goes down, I was surprised that Mansbridge, who drew parallels between Lonesome Rhodes and Donald Trump’s hubris, also tossed himself into the mix.
Mansbridge took us through the fateful moment when he announced the gate number and sent everyone charging forward except Churchill’s local radio producer, Gaston Charpentier. Charpentier saw the potential in Mansbridge’s voice and offered him a job on the spot.
It’s worth noting that despite the theatre’s proximity to the U of O campus and the $10 ticket that comes with free popcorn, the screening primarily attracted and catered to an older audience. As I waited for the show to start, I overheard the man next to me booking his tee time for the next morning and the couple behind me discussing how glad they were to have achieved financial stability, given the current economy.
While Mansbridge spoke about how “the news business is in trouble due to a loss of trust”, lamenting how “you feel it in this movie and feel it through the times we’re living in”, the short speech didn’t resonate with the severity of our present situation. Nor did it address how these problems have changed since the movie’s debut in 1957, or his early years in the news industry.
Although ticket sales enable certain young people’s participation in political life by supporting Carleton’s graduate program in political management and the Jamie Anderson Parliamentary Internship, based on Thursday’s attendance, it seems they’ll be joining the conversation later on. There is, however, a heartwarming symmetry to REEL politics’ actualization.
The fundraising event not only prompts people to consider the need for supporting youth education but also creates an unconventional educational space for the donors. Sarah Donnelly, one of many volunteers who have made the series possible, saw this firsthand when she attended a recent screening of “Les Ordres” with her partner’s parents.
Sarah noted that despite their French background, it was through the movie that they learned about the hundreds of Quebecois people who were jailed without due process during the 1970 FLQ Crisis. She adds, “You see this happening south of the border, and think that would never happen in Canada, so it was crazy to find out from this movie that we wouldn’t have otherwise seen, that it did happen in Canada.”
While Thursday’s screening was fictional, the parallels it bore to contemporary politics dominated just about every conversation I heard as I left the theatre. Throughout the film, murmurs and laughter regularly broke out from the audience as lines like “I’m not just an entertainer. I’m an influence, a wielder of opinion, a force” resonated with folks who see through brand ambassadors’ manipulation tactics, as they regularly sell them everything from new products to lifestyles.
The community members behind REEL politics curate endearing, thought-provoking, and entertaining films for Ottawa locals. The movies are absolute gems, and it’s interesting how they’ve been received.
