The DVD has sat on my table for sometime: John A: Birth of A Country. It had been shown on the Mother Corp last September, after very little promotion. Still, I felt it was my obligation to watch the film. Eventually. I'd been eyeing the case warily. On it's spine the mark of Cain: CBC Home Video.
Would this be another piece of taxpayer subsidized statist propaganda? Something along the lines of the Tommy Douglas (also written by Bruce M Smith) and Pierre Trudeau mini-series of recent years. Would Sir John be making an impassioned speech about multiculturalism? Perhaps Alexander Galt would tell us about the necessity of socialized health care. I was dreading to watch the thing.
I was pleasantly surprised.
While I can't offer the very strong praise given by Andrew Coyne, I was still impressed with the overall product. Having spent some years researching this specific period, and in particular the relationship between the main protagonists, John A Macdonald and George Brown, I spent much of the film complaining about minor historical inaccuracies. To put it simply, the whole thing makes John A look too good and George Brown not good enough.
Still, it's 90 minutes compressing eight years of very eventful history. There is easily enough material in the decade before Confederation for a mini-series with no shortage of action, intrigue or political thrills. In some ideal alternate Canada the budget and time could be found for a John Adams style epic encompassing the more than quarter century long relationship between Brown and Macdonald.
Even with its relatively limited scope the film was in desperate need of another half-hour. There is so much to get through that the characters and events get rushed. The actors are burdened with obviously expository speeches. If Canadians were not so pitifully ignorant of their own history this would not be as necessary. A good thirty minutes into the film and I wouldn't be surprised if half the audience was still wondering if George Brown was the guy who founded the college.
He wasn't. It was just named in his honour.
The writer and director are trying to juggle many balls and they handle them about a deftly as can be expected. Given the restraints placed upon the film's creators, the product is quite impressive. When the drama lags it is because it is giving way to the history, when the history weakens it is giving way to the drama. That's the hard trade off involved in making historical films. Tightening the scope even further, focusing just on the months leading up to the Great Coalition of 1864, might have mitigated these problems.
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