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Candid Eyes
Jim Leach and Jeannette Sloniowski, Eds. Candid Eyes: Essays on Canadian Documentaries. U of Toron to P $27.95
Frances W. Kaye Hiding the Audience: Viewing Arts & Arts Institutions on the Prairies. U of Alberta P $34.95
Although its birth spasms span more than 60 years (1903-1964), Canada now has a recognizable film tradition, made up of French and English language fiction feature industries (very distinct), a linguistically-divided documentary heritage (where the warring solitudes are sometimes similar in style, but usually different in intent), and an animation cornucopia (with very little internal animosity, at least in part because of the cosmopolitan world view of Norman McLaren, the most admired animated cartoonist of all time).
Of the three planks in this triptych, the middle is by far the most consistent. Essentially its history starts in 1939, the year when John Grierson founded the National Film Board of Canada as a means of combating fascism at home and abroad. While many other government filmmaking agencies preceded it, and a...