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Hard core road story A joy ride through the twisted ironies of one Canadian film by JULIET WATERS
It opens with a down-and-out screenwriter from the West Coast eking out a sorry existence in Toronto on small grants, development loans and odd jobs. Through a personal contact fluke he gets hired by guerrilla director Bruce McDonald to adapt a prose poetry novel by Michael Turner about the final western Canada tour of an old school Vancouver punk band. Months go by as Baker churns out a few impossibly artsy drafts. Quirky independents that they are, neither of them has the hardcore instincts to ignite it. For weeks McDonald gently tortures Baker with terrible options such as: a) upping its grant potential by changing it into a Toronto band doing an East Coast tour, b) selling the idea to MTV with the help of Conservative pollster-turned-entertainment businessman Allen Gregg or c) changing it into a story about an all-girl band. McDonald inevitably relents when Baker freaks. But eventually a script doctor with Telefilm connections is brought in to explain why the agency will not go for the script: A) the characters are "unsympathetic assholes," B) "the emotional and material stakes are too low" and C) "no female representation." Baker is given 10 days to fix these things or the project's off. In a frenzy, Baker scraps the Green World Coalition benefit, hacks off one of punk icon Bucky Haight's legs, turns the bookworm bassist into a schizophrenic who's lost his lithium prescription, gives teenagehood pals Joe Dick and guitarist Billy Tallent a back story of anal rape, adds a goat slaughter scene, then gives the whole script a spinal tap and McDonald a supporting role. Telefilm complains the script isn't intellectual enough. American investors balk at the animal rights problems. But fueled now as saviour of the goat slaughter scene (which does use a stunt goat, by the way), McDonald decides to forge ahead. Despite this and other equally silly roadblocks, Hard Core Logo is made. Reviews are strong. Awards are nominated. Some are won, most are lost. And our hero is now a fully Toronto-ized independent artist, whining about how the prizes always go to the artsy films and how now that he's had some success he's probably going to have to move to the States. As opposed to independent artists from other Canadian cities, who at this point would be merely moaning about having to move to Toronto. Hard Core Road Show by Noel S. Baker, Anansi, pb, 246 pp. $19.95 |
I haven't seen Hard Core Logo because I was out of the country last summer and the video isn't due out for another week. Fortunately, this means I might be one of the few people who can fully appreciate how well Noel S. Baker's screenwriter's diary, Hard Core Road Show, works as a book on its own.