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The Canadian Jewish News, Friday, December 9, 1977 - Page 5
Nijtional News
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§ (David Groskind photo) =
s Glum-looklng Mordecal Rlchler signs antographs at 'Y's Jewish Book Fair. 1
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I Audience is fodder |
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I for Richler's mill I
ByTOBAKORENBLUM
TORONTO -
It was a symbiotic 'ove-hate relationship. The author — admired for his accolades, rejected for his pointed sarcasm; the audience — venerated for its well-meaning foibles, pinched for its middle class excesses.
But passions were somewhat cooled when Mordecai Richler met "the ladies" the other day at the 'Y'. Bowed over his prepared text at the lectum, he eyed the women with a mixture of diffidence and indifference; they and their like were often the fodder for his artistic mill. The women, expecting to be outraged and paying for it. were instead largely amused and somewhat relieved.
The often-maligned writer, accused by Jews of self-hatri^d, turned out — to the disiappointment of those who relished the stereotype — to be affable in his way. warmly satiric and witty. Carefully drawing out anecdotes like a stand-up comic, he tiptoed into his book fair topic. "A Jewish Writer and the Community."
But when he warmed to his subject matter at the close of his entertaining and safe patter, the women bristled at mildly offended sensibilities, sometimes whispered: in reproach, but generally applauded.
' 'Toronto was the first place where I was charged with anti-Semitism in the late '50s," recalled Richler. who recounted how one lady asked him why his archetypal hero, Duddy Kra-vitz. couldn't have had an Italian name.
"'I get a certain amount of hate mail, usually unsigned," he continued. "People like you should be burned in the gas ovens." wrote one woman, whose signature, "fellow Jewess," led Richler to quip that it was the first time his sexuality had also been called into question.
' 'As a general rule people who accuse me of anti-Semitism have never read my books," he said reading his text word for word. "But they've heard about it." Most of the charges, he added, are levelled • against The Apprenticeship of Daddy Kravitz, in the novel and film form. Neither had an anti-Semitic intent, he assured, adding thait Duddy is "far from a repugnant character.
"There are many Duddys in St. Urbain Streeti" he said, a little more forcefully. "TTiose who object to him are the ones who are far too ashamed of their background. Not me." From a polite trickle, the applause swelled.
Years ago, the two-time Governor-General's award winner noted, American Jewish authors masked their
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quintessentially Jewish characters in a non-Jewish milieu. like Paddy Chayefsky's Marty or Arthur Miller's All My Sons. But when an author tends to be critical, "the Jewish community rather than applauding tends to take umbrage."
It is often difficult, said the 46-year-old author, essayist and screenwriter, to emulate the community's distastes. The Bar Mitzva scene in Duddy could not surpass the hoopla of "Bad Boy's" celebration for his son. said Richler, drawing a gasp from his audience. Nor. even as a satirist, could he match the humor of Israel Bonds in Montreal awarding Tony Curtis the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award.
"I'm trying to be an honest witiless to my time and place." he finished meaningfully, as he walked off the stage clutching his text and styro-fbam cup, amidst applause.
Dressed in a brown corduroy jacket. Richler had earlier titillated his listeners with anecdotes about the lecture and TV talk-show circuit, lashing into popular biographer Irving Stone in a spoof on the American author's pretentious interview style.
Touching on his own entree into the literary world, he remarked that Canadians were "conditioned to believe that the world happened elsewhere . -the Canadian kid who wanted to be prime minister," he quipped, "wasn't thinking big, but was setting his limits early."
Like his characters Jake and Luke in St. Urbaln's Horseman, anemia was Richler's heritage, said the writer, who left Canada for London. Author of seven novels, his latest book, Jilcob Two-Two Meets The Hooded Fang, a work originally intended for the amusement of his five children, will appear in a movie version, early ne:xt year.
Singling out Canadian authors Northrop Frye, Robertson Davies and Morley Callaghan, he said many Canadian writers "appear to be whales who limit their splashing to a pond."
After lampooning the interviewers and public who naively question a writer as to how he approaches his art. Richler appeared to reluctantly acquiesce to the obligatory autograph seekers. His tie loosened, he cocked his head back regularly and pursed his lips in a smile, graciously accepting a parcel of food pressed into his hand by an admirer.
Some people were wondering aloud whether tidbits of this experience, as well, "would find their way into his parodies.
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Cartel's aide sends BB letter
TORONTO —
President Carter's Jegal counsel, Robert Lipshutz, has told B'nai B'rith District 22*s executive vice-president that the visit of Anwar Sadat to Israel "helped to overcome some of the previously insurmountable jpsycho-logical problems which have kept the Arabs and Israelis apart for the past 30 years."
In a personal letter to Herb Levy, the presiden-
tial counsel also wrote that the issues which divide Israel and the Arab states must be the subject of "negotiations between the parties."
In a previous letter to Lipshutz, dated Oct, 26, Levy wrote: "I note in a recent JTA bulletin a report of your presentation, at a Jewish community meeting, in which you were quoted to the effect that 'central to the Middle East situation r^^the Pales-
tinian and refugee problems.'
"I know how easy it is for published reports to distort, but I felt that I should take the opportunity to reiterate my own view, which hopefiiUy is yours too, that central to the problem is not the Palestinian or the refugee or even the settlement Tssues~but-.rather the inflexible refusal of Arab regimes to| live in peace with Israel." ^
Gulkin -- right man in right place
ByMELSOLMAN
MONTREAL —
Is it possible that one of the nerve centres of the Canadian film industry can be reached through a rear door in the Cote St. Luc shopping centre? That may be an unlikely location for a major film company, but, there, in a series of small offices, is the main base of operations of Gulkin Productions, best kiiown for its award-winning fdm Lies My Father Told Me.
•In a recent interviewr film producer Harry Gulkin freely admitted that he had been the right man in the right place during an unusually expansive period in Canadian film production. "I don't, know whether there would have been the fhiition of English language film-making in Canada had there not been ai general change for the better in the film-fi-■ nancing situation," he said.
Seated uncomfortably at his desk and looking like a tousled V combination of Albert Einstein and Habitat architect Moshe Saf-die,'Gulkin explained that his total commitment to film-making began seven years ago, when he acquired the screen rights
for Lies.
He had earlier completed a highly successful sales promotion film for Place Bonaventure where he was a marketing and design consultant. Soon after, he became convinced of the need to change careers. His previous occupations have included those of portrait photographer, merchant seaman, labor organizer, and journalist.
The company he heads recently completed filming two major projects scheduled for release sometime next year. The first is a film version of Mordecai Richler's work, Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, a children's story about a young boy who repeats everything twice. The other, already considered a landmark in Canadian cinematic history, is Two Solitudes, the film adaptation of Hugh McLennan's weH-known novel.
Being an effective pro-
He admitted that the question of sentimentality was indirectly an ingredient in the theme of Two Solitudes. "Although it is not universally true across the board, the English tend to contain their emotions more than the French.  This definitely
contributes to the difficulties in communication between the groups and is a centra! factor of the two solitudes."
In producing this particular film.. Gulkin said he had come to feel the anguish on both sides of the national unity ques-
tion. "I understand the bafflement of English Canada as well as the deep feelings of French-Canadians." he said.
This past January. Gulkin was instrumental in founding the Motion Picture Institute of Canada.
(Warren Lipton photo)
Montreal film dh«ctor Harry GuUdn [left] offers a few words of advice to actor Raymond Cloutier on set of "Two Solitudes**, based on Hugh McLennan's novel.
ducer, noted Gulkin, is synonymous with being a good businessman. "What you do every time you make a picture is create a business — an enterprise which lasts for the life of the film production. As producer, you are involved in everything from selection of screenplay, casting, recruiting the director to marketing and promotion."
His knowledge of the latter came with 10 years of experience at Steinberg's Ltd., where he was director of organizational planning and executive assistant to the president. Gulkin was also responsible for a multi-screen film and slide biography marking the 70th birthday of Sam Steinberg in December. 1975.
A year later. Penny and Ann, a film he made for the Lethbridge Rehabilitation Centre in Montreal, won second prize in a film festival held in Tel Aviv.
In explaining the success of Lies My Father Told Me in Canada, Gulkin said the delight of audiences experiencing familiar places and people on the screen had much to do with it.-The French-Canadian film industry, he said, had tended to rely too heavily on that element of familiarity. It was paying for it now in the form of a disastrous slump, he added.
"Certainly films have to deal with our own experi-
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ence and the realities of our lives," he said, "but they also have to appeal to a level of meaning which is universal. In Lies My Father Told Me, we have a love story — the relationship between a grandfather and his grandson which exists in every culture."
For Gulkin, the setting of Lies coincided precisely with his own personal experiences growing up in the Montreal Jewish community of the *30s and •40s.
At the time, his father owned a photo studio on
St. Lawrence Boulevard with a backyard leading onto St. Dominique. "Nearby,.", he recalled, "there was a blacksmith who used to shoe the horses of the ragpickers. Every day I saw men like the zaide in Lies and I remember them crjing "regs. regs".
The great danger of doing a film like Lies, he said, was that of excessive sentimentality .""The Jewish people tend to be strong on sentimentality, although it is by no means an exclusively Jewish trait."
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