Degree
Master of Arts
Program
Film Studies
Supervisor
Dr. Christopher E. Gittings
Abstract
This thesis addresses English-Canadian cinema’s attempt to establish and maintain a popular cinema during the first decade of the twenty-first century, specifically analyzing the relationship between Canadian genre filmmaking traditions and the complexities of attracting popular Canadian audiences to homegrown films. This extended study examines a variety of films and people in contemporary English-language Canadian cinema, from Anglophone Canadian star Paul Gross and his films Men with Brooms (2002) and Passchendaele, to horror films Splice (Vincenzo Natali 2010) and Pontypool (Bruce McDonald 2009), and finally the action-comedy Bon Cop, Bad Cop (Érik Canuel 2006). Discussing the respective political economies, marketing, critical receptions, and production histories of a diverse selection of contemporary English-language Canadian films in case-study format, this thesis finds that, while troubled, it is undoubtedly possible to create a popular contemporary English-language Canadian cinema that exists, at least geographically and politically, apart from the dominant Hollywood filmmaking.
Recommended Citation
Fitzpatrick, Sean C., "Fighting, Screaming, and Laughing for an Audience: Stars, Genres, and the Question of Constructing a Popular Anglophone Canadian Cinema in the Twenty First Century" (2012). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 784.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/784