Geoff Pevere's T-dot state of mind
Posted on 10. Nov, 2009 by Jef in Art, Film, media, Toronto
Today — like the dumbest of drunk-dialers — I really miss Film Studies, so hi-five to whoever tweeted this Masionneuve conversation with critic Geoff Pevere about Toronto’s cinematic identity problems. It was doubly nice, since Pevere’s thoughts on some of Hogtown’s most important performances ties in with Jesse’s earlier post about local hip-hop’s complex with the Big Apple — something I’ve thought a lot about ever since.
I think it has to do with Toronto not being able to take on those sorts of mythic qualities that you can oppose. For example, if you look images of London, England at Christmastime people will say “That’s not the real London!” or if you take images of New York from On The Town versus Scorsese’s view of New York, there’s still this basic sense of mythology. And with Toronto we didn’t really have anything. So I think when films first started being set here Toronto seemed like a new urban frontier for people who has grown up here and lived here. And for very many Canadians, their media experience consists of watching images that come from someplace else.
Oh God, a giant *[sic]* on that whole fucking paragraph!
Anyways. One day (yes, I am threatening) I will turn all this into a post about Drake, but for now go check out the interview. It’s tied to the release of Toronto on Film, an anthology of essays featuring work by Pevere, Piers Handling, Brenda Longfellow — all of whom are interesting, if not excellent, if you’re into this sort of stuff — and more. Also, Pevere talks about why he stepped down as a film reviewer for the Toronto Star and shuffled to their book section. Basically, he says he was bored, which sounds about right. If you were still checking for his writing at that time you probably self-induced alopecia over head-scratchers like his four-star (!) Planet of the Apes review and subsequent retraction; it’s kind of clear the poor dude was losing his mind.
(image via)
