Since its beginnings, the Toronto International Film Festival has been invested in edifying and valorizing the Canadian auteur in the advancement of a national cinematic reputation. Through their works, these auteurs have evolved and been solidified as being amongst the foremost Canadian filmmakers. However, this movement from filmmaker to ‘auteur’ is not solely contingent on their approach to filmmaking, but also on the ways in which their films have been received in discourses. By spotlighting the talents of directors David Cronenberg, Jean-Marc Vallée and Xavier Dolan, TIFF has solidified their presence in discourse, and has thus been integral to the creation, edification and solidification of the Canadian auteur.
Since it its beginnings, the auteur theory has been widely contested amongst critics, academics and the public. The theory emerged in the early 1970s, when Francois Truffaut and his contemporaries at French cinema journal Cahiers du Cinema, including Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette, established “La Politique des Auteurs”. They demarcated certain directors as being distinct in their artistic expression. This expression was at once an ability to retain a visual distinctiveness throughout their films, and, in turn, reveal the auteur themselves. The auteur film would thus exhibit both the auteur’s self-expression and selfhood.
When the theory found its way to the English-speaking world, the scope of the auteur expanded. Andrew Sarris coined “auteur theory” in his paper “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962”, where he contested that the auteur be granted a ‘criterion of value’. He intimated that auteurs were ‘superior’ in their ability to make films, whereby “auteur” demarcated “prestigious” filmmakers. Despite the contradictions and debates surrounding its merits and traits, the auteur theory retains the distinctiveness of advancing films as art, and filmmakers as their singular artists.
The film festival is a further means of advancing cinematic art and its artists. TIFF has been central to this in Canada, and the relationship between TIFF and the Canadian auteur is evident in the trajectory of David Cronenberg. The “King of Venereal Horror” first emerged at TIFF in 1979, when his films Shivers (1975) and The Brood (1979) had caught the attention of critic Robin Wood. Screened at the festival, the films were subsequently framed as an expose on Cronenberg’s ‘reactionary’ stance in the horror genre, setting a precedent for the reception of Cronenberg’s work. However, Cronenberg’s cinematic identity was subsequently unified in 1983, when TIFF held a retrospective of all eight of the feature films he had made to that point, including Scanners (1981) and Videodrome (1983). Piers Handling, director and CEO of TIFF, was at the center of the retrospective’s creation, and, concurrently, at the center of Cronenberg’s institution into the Canadian cinematic landscape. Handling noted the importance of the retrospective in bringing Cronenberg to focused audiences. “Unquestionably, the 1983 retrospective began to reposition [Cronenberg], providing the beginnings of respectability in his home country,” he writes in the David Cronenberg Virtual Exhibition. This respectability was tied to the visibility of Cronenberg’s status as an auteur, brought upon by a close inspection of his oeuvre.
Although Cronenberg had successes in Canada prior to the 1983 retrospective, including nominations for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay at the 1982 Genie Awards for Scanners, the discourses surrounding his work would become entrenched after this point. Cronenberg quickly became a regular fixture at TIFF, which included Opening Presentations of Dead Ringers (1988) and M. Butterfly (1993), and Gala Presentations for Spider (2002), winner of Best Canadian Feature, A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), which won the People’s Choice Award, and A Dangerous Method (2011). TIFF was critical to bringing Cronenberg into the public consciousness and continually contributing to his status as an auteur despite the thematic and stylistic changes in his filmmaking.
Following his success in 2005, Vallée directed The Young Victoria (2009) – a period piece set and shot in England, and a marked departure from the expressive stylizations found in C.R.A.Z.Y. Speaking with Interview Magazine in 2013, Vallée accepted that he felt “removed” from his early films, accepting he has undergone an “evolution”. This evolution continued in his adoption of the digital film camera, which he used to shoot Café de Flore (2011) and has continued to use to shoot Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and Wild (2014). This has aided him in creating a greater “sense of reality” as he continued to develop his cinematic identity, adopting a social realist style that draws the audience even closer to his subjects. This marked changed has also seen Vallée’s international reputation grow, as Dallas Buyers Club and Wild garnered several Academy Award nominations. In a similar vein to Cronenberg, Jean-Marc Vallée’s reputation was established and grew through and after his first inclusion at TIFF. A bourgeoning filmmaker from Quebec, Vallée made three features before his breakout, C.R.A.Z.Y (2005), screened at TIFF’s Contemporary World Cinema section and won the Best Feature Film Award, and he has seen every one of his subsequent films screen there.
Unlike his predecessors, the beginnings of Xavier Dolan’s success were on the international stage. His debut feature film, J’ai Tué Ma Mère (I Killed My Mother) (2009), won three prizes at the prestigious Cannes International Film Festival, including the SCAD prize after screening at Director’s Fortnight – a sidebar section of the festival that highlights young filmmakers. When the film came to TIFF in 2009 for its English-Canada Premiere, the fervor surrounding his talents was already at fever pitch. Dolan’s subsequent four films, Les amours imaginaires (Hearbeats) (2010), Laurence Anyways (2012), Tom at the Farm (2013), which won Best Canadian Feature, and Mommy, have screened at TIFF. Unwavering in their consistency, Dolan’s films center on questions surrounding love, family and identity, and, despite the genre elements of Tom at the Farm, convey an auteur invested in the realization of a personal cinema that remains unbound in stylization.
Earlier this year, Dolan received the 2014 Guichet D’Or for Mommy – awarded for becoming the highest grossing French-Canadian film in 2014. After the ceremony, Xavier Dolan voiced his concern regarding the growing distinction between commercial and auteur cinema. “To label these films is to seal their fate, in a negative way” he told the Montreal Gazette. In the public eye, Mommy has been regarded as an auteur film, which Dolan felt made it distinct from more ‘accessible’ films. In doing this, the inherent ‘conventionality’ and, in turn, accessibility of Mommy is undermined. This broaches a potential hurdle for the auteur theory, whereby the auteur is marked but not regarded as ever-changing.
Despite its breadth and reach, the auteur theory does not account for the shifts inherent in the careers of directors. In helping institute the Canadian auteur, TIFF has also become implicit in accepting the auteur as fluid. Auteur cinema has been typified by consistency and, despite exploring differing themes and styles throughout their careers, Cronenberg, Vallée and Dolan retain their auteur status. This is because the designation of the auteur is contingent on the reception and edification of the auteur’s works. This is to say that the auteur is established in discourse, and TIFF has been at the center of its perpetuation, becoming a conduit and playground for the exploration of Canadian auteurs.