05

FILM STUDY GUIDES PROGRAM study guide

PROGRAMME DES GUIDES PDAGOGIQUES Guide pdagogique

The Grey Fox

A film directed by Phillip Borsos Un film realis par Phillip Borsos

FILM STUDY GUIDES PROGRAM

PROGRAMME DES GUIDES PDAGOGIQUES DANS LE DOMAINE DES TUDES CINMATOGRAPHIQUES introduction
Le cinma a occup une place centrale dans la vie du 20e sicle et continuera de le faire durant le prsent millnaire. Les films nous racontent des histoires qui se passent des endroits o nous ne sommes jamais alls et que vivent des gens que nous navons jamais rencontrs; ils nous rassemblent et nous tiennent spars les uns des autres; ils nous aident nous souvenir de notre enfance et des rves davenir que nous y nourrissions; ils nous font connatre les autres et parfois mme nous aident comprendre lendroit o nous vivons nous-mmes. Cest pour toutes ces raisons que la Cinmathque Pacifique lance son programme de guides pdagogiques, une collection de textes de base conus pour aider les enseignants et les tudiants examiner le cinma contemporain travers la lentille de lducation cinmatographique et de lducation aux mdias. Ces guides pdagogiques, indpendants les uns des autres, sont pourtant relis par lamour du cinma et par un dsir de jeter des regards critiques sur linfluence du cinma contemporain dans nos vies. Il y a plus de sept dcennies, le cinaste russe Vsevolod Poudovkine saisissait dj le pouvoir que reprsentait le cinma pour les ducateurs en crivant que le cinma est le meilleur professeur parce quil enseigne non seulement travers lesprit mais travers tout le corps. Cela reste vrai au 21e sicle, et lintroduction des tudes cinmatographiques et mdiatiques dans les programmes dtudes des coles secondaires et primaires fournira de nombreux enseignants et tudiants loccasion dexplorer cet enseignement de Poudovkine. Le programme des guides pdagogiques contribue cette dmarche en fournissant aux enseignants des outils critiques qui leur permettent dexaminer et de discuter un ventail de nouveaux films canadiens et internationaux dans le contexte de plusieurs niveaux scolaires et de diverses disciplines. Chaque guide pdagogique renvoie aux curriculums provinciaux des coles secondaires par le biais de concepts tirs de lducation aux mdias, ce par quoi nous entendons lexamen critique de lincidence des mdias sur le monde et notre relation lui. La Cinmathque Pacifique est le plus important centre dtude et dapprciation du cinma contemporain de lOuest du Canada, et bien que nous reconnaissions lappui de nos parrains et de nos partenaires, le programme des guides pdagogiques est indpendant des autres programmes de la Cinmathque au point de vue ditorial. Nous invitons les enseignants et les tudiants de partout au pays nous faire part de leur exprience avec nos guides pdagogiques et nous suggrer toute amlioration que nous pourrions leur apporter. Stuart Poyntz directeur des services pdagogiques Cinmathque Pacifique

introduction
The cinema has been at the centre of life in the 20th century and it will continue to be in the next century. Movies tell us stories about places never seen and people never met; they bring us together and keep us apart; they help us remember childhood and to dream about the future; they tell us about each other and they sometimes even help us to understand the places we call home. For all these reasons, Pacific Cinmathque introduces the Film Study Guides program, a collection of primers for teachers and students which examine contemporary movies through the lens of film and media education. The study guides, while independent of each other, are linked together by a love for the cinema and a desire to create critical examinations of how contemporary films affect our lives. More than seven decades ago the Russian filmmaker Vsevold Pudovkin grasped the power of cinema for educators. He wrote: Film is the greatest teacher because it teaches not only through the brain but through the whole body. In the 21st century this remains true and now with the introduction of film and media studies into the Canadian secondary and elementary school curricula, an opportunity exists to explore Pudovkins lesson. The Film Study Guides program does this by providing teachers with critical tools to examine and discuss a range of new Canadian and international films in the context of various grade levels and discipline areas. Each study guide refers to provincial secondary school curricula through concepts drawn from media education, by which we mean: the critical examination of how the media affects the world and our place in it. Pacific Cinmathque is Western Canadas leading centre for the study and appreciation of contemporary cinema and while we gratefully acknowledge the support of our sponsors and partners, the Film Study Guides program is an editorially independent program of the Cinmathque. We look forward to hearing from teachers and students throughout the country who use these guides and welcome comments which can help to improve our packages. Stuart Poyntz Education Director Pacific Cinmathque

film study guides program The

This teaching guide has three purposes:

Grey Fox (1982) directed by Phillip Borsos

To help teachers address the learning outcomes in the English Language Arts, Social Sciences and Media Education curricula which deal with visual media as a form of communication; To help teachers who are planning to teach film for the first time; and To suggest ways in which traditional literary concepts may be taught using a medium other than printed text.

CONTENTS
A Short History of Phillip Borsos Film Career 03 Whats Made here A Short History of Filmmaking in British Columbia 04 + 05 + 06 The Filmmaking Aesthetics of The Grey Fox 07 + 08 Region and Landscape in The Grey Fox Imagining British Columbia at the Turn of the Century 09 + 10 Technology and Transition in a New Historical Era 11 + 12 + 13 The Representation of Women in The Grey Fox 14 + 15 Writing Screenplays for Canadian Film 16 + 17 Rogues, Eccentrics, and Madmen in the Wilderness The Obsession with Outsiders and Eccentrics in Canadian Culture and Cinema 18 + 19

LEARNING OUTCOMES
This Film Study Guide is specifically designed for teachers working with learning outcomes from the Grades 11 and 12 B.C. English Language Arts Curricula. The outcomes are similar to the learning outcomes in the Western Consortium document for Language Arts adopted by Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, as well as the new Ontario curriculum and the consortium of Atlantic Provinces curriculum.

PLOT SUMMARY
In The Grey Fox, the gentlemanly Bill Miner, played by the late Richard Farnsworth, is a former stagecoach robber. Released after having served a lengthy prison term in Californias San Quentin Penitentiary, he moves to Washington, where he lives with his sister and picks oysters for a living. Bored by his new occupation, one fateful night he sees the film, The Great Train Robbery (Edwin Porter, 1903), and is inspired to embark on a new careertrain robbery. After some misadventures, he successfully robs a train, stashes his loot, and hides out in Kamloops, then a relatively unpopulated Canadian mining town. Using a false identity, he establishes himself as an upright citizen and becomes involved with an outspoken female photographer. Meanwhile, an American detective is in hot pursuit; to escape detection, Bill considers changing his criminal ways, eventually deciding to move east with his girlfriend. But first he and his cohorts must attempt one final heist.
Film Study Guides Program

Stunningly photographed by Frank Tidy, The Grey Fox reenvisions the life of a man who never achieved great fame, and instead, embellishes his career as an outlaw in subtle and thought-provoking ways. Great attention is paid to Bill Miners character, and we come to view him as a dignified and rather kindly man whose incurable restlessness and need for adventure lead to petty crime. The other characters in The Grey Fox are just as carefully developed: from Kate (the temperamental love interest played by Jackie Burroughs) and Shorty (the impatient accomplice played by Wayne Robson) to Fernie (the sympathetic Mountie played by Timothy Webber) and Jack (the cynical hotel owner played by Ken Pogue).

The Grey Fox |

01

Photo courtesy of Vancouver Public Library

Preview Questions Keep the following questions in mind as you watch the film, and when you have finished viewing it, discuss them as a class: 1. The protagonist in The Grey Fox, Bill Miner, is a complex character. How would you describe him? Cite specific scenes and examples from the film that help define Bill Miner. 2. Landscape plays an important role in The Grey Fox. One could even make the argument that the Canadian landscape is one of the films main characters. Select a scene from the film that takes place in British Columbia. Describe the way the landscape looks, how it is shot, and why its inclusion is crucial to that particular scene. 3. While the American detective, Seavey, obsessively seeks to capture and imprison Bill Miner, a number of the other characters in The Grey Fox hold a much higher opinion of the train robber. Discuss why Kate, Shorty, Fernie, Jack, and Louis, seem to both like or respect Bill Miner.

Written by Melissa Riley Melissa Riley is the Education Coordinator at the Pacific Cinmathque. She has taught film courses at the University of California, Berkeley and completed her Masters degree in Rhetoric at UCB in 1999. She has also coordinated educational and film exhibition programs at secondary schools and colleges in the United States.

02 | The Grey Fox

Film Study Guides Program

A SHORT HISTORY OF PHILLIP BORSOS FILM CAREER

Director Phillip Borsos was born in Tasmania, moved to Canada at the age of five, and grew up in British Columbia (he actually spent his youth in the Fraser Valley, a scant few miles from the site of Bill Miners first train robbery). Borsos later studied visual arts at the Banff School of Fine Arts and at the Vancouver School of Art. In 1976, he incorporated his own company, Mercury Pictures, which produced several commercials and sponsored films. His first short film, Cooperage (1976), a documentary on the craft of barrel making, was a hit at the Canadian Film Awards that year. Borsos followed this up with Spartree (1977), a short film about lumberjacks. In 1979, he made another documentary, Nails, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. These three short films all utilized black and white archival footage from the turn of the century, and like much of his later work, focused on tradition and the relations between the past and present. After building his directorial reputation through television commercials and also producing the film, The Night Before, the Morning After (Barry Healey, 1979), Borsos started working on The Grey Fox with the Vancouver producer, Peter OBrian. The project went through nine re-writes and three writers, as well as five years of preparation, before shooting began near Cranbrook, British Columbia, in the fall of 1980, with a budget of $4.3 million. When it was finally released in 1982, The Grey Fox was not a commercial hit, but it garnered both great critical reviews and many prizes. It also earned its director, Borsos, and its producer, OBrian, a solid reputation. Years after its release, in 1984 and 1993, The Grey Fox would be selected by Canadian film critics as one of the ten greatest Canadian films ever made. Following The Grey Fox, Borsos next film was a decided change of pace. He directed the American-made The Mean Season (1985), a crime thriller starring Kurt Russell and Mariel Hemingway. That same year, he directed and produced a remake of Its a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946). Retitled One Magic Christmas (1985), and featuring Mary Steenburgen as a suicidal woman taken to meet Santa Claus, neither this picture nor The Mean Season would reap much commercial or critical success. Borsos final two films again garnered him critical acclaim but made little money. The period piece, Dr. Bethune (1990) was the true story of the 1930s Canadian surgeon, Norman Bethune (played by Donald Sutherland), who worked in China during Mao Tse-tungs Communist revolution. With Far from Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog (1995), Borsos returned to the theme of the great outdoors a teenager (Jesse Bradford) and his Labrador are marooned in the Pacific Northwest and upon completing the film, as he was branching out into screenwriting, Borsos was diagnosed with leukemia. Just after receiving a bone marrow transplant as treatment for leukemia, Borsos died at the age of 41 in 1995.

activity 01

A pervasive theme in Phillip Borsos three short films, Cooperage, Spartree, and Nails, is a fascination with the way mechanical objects work. Look for at least two concrete examples of this theme in The Grey Fox, and describe the visual detail (type of shots, length of shots, camera angles, etc.) that Borsos uses to place special emphasis on mechanical objects in particular scenes. How does this kind of visual detail affect the way you view the scenes?

Film Study Guides Program

The Grey Fox |

03

WHATS MADE HERE A SHORT HISTORY OF FILMMAKING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

The history of filmmaking in British Columbia is much longer than most people would imagine. The filmmaking industry began in 1913, and its initial development took place in isolation from the rest of Canada. Cameramen were attracted to BC because of its lush and photogenic landscapes, so perhaps its not surprising that early BC films thus promoted tourism and immigration. In the 1920s, the first big Hollywood film boom took place on Canadas West Coast, as American film crews were drawn by the scenery to make outdoor adventure movies. In the 1930s, American producers set up a branch plant in the province and made some low-quality films, known as quickie quotas. These Hollywood-produced films were able to exploit the British quota restriction on imported films because Canada was a member of the British Empire. While the American producers were filming their quickie quota feature movies, domestic productionfilms made in BC by Canadiansdeveloped separately, usually in relation to photography or advertising. The BC provincial government has been active in motion pictures since 1908, setting up a number of branches for the purposes of promotion and publicity. For example, the BC Government Travel Bureau Photographic Branch first distributed black and white shorts highlighting BCs scenery to encourage tourism. This branch later produced films such as Tourism: A British Columbia Industry (Clarence Ferris, 1940). Other provincial branches that also made films included the BC Forest Service and the Provincial Board of Health. From 1941-1965, various institutions produced films about BC. The BC provincial government continued to make promotional films, and also explored the educational medium through topics like BCs recreational activity and industrial capacity. The federal governments National Film Board documented the history, economy, and cultural heritage of the province, while commercial filmmakers such as Lew Parry and Leon Shelly were commissioned by BC firms to record a wide range of postwar industries. The face of filmmaking in BC would be changed forever, however, with the creation of the regional television station, CBUT Vancouver, by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1953, intended to create films for television, especially social documentaries and dramatic features. CBUT would also produce one of the CBCs more successful televised films, Skid Row (Allan King, 1956), a gritty documentary about the alcoholics and drifters living on Vancouvers Downtown Eastside. Since 1941, Vancouver has been the epicentre of British Columbia filmmaking, in part because the city forms a gathering place for people interested in the arts: painting, literature, music, theatre, photography, and broadcasting. This factor combined with Vancouvers proximity to Hollywood led to constant film production throughout the 1960s. But by 1966, filmmaking in Vancouver had reached a plateau. With Hollywoods interest beginning to wane, many local filmmakers began to leave the province. Among those who remained were a number of independent artists who began making experimental and socially-conscious films, beginning in the mid-1960s and continuing into the 1970s. Finding an audience through the CBUT television stations late night programming, as well as through the artist-run centre Intermedia, filmmakers such as Tom Braidwood, Gary Lee-Nova, David Rimmer, and Al Razutis found outlets for their work. During the 1970s, the National Film Boards Pacific Regional Studio utilized the talents of these and other local filmmakers to generate a substantial number of films. Aside from providing opportunities for women directors, the NFB also assisted in the production of shorts by new directors. The studios releases included Tom Shandels We Call Them Killers (1972), Phillip Borsos Cooperage (1976) and Spartree (1977), and Shelah Reljics Soccer (1974).

04 | The Grey Fox

Film Study Guides Program

In recent years, there has been a huge resurgence in British Columbias popularity as a location for Hollywood movies and television shows. While these films feature local talent in both cast and crew, they often have very little to do with British Columbia. When Vancouver appears onscreen, it is usually rendered anonymous, in the guise of an American city. Notable exceptions to this trend include Bruce Sweeneys Dirty (1998) and Mina Shums Double Happiness (1994), written and directed by Vancouver filmmakers, using Canadian material, and prominently featuring British Columbia as British Columbia. These pictures were made on an infrequent basis during the 1980s, but recently, there has been increased production of independent films. Several graduates of the University of British Columbia Film program, including Mina Shum, Lynn Stopkewich, and Bruce Sweeney, have directed films set in Canada, many of them set in Vancouver. Mina Shums Double Happiness and Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity (2002) feature Chinese Canadian characters struggling to find fulfilment in their personal and professional lives. With her two films, Kissed (1996) and Suspicious River (2000), Lynn Stopkewich addresses issues of sexual transgression. Bruce Sweeney also examines people involved in troubled relationships in Dirty (1998) and Last Wedding (2001). Another BC filmmaker, Mort Ransen, who directed nineteen films for the NFB before working on his own productions, has also used BC as the backdrop in his film, Touched (1999), featuring the relationship between a young man and a much older woman in BCs Okanagan.

Photo courtesy of Vancouver Public Library

Film Study Guides Program

The Grey Fox | 05

activity 02

A significant amount of filmmaking in BC has been commercially produced or government sponsored (BC provincial government, NFB, and CBC). Conduct some outside research using online sources such as the NFB website, www.nfb.ca, the CBC website, www.cbc.ca, or print sources such as Dennis Duffys Camera West: British Columbia on Film 1941-1965 and find out the titles and directors of three educational, promotional, documentary, or feature-length films that were filmed in BC and produced domestically from 1913-1965. What were these films about, and who produced them? In what ways did they focus on BC?

activity 03

More recently, independent filmmaking has played a significant role in the BC film industry. Independent filmmakers such as Mina Shum, Lynn Stopkewich, Bruce Sweeney, and Mort Ransen have made feature-length narrative films that have achieved varying degrees of success. Select and rent a movie made by one of these filmmakers. Write a two-paragraph movie review. What is your overall opinion of the movie? What aspects of it worked, or didnt work for you?

activity 04

Today, so many movies and television shows are filmed in British Columbia, as well as in other Canadian provinces. Working in small groups, compile a list of ten movies and/or television shows that feature at least a few scenes shot in Canada. Discuss how you were able to identify the location. Also, with the movies or T.V. shows that you select, discuss whether the location is supposed to be in the U.S. or Canada according to the storyline.

activity 05

If you were given the assignment to shoot a two-minute scene in your neighbourhood, where would it take place? Pretend you are a location scout, and bring back a few pictures (either photographs or drawings) of the location you select. Describe the time of day in your scene, and provide details about how the scene looks. In what ways is this scene identifiably Canadian?

06 | The Grey Fox

Film Study Guides Program

THE FILMMAKING AESTHETICS OF THE GREY FOX

Filmmaking aesthetics refers to the look and sound of a film. More precisely, this means how elements like setting, shot selection (close-up, medium shot, establishing shot, etc.), framing (the arrangement of images within the film frame), camera movement (panning, tracking, etc.), editing techniques (jump cuts, cross-cutting, etc.), and sound (including music, dialogue, and voiceover) contribute to the films overall effect on the viewer. The aesthetic scheme of The Grey Fox is carefully composed and well-crafted, leading us to appreciate the sheer beauty of the BC landscape and to remain awestruck by the powerful trains. From the setting and the camera movement to the music and framing, The Grey Fox is filled with innovative and unconventional filmmaking techniques. Much of The Grey Fox forms a series of counterpoints. Based on the settings alone, one could say that this film provides a study in extreme contrasts. While early morning sunshine illuminates one scene, the following scene is shrouded in complete darkness. Warmly lit interiors clad in ochre hues offset vibrant landscapes, awash in pastoral pinks, blues, and greens. Bill Miner and his stolen horse flee the hazy Washington sunshine, only to immediately reappear in the snowy terrain of Canada. Camera movement comprises another counterpoint. The camera frequently tracks various characters traversing the horizontal plane of the screen, but then, in subsequent shots, we see the characters heading in the exact opposite direction. Characters move all over the screen: horizontally, vertically, diagonally, while the camera, almost imperceptibly, glides alongside (think of Bill and Shorty on the railroad tracks walking toward the camera). In one of the films most ethereal scenes, where the sea and sky merge in a mist of grey, the camera follows Bill Miner as he plucks oysters off the Washington shoreline. But the camera is by no means restricted to panning left, right, up, and down; it also zooms in close-up, either isolating small details that we might otherwise overlook, or pulling back to emphasize a more macroscopic perspective. Through a medium shot, Bill and Kate are shown dancing, and then the camera zooms out to showcase the gazebo, set against the largesse of the pink and blue mountainside. Working in tandem with the continuous movement of both the camera and the characters is the musical score. Often the music guides the movement: a Celtic tune replete with bagpipes, flutes, and drums dictates the frenetic pace of the train robberies, while an operatic aria swirls around Bill and Kate, engaged in deep conversation. Sweet Betsy from Pike, sung by Richard Farnsworth, accompanies the developing romance between Bill and Kate, shown in an extended sequence. The song continues through a few scenes, and the characters very gestures are set in time to the musical tempo (recall the gazebo scene).

Film Study Guides Program

The Grey Fox | 07

Just as in the waltz scene in the gazebo, mountains and trees continually frame the photographic outdoor compositions (if we froze or stilled the landscape shots, wed have perfect postcard images) of The Grey Fox. Bodies of water are utilized, not only for the sheer beauty they bestow in various scenes, but also because of their reflective capacity. A steam engine travels across the screen with its likeness mirrored in the water. The trains at night, glinting metallic black and blue, reflect and refract sources of light, foreboding and awe-inspiring all at once. The trains seem to impose themselves upon the natural world, pushing man to his very limits in the classic struggle between humanity and technology. As the film suggests, it is technology that wins out in the end. Trains circumscribe both Bill Miners freedom and his incarceration; he depends on them for his livelihood, and yet they transport him to and from prison. We first glimpse Bill Miner when he emerges from the shadowy darkness of the San Quentin Penitentiary into the blinding light of the 20th century. The film immediately cuts to a shot of an oncoming train, as it directly approaches the camera. What these scenes establish for us is the entire narrative structure of the film. Released into the modern age of the 20th century, the trains give shape to Bill Miners future. The Grey Fox, however, ends on a much more nostalgic note. Bill escapes the British Columbia Penitentiary by boat. And as the film tells us, Bill Miner would never be seen in Canada again.

activity 06

As you read in the preceding section, filmmaking aesthetics refer to the look and the sound of a film and includes elements like setting, shot selection, framing, camera movement, editing techniques, and audio. Select one of these elements and describe exactly how it is used in one scene from The Grey Fox (do not use any of the scenes already described above). How does this particular element of filmmaking aesthetics contribute to the way you interpret the scene, as well to your impression of the film as a whole?

activity 07

Identify all the methods of transportation (mechanical and non-mechanical) featured in The Grey Fox. Make a list and rank them in order of importance to the films plot.

activity 08

Select a scene from The Grey Fox that features a moving camera. Describe the scene in a few sentences. Why do you think its necessary for the camera to be in motion in the scene you have chosen?

08 | The Grey Fox

Film Study Guides Program

REGION AND LANDSCAPE IN THE GREY FOX IMAGINING BRITISH COLUMBIA AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
Filming The Grey Fox in the early 1980s, Phillip Borsos takes a few steps backward in time, imagining for us British Columbia at the turn of the century. Industrial modernization is spreading throughout the province, but the scenery still remains breathtaking and relatively unspoiled. A tenuous compromise seems to exist between the land and its inhabitants, wherein commerce steadily grows but not at an explosive pace. Consider the many scenes of a train passing through mountain ranges. There is a strong sense that the train actually belongs to the mountains, almost as though it was a natural appendage. As is generally acknowledged by Canadian historians, the lumber industry, the railroad industry, and the mining industry have all made major contributions to the history and development of British Columbia. The Grey Fox offers us multiple glimpses of these early 20th century sectors. The first scene in BC takes place in a lumber mill. In the pouring rain, Bill Miner leaves yet another job, commenting with some bitterness on the deductions (including board and lodging) from his paycheck, leaving him with close to nothing. From his remarks, we begin to understand the gravity and harshness of working conditions faced by resource workers of the era. Through Miners various attempts at train robbery, we also learn what kind of merchandise was shipped across the railways. In addition to large amounts of cash, some of which Miner and Shorty confiscate, the railroads were also conduits for registered mail parcels (replacing horse and stagecoach mail service). But the trains also carried passengers bearing goods, such as the travelling salesman who offers an apple peeling invention to Miner. And as Kate later claims, while protesting the unequal wages earned by female factory workers at the towns newspaper, the transcontinental railway at the edge of Kamloops not only brings in goods and supplies, but also ideas. The history of the Canadian Pacific Railway is subtly and astutely acknowledged in one sequence of The Grey Fox. Fernie summons Kate and Miner to a shantytown on the outskirts of Kamloops, where a Chinese immigrant has just slain his entire family. While Fernie remains incredulous, making the rather racist comment, Damn Chinamen. You can never understand whats going on in their heads, Bill is empathetic; he notes that the Chinese immigrants are a world away from home (Miner too is an exile from his homeland). Perhaps he understands that the railroads, the current source of his livelihood, were built chiefly through Chinese labour. To bide their time and pay for lodging at the Tulameen Hotel, Miner and Shorty work in the mines, then attempt to steal horses to no avail. Their mining work, instead of discovering gold, as Miner informs Fernie, consists of finding a few traces of zinc and lead. Then, after a botched CPR robbery and on the lam from the Mounties, Miner and his posse pose as gold prospectors. Miner tells the authorities that his group is not panning for gold, but surveying and staking. By this point in the film, we get the sense that while mining may still be a profitable industry, the big boom is over, and gold has become an even rarer commodity. In their next endeavour, Bill and Shorty find horse wrastling equally difficult. They drive the horses down the same path as the railroad, leading one horse to a tragic death. As they discover, horse wrastling is quite a lot of work for just a little bit of money. This sequence suggests that the railroad has overtaken other major industries, leaving these other industries much less profitable.

Film Study Guides Program

The Grey Fox |

09

While the BC landscape plays a pivotal role in The Grey Fox, providing a context for the close relationship between land and industry, Phillip Borsos crafts the films characters with intimate care and detail. In particular, as the films story gradually unfolds, the challenges of outlaw life in the early 20th century become clearer to us. Bill Miner flees one train robbery by foot, steals a horse, and makes his way to British Columbia. Using an alias, he creates a new identity and sequesters himself in a small town for quite some time. Meanwhile, an American detective doggedly pursues Bill, relying on little more than a written description (note that he also describes Miners rather unique tattoos). Sufficient time elapses between Bills arrival in Kamloops and the discovery of his true identity that he is able to form a lasting bond with Kate. Nowadays, computer technology enables law enforcement to track criminals fairly quickly, and the events of September 11, 2001 have made border security much tighter. But The Grey Fox nostalgically harkens back to an earlier time, when a man could cross the border back and forth with relative ease, maintain a false identity, and escape from authorities when such occasions arose.

activity 09

Bring in a map of North America (specifically of Canada and the United States), and following the storyline of The Grey Fox, trace Bill Miners route from his release from the San Quentin Penitentiary to his imprisonment in the British Columbia Penitentiary on the map. How many states and provinces did Miner encounter? Try to name the various towns, provinces, and states that he passed through. Why do you think Miner chose the paths that he took to evade the authorities?

activity 10

Working in small groups, think about why landscape remains so central to the way Canadians define themselves. Brainstorm reasons to explain how the landscape is linked so closely to our national identity, and cite examples from film, television, art, or popular music to support your argument.

Photo courtesy of Vancouver Public Library

10 | The Grey Fox

Film Study Guides Program

TECHNOLOGY AND TRANSITION IN A NEW HISTORICAL ERA

The Grey Fox strongly suggests that the cinema changed Bill Miners view of the world, propelling him toward a new career. Having served his prison sentence, he enters the 20th century, unaware of the technological changes that have occurred in the previous 33 years. Bill quickly realizes that robbing stagecoaches, now completely outmoded, is no longer an option. But the experience in a vaudeville hall of seeing The Great Train Robbery gives him a new sense of purpose and direction. He immediately visits a nearby railway station to watch the trains and purchases a gun. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, roughly equalling the span of time between Bill Miners San Quentin imprisonment and eventual release, the world was ablaze with bursts of technological change. Two inventions, in particular, would forever change peoples sense of time and space, as well as peoples relationships to each other: the creation of the railway and the advent of the cinema. More than 40,000 steam engine locomotives (a few of which were put to good use in The Grey Fox) were built between 1829 and 1949 for passenger and industrial use. The formation of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 provided a major developmental step in railway transportation, connecting the East and West coasts (paving the way for Western expansion and mining) of the United States, and, in effect, uniting the U.S. through commerce and travel. Likewise, in 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway was officially completed, with the last spike driven down in the mountains of British Columbia. The Canadian Pacific Railway, then as now, stood as a testament to Canadas storied past. One particularly pervasive belief holds that without the railway, there would be no Canada; it literally binds the disparate provinces together as a nation. But the railroad did not only physically link provinces together, train travel also reconfigured peoples notions of time and space because it provided a fairly rapid and reliable means of transport. Steam engines took passengers, as well as their goods and supplies, to places in North America that they could once only read about. The country, from its wilderness and prairie stretches to its newly minted urban centres, was opened up to paying customers. Industries such as tourism and travel promotion flourished. For the first time, people became fully aware of modern speed, which in practise meant that journeys that had previously taken weeks or months now lasted mere days. Devices like the telegraph and the telephone would allow people to more easily communicate over long distances. Goods and supplies could be ordered with precision and regularity, timed according to the arrival and departure schedules of the trains. What the trains enabled, in other words, was access: more, better, faster. And the access to other regions, other provinces, and other nations (travel across Canadian and U.S. borders) gave people the opportunity to explore new places, both enlarging and diminishing their sense of space. Removed from the isolation and desolation of their own remote towns, peoples eyes were opened to the vastness and enormity of the nation and continent. Conversely, when great expanses of land can be traversed in shorter amounts of time, space, as a consequence, seems smaller, easier to map and simpler to manage.

Film Study Guides Program

The Grey Fox |

11

The Grey Fox offers some striking examples of the way trains transformed peoples sense of time and space. For instance, as an accompaniment to the opening credits, a steam engine passes through a mountain range. More than any other image, its the billowing smoke that arrests our vision, with piles and piles of steam rising upward; whoever imagined that so much steam could be generated by a single locomotive? Some other mesmerizing shots include those taken onboard various trains. The camera remains poised either at the back or front of the train, attention directed to the rails passing before our eyes. Here, it is not just the sights but also the sounds that allow us to appreciate more fully the steam engines awesome power, with the engines chugging away at full blast. The Grey Fox highlights a variety of transportation modes, as older, outdated forms co-exist alongside more modern technological advances. For instance, Bill Miner rides a horse, many people still use the horse-drawn buggy, and the detective, Seavey, motors into town in a car. But the direction of the future is rendered quite clear in one scene that evocatively captures the impact of the steam engine on the cusp of the 20th century. When Miner and Shorty drive the horses down the mountain, they try to beat the oncoming train, but one of the galloping horses cannot outrun the trains impending and deadly approach. The conquest of technology is rather tragically symbolized here, as one form of transportation succumbs to the onslaught of another. Like the railway, the cinema was a phenomenon of the late 19th century, although its roots in photography originate even earlier in the 1820s. But cinemas history has always been linked to that of the railway; in fact, trains were the first main subjects of film. The Frenchman Louis Lumire is often credited as the inventor of the motion picture camera in 1895, since his portable cinmatographe served as a camera, film-processing unit, and projector all in one. Notably, Lumires first film was the arrival of the express train at the Ciotat train station in France. The cinema and the railway not only share parallel histories, but they both possess the ability to alter peoples sense of time and space. Film also compresses and elongates time, as shot selection and editing sift away the extraneous, leaving only images and sounds deemed necessary to the plot and storyline by the director. Space is reshaped onscreen as well. Between close-ups, long shots, pans, and tracking shots, characters and locations change within the duration of seconds. One scene can take place in one location, the following scene in yet another. Time and space, it could be said, come back to the viewer in a distorted form, one that does not necessarily correspond to reality, but one that causes us to look at our surrounding world in startlingly different ways. In The Grey Fox, we often see long shots in which a locomotive horizontally travels across the screen. What the plane of the screen represents is the vast distance between one land and another (such as the distance between Olympia, Washington and Kamloops, BC). The cinema trains us to see and readily accept this kind of representation, making the seemingly infinite span of space seem finite by shifting our spatial and temporal coordinates.

12 | The Grey Fox

Film Study Guides Program

activity 11

Using two scenes from The Grey Fox, the one where Bill Miner sees The Great Train Robbery in the vaudeville hall and another scene of your own choice in which Bill Miner attempts a train robbery, construct an argument comparing or contrasting the way the trains and the cinema alter your own sense of time and space. Write a one-page essay developing your argument.

activity 12

Describe as many shots or scenes as you can recall (if necessary, review the film) that take place onboard a train. Then select one of these shots or scenes, and try to explain why it was used. How does it make you experience the train; for example, does the train seem especially powerful or exciting? What does this add to the film and the audiences understanding of Bill Miner as a character?

activity 13

What do you make of the archival footage from The Great Train Robbery that appears at the beginning and near the end of The Grey Fox? Do you find that the inclusion of these scenes makes The Grey Fox more realistic, or does it detract from the biographical quality of the film? Explain your response.

Film Study Guides Program

The Grey Fox |

13

THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN THE GREY FOX

Although we do not see her until a third of the way through The Grey Fox, when Kate Flynn (Jackie Burroughs) does finally appear, she makes an immediate and lasting impression. While Bill Miner eavesdrops intently in the newspaper office, Kates first words are of protest. Before we, and Bill, see her, we hear her in voiceover, chastising the newspaper editor for failing to print her letter about the plight of female factory workers in BC. At first Kate speaks slowly and distinctively, enunciating each word with great care. But when the editor treats her with derision and condescension, the cadence of Kates speech becomes more frenetic, her gestures and expression intensify, as does her frustration. After telling the editor that he has the mentality of a grocery clerk, she leaves the office, only to hurl her letter at the window to indicate extreme displeasure. In later scenes, particularly in the extended sequence depicting the development of her relationship with Bill, Kate is further revealed as a complex and multidimensional character. A photographer by profession, Kate revels in her self-supported independence (notice it is Bill Miner who accompanies her while she takes photographs), able to indulge in such leisurely pastimes as opera and golf. In fact, Bill and Kates first conversation is about opera, as Bill asks Kate if he could stay and listen to her music, after she first accuses him of lurking about. In the following carefully choreographed scene, which seems almost like a dance with the two characters continually circling around each to retrieve golf balls, Kate expounds on her feminist views, telling Bill, one is not taken seriously in this country unless Caucasian, Protestant, and most of all, male. Over a picnic lunch, they exchange stories about their respective pasts (as well as sly, flirtatious glances), and we learn Kates history. She is nonconformistI never wanted to be like everybody else,and her actions demonstrate that she has a mind of her own and that she knows what she wants out of life. Finding her passion in photography, Kate mentions, Of course, my parents were mortified when no one asked to marry me, and Much to my fathers dismay, I elected to make my own way in this world. So five years ago, I boarded a train and came out west. As the rest of the film illustrates, Kate is an equal partner in the romance. When she eventually discovers Bills deceit about his identity, she nonetheless decides to maintain the relationship. She makes this decision based on the sincerity of his feelings for her and because of the strength of her own feelings for him. Witty and refined, Kate is a worthy match for the soft-spoken and taciturn Bill. Her zeal for life offsets his resilient purposefulness. Played with remarkable verve and versatility by Jackie Burroughs, the character of Kate Flynn was partially fictional (their was no relationship between Bill Miner and a female photographer), and partially based on an actual frontier photographer named Margaret Spencer, who had taken pictures of Bill Miner. Cast in The Grey Fox specifically for her edginess and intelligence, Jackie Burroughs makes feistiness implicit in her every move. Whether she gestures wildly or flashes her sharp, expressive eyes, our attention remains riveted. Perhaps the most powerful scene featuring Jackie Burroughs occurs when she learns from Fernie that her boyfriend, George Edwards, is really Bill Miner. Because she fails to understand his subtle hints, Fernie finally tells Kate that Bill Miner has a tattoo of a ballerina on his arm. Shock floods her face as she shakes her head with a small disbelieving smile. Appearing on the verge of tears, Kate manages to maintain her composure, instructing Fernie, Not another word, and calmly proceeds to take his photograph.

14 | The Grey Fox

Film Study Guides Program

With her hair twisted into a oversize bun and outfitted in a tight bodice, Jackie Burroughs embodies a combination of wild passion and utter restraint. Indeed, her portrayal of Kate Flynn is so nuanced that she can move from one extreme to another, while seeming perfectly natural. While Kate Flynn was once written in the script as a purely functional character, a love interest for Bill Miner, the performance of Jackie Burroughs makes her an integral part of the storyline. As one of Canadas most prominent and highly-regarded actresses of both stage and screen, Jackie Burroughs has built a reputation as an encouraging supporter of young Canadian actors and playwrights. She has participated in numerous independently produced film and theatre productions, and her film and television credits including Last Night (Don McKellar, 1998), A Winter Tan (Jackie Burroughs, 1987), and the television show, Road to Avonlea (1989-1996).

activity 14

Compose a list of five adjectives that describe the character, Kate Flynn. Compare her to another major female character that you have seen in a recent film. Which character seems more well-developed? Explain why.

activity 15

Jackie Burroughs was approaching 40 when cast as Kate Flynn. Actresses appearing in Hollywood movies are usually much younger in age. Try to think of any films that you have seen in recent years featuring an actress over 40. What kind of role did she play? Why do so few women over 40 get cast in mainstream Hollywood movies? How do you think this compares to male actors?

Film Study Guides Program

The Grey Fox |

15

WRITING SCREENPLAYS FOR CANADIAN FILM

By the time screenwriter John Hunter came onboard The Grey Fox, five predecessors had already written six drafts of the screenplay over a period of five years. None was quite up to par. Peter OBrian, the producer of The Grey Fox, having co-written and co-produced a film called Blood and Guts with John Hunter in 1978, was familiar with Hunters writing style and felt his sensibilities would help to reshape Bill Miners story for the screen. This, in fact, proved to be the case as The Grey Fox became a collaborative effort between director Phillip Borsos and John Hunter. Together, they spent a few weeks in BC, discussing the screenplay and going over earlier versions before Hunter wrote his own first draft. Hunter eventually wrote three additional drafts, the final one completed during the films production. Before he began writing the screenplay, Hunter read all of the pre-existing drafts to distinguish between the usable and the extraneous material. He immediately determined that some changes needed to be made. Much of the narrative emphasized the pursuit of Bill Miner by the Pinkerton detective agency, and Hunter believed that such focus detracted from the tale he wanted to tell. Wanting instead to maintain dramatic tension throughout the film, Hunter opted for a partially true, partially fictitious story, that accurately captured life in British Columbia circa 1901. In addition to his concerns about the need for dramatic tension and historical authenticity, Hunter wanted The Grey Fox to be a character-driven story. He sifted through a considerable amount of archival material on Bill Miner: court transcripts, letters, and photographs (from the BC Provincial Archives in Victoria) to get a sense of the mans life. Discovering that Miner was kindly, gentle, and courteous in real life, Hunter made sure that the character in the film reflected these same qualities. In order to illustrate Miners underlying motivation, to explain exactly why he decides to rob trains, Borsos and Hunter incorporated footage of Edwin Porters The Great Train Robbery (1903). They first placed it in one scene, where Bill Miner sees the movie in a vaudeville hall and embarks on a career change. Other scenes from The Great Train Robbery were also added to the beginning and end of The Grey Fox and were used in combination with intertitles, to explain who Bill Miner was and what happened to him once he was captured in Canada. The footage and the intertitles serve to provide a context for the film, adding dramatic tension, a touch of documentary realism, and helping us understand Bill Miner more fully. To acknowledge the specific history of railroads in the province and to reference the experience of Chinese railroad workers, Hunter even wrote a sequence depicting an interaction between Miner and Fernie discussing the Chinese family murders. While the sequence did not adhere precisely to the plot, it did portray the harshness of frontier life and emphasized Miners compassion and empathy.

16 | The Grey Fox

Film Study Guides Program

John Hunter also contributed to The Grey Fox production in a number of other ways. Because The Grey Fox was his first feature film, and his background was primarily in documentaries, Phillip Borsos was less familiar working with actors performances. Since he had more experience dealing with actors, Hunter provided advice and assistance. Once Richard Farnsworth was cast as Bill Miner, Hunter tailored the role specifically to Farnsworth, who was both laconic and laid back. Hunter also had a hand in casting Jackie Burroughs as Kate. He envisioned a female character as a vivid contrast to Bill Miner. Hoping to showcase Jackie Burroughs prodigious talents in the role, Hunter sought an actress with spunk and feistiness, one able to portray an independent frontier woman, adept at living in a mans world. As a partially true, partially fictitious film, The Grey Fox speculates on what Bill Miner might have done and whom he might have met while in British Columbia, but re-imagines these events in a moving story filled with artistry and attention to detail. Both the screenwriter and the director used the character of Bill Miner to look back in time, to consider how new forms of technology changed the way people viewed and interacted with their world.

activity 16

Screenwriters often start writing their screenplays in one of two ways. They usually begin with an idea, and then create characters to fit that idea, or they create a character first, and out of that character emerges a story. Keeping in mind that The Grey Fox was a character-driven story, imagine that you are about to write a screenplay based on character. Create a character profile. Who is this person; what makes him/her interesting? What is his/her background or personal history? What is his/her current situation (both personal and professional)? What problems does the character face? What factors motivate this character?

Photo courtesy of Vancouver Public Library

Film Study Guides Program

The Grey Fox |

17

ROGUES, ECCENTRICS, AND MADMEN IN THE WILDERNESS THE OBSESSION WITH OUTSIDERS AND ECCENTRICS IN CANADIAN CULTURE AND CINEMA
The wilderness is without a doubt one of the most enduring symbols Canada has of itself; why else would the nation be known as The Great White North? Alternately inviting and inhospitable, the wilderness beckons us to an idyll of freedom, one far away from our daily worries and hurries. Presented with the ultimate in escapism and isolation, a rugged terrain filled with snow-capped pines, pristine lakes, and panoramic mountain vistas, who can resist the lure of the majestic outdoors? But the reality of the matter is that, for all but a select few, this vast and breathtaking wilderness is pretty much uninhabitable. The closest most of us get to the Canadian outdoors is via our television screens, watching the Discovery Channel or other similar nature-oriented shows. It could even be said that we Canadians probably spend as much time watching our wilderness indoors as we do outdoors enjoying it. Even the national pastime of cottaging is a bland facsimile of roughing it in the wild. Instead of nature and relaxation filled weekending, our time is spent with other cottage-goers. We escape from people only to re-encounter them in another locale. This is why we laud those who do manage to carve out an existence in the great outdoors. We admire them without envy; daring to brave what we cannot, they become our mystics and our eccentrics, closer to the land than to their fellow man. And it is a distinctly Canadian trait to make cultural heroes out of the eccentrics, the strange, even the bizarre. In fact, Canadian history is filled with these kinds of quirky characters who occupy rather prominent positions: politicians (the first Prime Minister John A. Macdonald was something of a lush), hockey figures (the loudmouth hockey commentator Don Cherry), and comedians (the sometimes tasteless humour of Kids in the Hall). Canadian cinema has also favoured oddball protagonists, outsiders in social and cultural fringes, who seem to gravitate to the outdoors. In addition to The Grey Fox, some other madmen in the wild films include Project Grizzly (Peter Lynch, 1996) and Mon Oncle Antoine (Claude Jutra, 1971). Perhaps most suggestive and beguiling about the wilderness is what it represents about Canadian ideology (the beliefs a nation holds about itself). Just as in Joseph Campbells The Hero with a Thousand Faces, our hero (i.e., Bill Miner) undertakes a voyage to explore the unknown, followed by a return to civilization after a spiritual awakening. In this quest for self-knowledge, links to our Aboriginal forebears, our land, and our past are forged, and these elements create a core myth, one that unites Canada as a nation. In The Grey Fox, our eccentric outlaw, Bill Miner, achieves this self-knowledge through his various experiences in the British Columbia interior. At every available opportunity, the land challenges Bill: as he labours to excavate the mines, while he wrastles horses, and most significantly, every time he robs the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Through pouring rain and freezing snow, Bill endures the harsh elements in order to subsist and survive. Such is the life of a man who proclaims, I dont work for anybody, and Im just not good at work thats planned by other hands. Ive got ambitions in me that just wont quit.

18 | The Grey Fox

Film Study Guides Program

In what ways does the film brand Bill an oddity? In the opening sequence, we learn from the intertitles that Bill Miner was called the "Gentlemen Bandit." Indeed his behaviour does not match the common profile or stereotype of a criminal. He tips his hat and opens doors for women; he is respectful to law enforcement; and, he uses his gun only in self-defense. His false identity proves successful in Kamloops mainly because he projects the image of a stalwart citizen. The Grey Fox is also filled with constant reminders that Bill Miner is American. He was imprisoned in San Quentin, California. His accent is undeniably Southern. Each of his false identities, under the pseudonym George Edwards, includes a past that took place in Idaho, Kentucky, and/or the Great Plains. However, as evidenced by the film's closing scene (a crowd at the Kamloops train station, waving their British flags, cheers him on), it is Canadians who wholeheartedly embrace him. As Fernie tells Kate, Bill Miner is extremely popular with the local townsfolk because he only robs the trains. Although adopted by Canadians as a hero, the American Bill Miner remains a perpetual outsider, differentiated from others by his profession and his past.

activity 17

Give some additional examples of outsiders and eccentrics in Canadian popular culture or history. What makes them unusual characters? Describe them briefly in two to three sentences.

activity 18

Working in small groups, try to explain why Bill Miner was so popular with the Canadian townspeople in The Grey Fox. Identify at least four reasons. Does Bill fit your idea of a hero? Why, or why not?

activity 19

Canadians are generally acknowledged as a polite, humble, and reticent people. Do you believe this characterization to be true, or is it merely a cultural stereotype? Explain why in a short paragraph.

Film Study Guides Program

The Grey Fox |

19

Written with Melissa Riley Melissa Riley is the Education Coordinator at the Pacific Cinmathque. She has taught film courses at the University of California, Berkeley and completed her Masters degree in Rhetoric at UCB in 1999. She has also coordinated educational and film exhibition programs at secondary schools and colleges in the United States.

Rdig par Melissa Riley Melissa Riley est la coordonnatrice des services pdagogiques de la Cinmathque Pacifique. Elle a enseign le cinma l'Universit de Californie Berkeley et complt une matrise en rhtorique l'Universit de la Colombie-Britannique en 1999. Elle a galement coordonn des programmes pdagogiques et des programmes de prsentation de films dans des coles secondaires et des collges aux tats-Unis. La photo de la page couverture est tire du film The Grey Fox et reproduite avec la permission de Mercury Pictures Inc.

Cover Photo from The Grey Fox generously provided by Mercury Pictures Inc.