‘A poem,’ Wordsworth said, is ’emotion recollected in tranquillity.’ Film gives you the possibility of experiencing and filming emotional circumstances and then, in the quiet of the editing room, to reassemble them to make a poetic statement.

From his beach-front hotel room in sunny Florida, en route to Costa Rica where he’ll be unreachable deep in the jungle, celebrated filmmaker Harry Rasky spoke of film as art, art as spirituality, and spirituality as the theme of his Gemini award-nominated film Prophecy.

For his work on Prophecy, a two-and-a-half-hour film which aired last Easter Sunday on cbc, Rasky is nominated for best writing in an information documentary program.

In his own words, the film is a ‘real attempt to combine historic ideas with present-day trends, and an attempt to confront the approaching millennium.’ Featuring interviews with the Dalai Lama, former Soviet dissident Nathan Sharansky, and David Courchene, a Native Canadian who quit his job to take on a worldwide expedition of peace, the film explores prophecy in its biblical and modern-day roles, and as a source of hope for the future.

Selected by the Munich International Film Festival as last year’s top documentary and winner of the International Hollywood Gold Angel Award, Prophecy was an extension of Rasky’s previous film, War Against The Indians.

‘It was inspired by the Native people. The First Nations people said they had a prophecy that such a film would be made. And so it came to pass.’

The making of Prophecy was a three-year journey, a culmination of ideas Rasky had been experimenting with in his earlier films. While he says all his films have explored the idea of God, and the ideas that his subjects have about God, this film allowed him to explore the spiritual realm in a more expansive way.

‘I’m very interested in humanism, if I can put it that way. My father was a kind of rabbi, so I have a long history, right back to birth, of being associated with attempting to replicate creation through works of art. I’ve always been interested in art extended to the fullest as a form of theology, as a form of worship, as a form of prayer.’

Just as many discussions about life and religion have ended with questions, Rasky says Prophecy also serves to explore rather than to solve.

‘Film is not a rational medium, it’s an emotional medium. It’s an attempt to leave haunting questions with people. The film asks more questions than it answers, I suppose. But that’s alright. It’s a meditation.’

Rasky’s own meditations, his own areas of interest, have been in the realm of the physical world recently. Among his list of ongoing projects is a film about the environment. His trip to Costa Rica is part of that exploration.

‘I want to explore the rain forest, the depletion. I’ll spend some time with native people of the rain forest and with people who are trying to save it, find out what happens as a result of all that.’

Although Rasky hasn’t slowed down at all – he has a book, a screenplay and another doc special all in progress – his relationship with the cbc has changed significantly since the termination of his continuous contract a few months ago.

Situation changed

‘My experience with the cbc has been interesting. In the last 25 years I’ve done about 30 films and I don’t think I ever had one memo saying, `Your project has been approved.’ In the past, I’ve just gone ahead and done it. Until this year, there’s always been a budget for `something from Harry.’ Always. This is the first year I don’t have that situation.’

As a longtime advocate of ‘significant’ television programming, Rasky isn’t hopeful about the direction of Canada’s national broadcaster. Of Prophecy, he says, ‘It will probably be the last film of that length to ever run on the cbc, sadly.’ Quoting his former colleague, Edward R. Murrow, he says, ‘tv without ideas is merely tubes and wires in a box.’

‘I think if the cbc is not significant, it will be nothing. It’s that simple. To be significant does not mean just covering the news. To be significant you have to delve into the meaning of what the news is about. You must have the vision of a poet’s eye.’

One of his proposals still before the cbc is a second retrospective, a follow-up to the 12-part series titled Rasky’s Gallery: Poets, Painters, Singers and Saints which aired on the cbc in primetime during 1988. Describing the new audience he hopes to reach, he says, it’s me.

New generation

‘They are exactly made for a person like yourself because you represent a whole new generation. Prophecy has somewhat of a cult following amongst people your age (22). I love discussing this with young people because they’re so involved, these great, terrific minds. This kind of programming counts on the audience to be involved in it.’

Rasky scoffs at the idea that his films cannot be commercially successful or attract a mass audience. ‘The film I did on Chagal 25 years ago has been seen by roughly a billion people on the planet,’ he says. ‘The audience is there if the film is promoted correctly and if it entertains them. You just have to be patient with them.’

So as long as there are interested eyes to view the films he’s yet to make, there’s a reason. While the world in which he works and the infrastructure of film changes all around him, Rasky’s curiosity and optimism only evolve.

‘By nature, my feelings are optimistic, although I’m not as optimistic as I was, especially when it comes to the environment. As a fine writer recently said, `In the last 2,000 years there have been more Good Fridays than there have been Easter Sundays.’ But as I’m sitting here looking at the beautiful rhythm of the waves, I can’t help feeling very positive. I’m heading out on a whole new exploration, and I’m very encouraged. I still want to do that.’