‘I think it’s unusual for anyone to invent anything. Most everything is a combination of existing thoughts and ideas.’

In the winter of 1966, however, Allan King was about to combine some innovations and come as close to invention as most of us will ever get.

Fourteen years after beginning his career with the cbc, and shortly after returning from self-imposed exile in Spain and England, the 36-year-old filmmaker took some portable equipment and a skeleton crew to Warrendale, a residential treatment center for disturbed children outside Toronto. He shot six weeks of raw and sometimes shocking footage; angry kids who swore and spat as the resident adults physically contained them, children giving voice and motion to their outrage.

The film, commissioned by the cbc, became a landmark as one of the earliest examples of cinema verite. It went on to win the Prix d’arte et d’essai at Cannes, Best Foreign Film at the British Academy Awards and became a film school fixture. Warrendale seemed to do all but what it was intended to do – air on the cbc. The film turns 30 in 1997 and it will be telecast for the first time on Jan. 22 as part of tvontario’s series The View From Here.

Those who’ve taken sides with King throughout his 40-year career – particularly those who’ve been his opposition – know firsthand that he might look like Santa, but he’s no pushover and he rarely minces words. He’s not a fence-sitter and he believes in putting his money where his mouth is. His contributions to what has come to be known as the Canadian production environment — as both a craftsperson and a director of policy – are incalculable, and you can trace his history of gutsy moves right back to Warrendale.

In film circles, one of King’s other controversial ‘actuality drama’ documentaries, A Married Couple, is often mentioned in the same breath as Warrendale. King had been trying to get the rights to Warrendale from cbc for about five years, but when Baton finally released the rights to A Married Couple it seemed time to put a push on it.

‘cbc had never used it. There was talk of using it in a doc series for Newsworld – to be cut down and used as filler between commercials – but I felt that since the cbc had refused to air it in the first place, saying it was abusive to children, I thought it was inappropriate to use it as a vehicle for ads.’

It’s typical Allan King; typical of a man who’s been in, on and around issues of debate and controversy for the lion’s share of his career. Of Warrendale – which was turned over to the government of Ontario after its completion and touched off a political furor – King says simply, ‘The idea was to capture life as it really was.’

That kind of candor, a need to present his truth clearly and with strength, is something King says he carried with him long before he ever picked up a camera.

‘My mother wanted me to be prime minister,’ he says. ‘I was always interested in politics – politics before film – because when I was young it was ridiculous to think of being a filmmaker. There weren’t any.’

DGC stewardship

While he hasn’t yet cracked Parliament Hill, King has left his mark on Canadian policy as president and ceo of the Directors Guild of Canada for the last three years and chair of the DGC Ontario District for over six years. In his spare time, and there isn’t much of it, he’s chair and ceo of the DGC Entertainment Ventures Corporation.

Under his direction, the guild has become a formidable national lobbying force. The guild’s support of Craig Broadcast Systems’ licence applications in Alberta, for example, is believed by some to have been critical to the final outcome. The dgc was steadfastly behind Craig because of the company’s financial commitment to Canadian programming, particularly in drama, music and variety.

‘The dgc is a powerful advocate for the ability of Canadians to express themselves in their most powerful media – tv and feature films,’ says Dan Johnson, president and ceo of the Canadian Association of Film Distributors and Exporters. ‘Allan King has been pivotal in making the guild so effective.’

While Johnson says he and King have been on opposite sides of the fence more than once – he specifically remembers battling over the cavco points system – he says King’s time at the helm of the guild has been extraordinarily productive.

‘The dgc has been particularly strong in building consensus and moving issues forward. Not every organization is able to come up with a view that’s focused enough to be meaningful when it comes down to the hard business of specifics, but the guild has been exemplary.’

But King, who says he’s ‘fascinated by how groups and organizations work,’ admits he first got involved in heading up the guild for reasons more visceral than academic.

‘Somebody asked me to do it, and when you’re between films you look for people to love you. Somebody asks you `Would you please be the guild president?’ and you think `Oh, someone loves me!’ and you say you will.’

Safeguarding indigenous production

His leadership has been nothing if not supportive of the indigenous industry. In fact, he says he borders on nationalistic. ‘Nationalism is a bad word when it comes to punishing people and keeping them out. But at the same time you have to decide on boundaries – who lives in the house and who doesn’t, who belongs and contributes to the house and who doesn’t. In order to have more than a colonial stature, we have to be heard and seen in our own house.’

He’s also a strong believer in making occupants of the ‘house’ pay their fair share. While he can speak endlessly on the art and science of film, he also has a keen understanding of production as a cultural force, and a big business.

‘We’re continuing to lobby the crtc and government so that the new specialty applicants are providing money – adequate money – for drama, variety, children’s, all the so-called underfunded areas of production, and we want to make sure that Canadian channels have the space and the money for Canadian programs.

‘It should be possible for the Canadian production industry to be profitable, provided people are paid a decent amount to make their projects. We have lower licence fees than in Europe and elsewhere, and we’re shooting ourselves in the foot by paying more per minute for American programming than most other countries.’

The people who King represents, the members of the guild, are more numerous and prosperous now than at any time in recent history thanks to an influx of American-initiated work. While not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, King says it would be negligent of him to coast because the situation is precarious.

‘The industry has grown extremely expensive, the volume of production has increased and the income of our members has grown dramatically, but these kinds of productions are subject to the American exchange rate. When it goes back to what it used to be the production will dry up and our members will have to make do or move to the u.s. The production of Canadian projects for Canadians is at risk.’

Fund for `art’ films

In a recent issue of the dgc national newsletter, King presented to his membership a proposal; to establish, either alone or with other guilds, a feature film development fund aimed at supporting creative, innovative work whether or not it’s marketable.

‘Do you remember when people in film were seriously absorbed by something called `art,’ that it was acceptable, even admirable, to pursue things called `beauty’ and `truth’?’, he writes. He warns his readers: ‘I am totally uninterested in devising a scheme devote to the `market’, the `industry’ or `entertainment’. We are glutted with `product’.’

Europe and the birth of a genre

It’s not the first time in his life that King has feared for the integrity of Canadian production. Much earlier in his career he feared for the integrity of his own work.

Born in Vancouver in 1930, King graduated with an honours degree in philosophy from the University of British Columbia and toured Europe for two years before joining CBC Vancouver in 1954. He was an assistant film editor.

Two years later he made Skid Row, a film about alcoholics on society’s fringe. Documentary great John Grierson admired the film and in 1957 it was invited to the Edinburgh Festival. A year later, King left Canada for Spain where he worked in ‘an apartment that ended in a cave. It was very damp,’ he says. ‘My film was in constant danger of moldering.

‘I used to always say I went to Spain because the cbc had become terribly institutionalized and overmanaged,’ says King. ‘We had about 40 cost accountants in our small studio in Vancouver and I couldn’t even choose a cameraman. I was assigned one as if they were all equal.

‘In truth, my wife wanted to join her sister and brother in Spain and I was terrified of leaving the cbc. There were no independent filmmakers at that time, especially ones doing films for Canada in Europe, but I took my courage into my hands and went.’

It turned out that Spain was a wonderful place to live, but getting film in and out of the country was troublesome. He opened a studio in London, Eng., and – because there was virtually no portable equipment in the country other than his own – he was sending back European footage to the cbc.

It was in Europe that King begin to percolate the ideas and philosophies behind cinema verite, the genre of which he would later be labeled a pioneer.

Arriving back in Canada in the mid-sixties, King turned out three ‘actuality drama’ documentaries; Warrendale, A Married Couple and Come On Children. The reaction to Come On Children, his third and final film in the form, was typically mixed. It premiered at the legendary Flaherty Seminars in 1972 and King was introduced as a legend in his own time, and after the screening the entire seminar dismissed King as politically inapt.

Move into drama

After one final foray into documentaries in 1983 with Who’s in Charge? (an exploration of unemployment which earned him the moniker ‘media monster of the 1980s’) King left the form. He was broke.

‘It was impossible to make a living and support a family making documentaries, but I was terrified of drama. Then again, in some respects I felt I had explored documentary in that form as far as I could in terms of technique. There was new territory in drama – how to work with actors, how to block shots.’

On to a new phase of his career, King dove into drama as both a director and producer. He wore both hats on a number of feature films including Termini Station (starring Colleen Dewhurst and Megan Follows), One Night Stand (starring Brent Carver and Chapelle Jaffe) and Who Has Seen The Wind (starring Jose Ferrer, Helen Shaver and Gordon Pinsent). He directed the feature Silence of the North and episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents for Universal/mca as well as episodes of Sullivan’s Road to Avonlea and Warner Bros.’ Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. On his way he picked up Geminis, Golden Reel Awards, CableACE Awards and an Emmy nomination or two.

Coscient/Astral Distribution vp Dan Lyon – who worked with King to lobby against federal censorship and for the protection of the Canadian film market – distributed Termini Station, one of the feature films King directed and produced for Astral Films.

‘His energy is inspirational,’ says Lyon. ‘Not only is he a fine filmmaker, but he’s a pleasure to work with.’

From years spent behind a camera learning to tell the truth, King picked up a number of lessons on how to make fiction real. ‘Most actors I’ve worked with know what they’re doing, they’re skilled at picking up on emotions and moving through them,’ he says. ‘My role is to shape the construct, not to tell them what to do. My role is to free people so they can contribute as much as possible from their own experiences.’

Perhaps, years later, he’s now scaled his own learning curve when it comes to drama because King is currently working on financing The Fear of Difference, a program on the sociological need for conflict that will mark his return to documentaries. He recently spent five weeks going from country to country in the Baltic States, the former East Prussia and Russia exploring the roots of ethnic conflict, why people need allies and enemies.

‘Having conquered my fear of drama, learning that I love actors and writers, I now know there’s material I like to express as fiction and material I like to express as fact. I would feel deprived now if I had to choose.’

It seems appropriate that King revisit his roots as he prepares to face the inevitable reaction to Warrendale, a 30-year-old film that tvo’s Rudy Buttignol, commissioning editor of documentaries, says ‘is as relevant now as when King made it.’

‘At first I was hesitant to put it on because it’s an old film,’ says Buttignol. ‘But it’s a hugely important work and I was somewhat outraged at the story behind it – that the cbc paid for it and then banned it. It’s tough to watch, but it’s also a public broadcasting issue as well. It’s important, and if we don’t show it, no one will show it.’

King, who had opportunity to gauge viewer reaction to Warrendale during a number of retrospectives, is less philosophical about the impact of his technique through the years.

‘I used to go to seminars and conferences, and at one point it seemed people believed that if you pointed a camera at a subject and waved it around, you’d get something true and real. But there’s as much hard work and thought involved in cinema verite as there is in traditional drama or documentary. You’ve got to know how to shape, it takes hard work and discipline.’

Those tenets will continue being put to good use by King in his work, both behind the camera and in the public arena as he continues to be a force behind all things Canadian, particularly film.

‘There’s a whole body of work that’s just pure entertainment, a spectacle, and the Americans are extremely good at it, so I don’t know if we should be trying to compete. We’ve got great Canadian stories – human, personal stories that enlighten viewers about the experience of an individual rather than the experience of an explosive device.’

And King is on the case to shape the construct that will aid production of these Canadian stories.