Borsos leaves film legacy

Vancouver: Phillip Borsos preferred the dramatic over the sensational, sentiment over sentimentality, and the unspoken over the obvious. The acclaimed Canadian director, who made his stunning first feature film debut with The Grey Fox while still in his twenties, died in Vancouver Feb. 1. He was 41.

Borsos learned he had myeloid leukemia last March after submitting the first cut of his latest feature, Far From Home: The Adventures of Yellow Dog, a family adventure he wrote and directed for Twentieth Century Fox.

Fox delayed the release date of the film several times in order that Borsos could complete his edit of the film. Fate denied him the final cut and Far From Home was released shortly before he died.

Born in Tasmania, Borsos moved to Canada in 1958 and began making films as a teenager in the suburbs of Vancouver. After completing studies at the Vancouver School of Art and the Banff Centre For The Arts, he made a name for himself with a series of short documentaries. Three of the shorts, Nails, Spartree and Cooperage about workers and craftspeople, won Genie Awards in 1980. Nails also received an Academy Award nomination for best documentary short.

In 1982, Borsos ventured into feature films with the The Grey Fox. The picture was hailed as one of the most impressive film debuts in the history of Canadian cinema, and stirred respected New York film critic Pauline Kael to pronounce Borsos ‘an inspired image maker.’ It went on to win seven Genies, including Best Motion Picture.

It was also the first of four collaborations with Toronto-based producer Peter O’Brian.

‘Phillip felt The Grey Fox was probably his only opportunity to completely make the film of his vision,’ says O’Brian.

Earlier, Borsos had been selected by Telefilm Canada to be an observer-director on a film produced by O’Brian.

‘He had a very clear image of his abilities from an early age,’ says O’Brian. ‘In our first meeting, Phillip presented me with a list of 12 demands which would govern the circumstances under which he would be willing to allow us to have him as an apprentice director.

‘Right from the start, he saw no reason why he couldn’t have things exactly the way he wanted them to be. When I said, `We don’t really care whether we have an observer-director because it requires extra effort,’ he appeared to quite like the fact that I didn’t go for it. And as a result of that experience, he called me to work with him on The Grey Fox.

‘His style of filmmaking was quite unique and distinctively Canadian – it was unrushed, quiet and dignified, and its values were direct, straight and simple, but it always added up to a powerful, awesome image.’

Borsos made five features during his career, including The Mean Season, a film-noir thriller starring Kurt Russell and Mariel Hemingway, and One Magic Christmas starring Mary Steenburgen.

But he is probably best known in the Canadian production industry for his protracted fight to finish Bethune: The Making Of A Hero. Budgeted at $18 million, the multinational feature coproduction starring Donald Sutherland was riddled with well-publicized disputes from start to finish. Ultimately, Borsos lost control of the film after his second cut.

Bethune was followed by another five harrowing years as Borsos and O’Brian attempted to bring John Irving’s novel The Cider House Rules to the screen. It hit the skids three weeks before production was scheduled to begin when the studio phoned to say it would have to be ‘delayed,’ the financing had fallen through.

While working on The Cider House Rules, Borsos turned his hand to directing commercials for The Partners’ Film Company in Toronto.

Recalls Partners’ president Don McLean: ‘He came to us after Bethune. It was only going to be an interim thing, but he was such a compulsive filmmaker he worked just as hard making a 30-second commercial as if he were making a 90-minute feature.

‘He would come to me saying, `Don, this is going to be a tough one to cast, I’m going to have to look at 400 kids. Nobody looks at 400 kids. Borsos would look at 500. But he had a superb handle on talent.’

During this period, Borsos battled with Hodgkin’s disease. McLean says he would often endure painful sessions of chemotherapy in the morning and then come on the floor and direct all afternoon.

‘He was the most brilliantly talented, delightful, stubborn, uncompromising pain in the ass I have ever had the pleasure of being associated with,’ says McLean. ‘He drove everybody who’d ever worked with him crazyÉbut he had an indomitable human spirit. After all, he had lived through Bethune; nothing could faze him after that.’

McLean says most of the money Borsos made from directing commercials was plowed back into development on his various feature projects.

Shortly after The Cider House Rules fell apart, actor Marlon Brando invited Borsos down to his home in Malibu for a chat. Brando was a big fan of The Grey Fox and was considering directing something himself. While in l.a., Borsos, who had written the script for Far From Home, decided to shop it around to the studios. Fox snapped it up immediately.

‘I try not to think about the work that was yet to come, but it’s hard, because just after the difficulties from Bethune and the disappointment of The Cider House Rules not getting made, Far From Home was allowing Phillip to legitimately resume his career at the highest level. There was always great interest in him from Hollywood,’ says O’Brian.

‘He had built up a good stable of projects over the last few years and he was just deciding what to do next. So while I’m sad about the potential loss, I’m trying to focus on what wonderful work he did accomplish in the time he had.

‘He was often seen as a warrior director battling all odds to get his films made, but he was actually a very gentle man with a terrific sense of humor and a great mimic. He was a man of strong beliefs and humanist values who never lost a sense of creative innocence. He had a point of origin in all his work that was shining and pure. He always kept that in himself and his work.’

Borsos is survived by his wife Barret and two children.