The Bitter Ash

Last updated
The Bitter Ash
Directed by Larry Kent
Written byLarry Kent
Produced byLarry Kent
Starring Alan Scarfe
Lynn Stewart
Philip Brown
CinematographyDick Bellamy
Edited byDick Bellamy
Larry Kent
Music byJack Dale
Wilf Manz
Clint Solomon
Jimmy Thomas
Production
company
Larry Kent Productions
Release date
  • 1963 (1963)
Running time
80 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

The Bitter Ash is a Canadian drama film, directed by Larry Kent and released in 1963. [1] One of the first narrative feature films ever shot in Vancouver, [2] the film stars Alan Scarfe as Des, an unhappy blue collar man who is drawn into the city's counterculture underground, where he clashes with bohemian intellectual Colin (Philip Brown) over the affections of Colin's wife Laurie (Lynn Stewart).

Contents

The film was controversial at the time because it depicted sexual activity, brief nudity, profanity and drug use. [3] Unable to secure commercial distribution, Kent exhibited the film by personally undertaking a cross-Canada tour to screen it on university campuses. [4] The film has often been characterized by critics as an exploitation film, but Kent himself disputed this characterization on the grounds that it didn't have enough sex in it. [5] The Globe and Mail also later wrote that "the story of the collision of bohemian and working-class values in provincial, precountercultural Vancouver, today seems less striking for its formerly transgressive content - sex, extramarital pregnancy, pot-smoking and nudity - than for its fiercely expressed attitude of utter socioeconomic despair." [3]

Production

Kent made the film while he was a student at the University of British Columbia, and the film was acted primarily by university drama students rather than professional actors. [4] The film was in production from June to August 1963, at a cost of $5,000 (equivalent to $43,975in 2021). [6]

Release

The film was shown at the University of British Columbia in October 1963, and made its budget back after two weeks of screenings. [6] [7] The film later received screenings at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival in the Front & Centre program, [8] and at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival in the Cinemathèque program. [3] It was also part of a retrospective screening of Kent's films, alongside Sweet Substitute , When Tomorrow Dies and High , which screened at a number of venues in 2002 and 2003, including Cinematheque Ontario in Toronto, the Pacific Cinémathèque in Vancouver and the Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Toronto International Film Festival</span> Annual film festival held in Toronto, Canada

The Toronto International Film Festival is one of the most prestigious and largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, founded in 1976 and taking place each September. It is also a permanent destination for film culture operating out of the TIFF Lightbox cultural centre, located in Downtown Toronto.

Hollywood North is a colloquialism used to describe film production industries and/or film locations north of its namesake, Hollywood, California. The term has been applied principally to the film industry in Canada, specifically to the cities Toronto and Vancouver.

Brett Josef Grubisic is a Canadian author, editor, and sessional lecturer of the English language at the University of British Columbia.

High is a film released in 1967, directed by Larry Kent and starring Lanny Beckman, Astri Thorvik, Peter Mathews, Joyce Cay, and Denis Payne. Filmed in Montreal, it is likely most-remembered for being banned by the censors of Quebec immediately before its scheduled premiere at the Montreal International Film Festival for its use of drugs, nudity, and explicit sex scenes.

The 29th Genie Awards were held on April 4, 2009, to honour Canadian films released in 2008. The ceremony was held at the Canadian Aviation Museum in Ottawa, Ontario, and was broadcast on Global and IFC. The ceremony was hosted by Dave Foley.

Arsenal Pulp Press is a Canadian independent book publishing company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company publishes a broad range of titles in both fiction and non-fiction, focusing primarily on underrepresented genres such as underground literature, LGBT literature, multiracial literature, graphic novels, visual arts, progressive and activist non-fiction and works in translation, and is noted for founding the annual Three-Day Novel Contest.

Laurence Lionel "Larry" Kent is a Canadian filmmaker, who is regarded as an important pioneer of independent filmmaking in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TIFF Cinematheque</span>

TIFF Cinematheque is a year-round programme of the Toronto International Film Festival devoted to the presentation, understanding and appreciation of Canadian and international cinema through carefully curated programming. It features acclaimed director's retrospectives, national and regional spotlights, experimental and avant-garde cinema, exclusive engagements of classic films, including many new and rare archival prints. It was established in 1990 after TIFF assumed management of the Ontario Film Institute from Gerald Pratley, creating Cinematheque for the OFI's film screening program while moving the OFI's reference library to the new Film Reference Library.

Keith Behrman is a Canadian film and television director and writer, who won the Claude Jutra Award in 2003 for his debut film Flower & Garnet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1984 Toronto International Film Festival</span>

The 9th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 6 and September 15, 1984. The festival introduced Perspective Canada programme, devoted to Canadian films. The festival screened 225 feature films and more than half of them were Canadian films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Perrin</span> Canadian lawyer and criminologist

Benjamin Perrin is a law professor and former legal advisor to the Prime Minister's Office under Stephen Harper. Currently, he is a professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. Perrin, who was supporter that shaped Harper's tough on crime policies during his time as advisor, has now become a supporter of transformative justice.

Robert Harlow is a Canadian writer and former academic, best known for his 1972 novel Scann.

The Making of Monsters is a 1991 Canadian short film, directed by John Greyson. Made while Greyson was a student at the Canadian Film Centre, the film's premise is that playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht is alive and living in Toronto, and actively interfering with the production of "Monsters", a heavily sanitized movie of the week about the 1985 death of Kenneth Zeller in a gaybashing attack.

The Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award is an annual film award, presented by the Toronto International Film Festival to the film rated as the year's most popular film with festival audiences. Past sponsors of the award have included Cadillac and Grolsch.

Sweet Substitute, retitled Caressed in the United States, is a Canadian drama film, directed by Larry Kent and released in 1964.

Q-Bec My Love is a Canadian film, directed by Jean Pierre Lefebvre and released in 1970. A satirical allegory for Quebec nationalism, the film is depicted in disconnected vignettes which portray the professional, sexual and romantic relationships of Q-Bec with her boss Peter Ottawa, her husband Jean-Baptiste Bilingue and her lover Sam Washington.

Irene Lilienheim Angelico is a Canadian film director, producer and writer.

When Tomorrow Dies is a Canadian drama film, directed by Larry Kent and released in 1965. The film stars Patricia Gage as Gwen James, a housewife trapped in an unfulfilling marriage to Doug, who returns to university and embarks on an extramarital affair with her professor Patrick Trevelyan.

White Lake is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Colin Browne and released in 1989. The film centres on Browne's own family history, through the lens of a family reunion at a retreat in White Lake, British Columbia.

Antoine Bourges is a French-Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter. He is most noted for his 2012 mid-length docudrama film East Hastings Pharmacy, which was the winner of the Colin Low Award at the 2013 DOXA Documentary Film Festival, and his 2017 narrative feature film Fail to Appear, which was a Vancouver Film Critics Circle nominee for Best Canadian Film at the Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards 2017.

References

  1. ↑ David Spaner, "Larry Kent: Pioneer Auteur". Point of View , May 28, 2013.
  2. ↑ John Mackie, "Dark film focuses on Hastings Street, 1962; Once-shelved because of poor sound, Larry Kent's short was restored with modern technology". Vancouver Sun , April 24, 2010.
  3. 1 2 3 "TIFF movie review: The Bitter Ash". The Globe and Mail , September 6, 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 Matthew Hays, "Catch up on your Kent". The Globe and Mail , February 1, 2003.
  5. ↑ Matthew Hays, "The Kent Files". Take One , Vol. 12, Iss. 43, (Sep-Dec 2003). pp. 20-24.
  6. 1 2 Turner 1987, p. 49.
  7. ↑ Duffy 1986, p. 27.
  8. ↑ Jay Scott, "Mon Oncle Antoine No. 1 with critics". The Globe and Mail , August 2, 1984.

Works cited


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.