Hollywood North: The Feature Film Industry in British Columbia by Mike Gasher (review)

humanities 373 university of toronto quarterly, volume 73, number 1, winter 2003/4 guerrilla groups, peronists, Catholic activists, conservative and reformist priests, junior and senior military officers, and media representatives focus on the events of the 1970s. Some of those interviewed were innocent, ordinary people who were arrested themselves or had family members who were imprisoned or disappeared. Their testimonies present a clear picture of the fear and helplessness that permeated those years. Also evident is the naïveté of many of the participants and their differing perceptions about what was taking place. The overriding impression is of uncertainty and confusion. That same sense of confusion is evident in the author=s conclusion when she uses the testimonies to provide possible explanations for the state terror. Some blamed the military, who saw themselves as the saviours of the nation against a Marxist threat and couched this in religious terms, thereby winning church support. Others held the proponents of neoliberalism with their desire to reduce the role of the state in daily life and weaken the power of the unions responsible. The cold war and an internal struggle within the local middle class were other explanations. Marchak raises questions about all of these, leaving the impression that something more is needed to explain adequately Argentina=s descent into hell in the 1970s. (PETER BLANCHARD) Mike Gasher. Hollywood North: The Feature Film Industry in British Columbia University of British Columbia Press. viii, 176. $85.00, $24.95 Mike Gasher undertakes the ambitious project of seeking to redress the focus on nation as the determining category in Canadian film discourse by foregrounding regionality in his discussions of the feature film industry in British Columbia. He stakes out the potentially controversial position that this industry has clearer links to Hollywood than to Canada, undercutting the normative position that all feature film in Canada is necessarily an expression of national identity. By arguing that cinema is a >social construction whose particular definition is contingent upon a nexus of historical , economic, political, and cultural forces,= Gasher seeks to contribute to debates over the >relationship between cinema and place.= The volume is organized into six chapters, an appendix with a partial list of British Columbia feature film credits (1976B2000), endnotes, and references . In chapter 1, Gasher identifies four >sites= of production of meaning that have worked to shape the feature film industry in British Columbia, and each becomes the focus of subsequent chapters. Chapter 2 provides a brief history of the feature film industry in British Columbia, including the roles played by foreign location production and the provincial government as producer and regulator of the exhibition sector. The context of British Columbia=s feature film industry within the North American context becomes the locus of chapter 3, which is especially informative for its 374 letters in canada 2002 university of toronto quarterly, volume 73, number 1, winter 2003/4 discussion of how the inclusion of British Columbia in Hollywood=s transnational production broke the ground for a commercial industry on the west coast. Chapter 4 deals with the evolution of provincial film policy from the late 1970s, and explores the establishment of the BC Film Commission and the promotion of >foreign location production within the province.= Gasher=s analysis of the period of the early 1990s through 2001 during which British Columbia, in an effort to remain competitive with Ontario and Quebec, introduced the >tax-credit program Film Incentive BC as an inducement to both foreign and indigenous producers,= offers insight on the impact of provincial policies in maintaining the viability of regional feature film industries. In chapter 5, Gasher undertakes an analysis of several feature films produced in British Columbia since the late 1970s, examining the tensions between concepts of location that depict British Columbia as >America= and/or reassert regional distinctiveness. Chapter 6 presents concluding thoughts on the implications of British Columbia as >place= but also as the site of transnational and local film production. Overall, this volume is well researched and deftly explores how film became known as a growth industry in the province, suspended between the simultaneous demands of stimulating foreign service production and encouraging indigenous filmmaking. His critique of the internal east...