Synopses & Reviews
Toronto is a changing city that has been a source of reflection and inspiration to writers and artists whose work focuses on the conditions and prospects of human life. A city on the move, it demands policies and regulation, and it offers the pleasures and perils of the massive and the anonymous. As a site of study, the city is inherently multidisciplinary, with natural ties to history, geography, sociology, architecture, art history, literature, and many other fields.
World Film Locations: Torontoand#160;explores and reveals the relationship between the city and cinema using a predominately visual approach. The juxtaposition of the images used in combination with insightful essays helps to demonstrate the role that the city has played in a number of hit films, includingand#160;Cinderella Man,and#160;American Psycho, andand#160;X-Menand#160;and encourages the reader to frame an understanding of Toronto and the world around us. The contributors trace Torontoand#8217;s emergence as an international city and demonstrate the narrative interests that it has continued to inspire among filmmakers, both Canadian and international.
With support from experts in Canadian studies, the bookand#8217;s selection of films successfully shows the many facets of Toronto and also provides insiderand#8217;s access to a number of sites that are often left out of scholarship on Toronto in films, such as the Toronto International Film Festival. The 2014 release of this attractive volume will be a particularly welcome addition to the international celebrations of the cityand#8217;s 180thand#160;anniversary.
Review
"A smoothly modulated chronology peppered with insightful observations about Toronto's civic and cinematic history." --Adam Nayman Indiana University Press Indiana University Press Indiana University Press
Synopsis
No Canadian city has been exposed, cinematically speaking, more often than Toronto. In the century since cinema began, countless hundreds of kilometres of film have recorded the growth and dramatic development of one of North America's most dynamic urban environments. Today, more film is shot in Canada's largest city than almost anywhere on the continent outside of Los Angeles and New York. This is a book about Toronto's motion picture history--not a history of the city or its industry but of the city as it has appeared on screen: Toronto as a moving image, from the first documentary films of an apocalyptic conflagration of the city's downtown core to the high-stepping, multicultural musical exuberance of "Bollywood/ Hollywood. And, just like the real city, the reel city of Toronto is a place of fascinating complexity, rich contradiction, and radical transformation. You can fly there--as in "I've Heard the Mermaids Singing--but you can also "Crash.Toronto on Film is a fascinating account of a city screened. What kind of city is Toronto the Movie? How has the city changed, and what does this reveal of a place's dreams, fears, and hopes? And what relationship does the real place have to its motion picture ideal? Rich in images, "Toronto on Film is a vibrant biography of a city as interpreted through the camera lens.
Synopsis
No Canadian city has been featured in cinema more than Toronto. The reel city of Toronto is a place of fascinating complexity, rich contradiction, and radical transformation. In Toronto on Film, Geoff Pevere looks at Toronto's portrayal by filmmakers such as David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan and in seminal films such as Don Owen's Nobody Waved Goodbye and Don Shebib's Goin' Down the Road. Pevere shows how filmmakers such as Deepa Mehta (Sam and Me, Bollywood/Hollywood) and Srnivas Krishna (Masala) created an alternative and magical view of the city. The book also includes essays by critic and scholar Matthew Hays; Toronto International Film Festival co-director and CEO Piers Handling; former Take One editor and publisher, Wyndham Wise; filmmaker and scholar Brenda Longfellow; and associate director of Canadian programming at TIFF, Steve Gravestock.
Synopsis
World Film Locations: Toronto explores and reveals the relationship between the city and cinema using a predominately visual approach. The juxtaposition of the images used in combination with insightful essays help to demonstrate the central role that the city has played in a number of films, and encourages the reader to frame an understanding of places, Toronto and the world around us. The volume shows the cities historical progression into an international city and demonstrates the narrative interests that it has continued to inspire amongst filmmakers, both Canadian and International.and#160;With support from experts in Canadian studies, the volumeand#8217;s selection of films successfully show the many facets of Toronto and also provides insiderand#8217;s access to a number of sites that are often left out in scholarship on Toronto in films, such as Pinewood Studios Groupand#8217;s Toronto location. The 2014 release of this attractive volume is a particularly welcome addition to the international celebrations of the city this year.
About the Author
Geoff Pevere is former film critic for the Toronto Star, where he now writes about books. He is author (with Greig Dymond) of Mondo Canuck: A Canadian Pop Culture Odyssey and Team Spirit: A Field Guide to Roots Culture.
Table of Contents
Toronto: City of the Imagination
Tom Ue
Raw Youth
Steve Gravestock
Scenes 1-6
1966-1984
The Yonge Street Strip
Steve Gravestock
Scenes 7-12
1984-1995
Distilling Toronto History: How a Victorian Industrial Site Became a Hollywood Backlot
David Fleischer
Scenes 13-18
1998-2000
The Toronto New Wave
Steve Gravestock
Scenes 19-24
2000-2002
At Home in Toronto: Houses and Apartments that Signify the City
Richard Dennis
Scenes 25-30
2002-2004
Everywhere and Nowhere: David Cronenbergand#8217;s Toronto
David Fleischer
Scenes 31-37
2005-2009
The Anonymous Metropolis
David Fleischer
Scenes 38-44
2010-2013
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the City
Piers Handling
Backpages
Resources
Contributor Bios
Filmography
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