The Politics of Putting Art on Film: Derek May and the National Film Board of Canada
Derek May is an exceptional Canadian film maker who brings both political understanding and the aesthetic sensibility of his own formal art training to his documentaries. This article examines May’s contribution to putting art on film by analyzing his three National Film Board documentaries, Sanangu...
| Published in: | Journal of Canadian Studies |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress)
1986
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jcs.21.1.104 https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/jcs.21.1.104 |
| Summary: | Derek May is an exceptional Canadian film maker who brings both political understanding and the aesthetic sensibility of his own formal art training to his documentaries. This article examines May’s contribution to putting art on film by analyzing his three National Film Board documentaries, Sananguagat: Inuit Masterworks of 1000 Years, Pictures from the 1930s, and Off the Wall, against the background of the NFB’s traditional representation of the graphic arts and artists. The author concludes that May’s three art films remove art from the aesthetic vacuum of “Canadiana” and resituate it in a socialized/politicized world where we can discover how things happen but rarely why. |
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