- Goin' Down the Road
Infobox Film
name = Goin' Down the Road
image_size = 200px
caption = Promotional movie poster for the film
director =Donald Shebib
producer = Donald Shebib
writer = William Fruet
Donald Shebib
starring =Doug McGrath Paul Bradley Jayne Eastwood Cayle Chernin
music =Bruce Cockburn
cinematography =Richard Leiterman
editing = Donald Shebib
distributor = Chevron Pictures
released = flagicon|CanadaJuly 2 ,1970
flagicon|USOctober 19
flagicon|HungaryFebruary 3 ,1972
flagicon|SwedenSeptember 11
runtime = 90 min.
country = Canada
language = English
budget = CAD 87,000 (estimate) [ [http://avtrust.ca/masterworks/2000/en_film_1.htm AV Trust - Goin' Down the Road] ]
amg_id = 1:93416
imdb_id = 0065788"Goin' Down the Road" is a Canadian-made
film directed byDonald Shebib and released in 1970. It chronicles the lives of two men from the Maritimes who move to Toronto in order to find a better life. It starredDoug McGrath ,Paul Bradley ,Jayne Eastwood andCayle Chernin . Despite its obvious lack of production expense, it is generally regarded as one of the best and most influential Canadian films of all time and has received considerable critical acclaim for its true-to-life performances.Plot
Peter and Joey drive their 1960 Chevrolet Impala from their home in the
Maritimes toToronto with the hope of meeting up with their relatives in the city who can find them a job. However, their relatives hide from what they perceive to be their uncouth behaviour, and they are set adrift in the city. The men findminimum wage jobs ($2 per hour for a 40 hour week) - which still pay much better than anything they could find back home.They soon turn their good fortune into residency in a small apartment. Both men start romances, and Joey decides to get married when he gets his girlfriend (Eastwood) pregnant. He pursues a lifestyle undreamt of at home with his new wife, but the larger apartment and payments on his new stereo and television start to strain his finances. He becomes desperate as his child's birth approaches and the expenses start to mount.
Disaster strikes when Peter and Joey get laid off at the end of the summer. Unable to find steady work and having bills to pay and a baby on the way, they come up with a harebrained scheme to rob groceries from a
Loblaws supermarket, which inevitably results in disaster.Cast
*
Doug McGrath as Peter McGraw
*Paul Bradley as Joey Mayle
*Jayne Eastwood as Betty
*Cayle-Lorraine Sinclair as Selina
*Nicole Morin as Nicole
*Pierre La Roche as Frenchie La Roche
*Don Steinhouse as Plant Co-worker
*Ted Sugar] as Plant Co-worker
*Ron Martin as Plant Co-workerSocial relevance
The film reflected an important social phenomenon in post-war Canada as the economy of the eastern provinces stagnated and many young men sought opportunities in the fast growing economy of
Ontario . Although the men in the film come fromNova Scotia , the "Newfie" as an unsophisticated manual labourer was a common stereotype starting in the early 1950s as many Atlantic Canadians moved to the cities looking for work, only to find widespread unemployment and jobs that may have seemed to have attractive salaries, but made living in large cities marginal at best. Many of Toronto's early housing developments (particularlyRegent Park ) were built to handle the influx of internal immigrants before they were eventually replaced by external immigrants from Africa, the Caribbean and Asia starting in the 1960s.The film is well known to Canadians and was parodied in an episode of "SCTV", with
John Candy andJoe Flaherty as a Maritimelawyer and doctor (respectively) seeking a better life in Toronto after hearing about the job openings there. Eastwood reprised her role as the pregnant girlfriend, andAndrea Martin expanded the list of characters as aFrench-Canadian nuclear physicist who was also seeking better opportunities outside her native province ofQuebec . As in the original, the men are entranced by the big city appeal ofYonge Street , Toronto's primary commercial thoroughfare. The parody ends on a happier note, with the characters leaving Toronto to seek better opportunities in Edmonton.Production and significance
Many of the film's sequences were improvised on the spot. For example, the scene in Allan Gardens where Pete and Joey interact with some musical tramps: according to Donald Shebib, McGrath saw the men and called Shebib who hurried down with his camera and other cast members in tow. Shot on 16mm reversal stock, the near-documentary look of the movie impressed a number of
critics who appreciated the film's honesty and its refusal to pander to the audience. Pete and Joey are not depicted as being punished for a moral failure, and there is no happy ending. The film builds on such works as "The Grapes of Wrath" but it puts the story into the present, and the story itself is not dated - the flight from rural to urban areas continues throughout the world today.Quebec cinema also was influenced by the realistic look of "Goin' Down the Road", and many successful Quebec films based on real life experiences were also critical and often commercial successes. Other Canadian filmmakers have also taken advantage of the cost savings that realism can mean to a production (such as shooting on less expensive film stock).
This film has been designated and preserved as a "masterwork" by the
Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada , a charitable non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the preservation of Canada’s audio-visual heritage. [ [http://avtrust.ca/masterworks/2000/en_film.htm Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada] ]The up and coming singer-songwriter
Bruce Cockburn composed several songs for this film including "Goin' Down The Road" and "Another Victim of the Rainbow". Cockburn refused to release the songs commercially as they did not reflect his experience, but those of the characters in the film. Director Donald Shebib was introduced to Cockburn, who was then playing in coffee houses in Toronto, by journalist Alison Gordon.References
External links
*imdb title|id=0065788|title=Goin' Down the Road
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