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Performing Arts History & Criticism

Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg

by (author) Darren Wershler

Publisher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Initial publish date
Sep 2010
Category
History & Criticism
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781442642461
    Publish Date
    Sep 2010
    List Price
    $56.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781442611344
    Publish Date
    Sep 2010
    List Price
    $31.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442694064
    Publish Date
    Sep 2010
    List Price
    $22.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Out of print

This edition is not currently available in bookstores. Check your local library or search for used copies at Abebooks.

Description

Guy Maddin is Canada's most iconoclastic filmmaker. Through his reinvention of half-forgotten film genres, his remobilization of abandoned techniques from the early history of cinema, and his unique editing style, Maddin has created a critically successful body of work that looks like nothing else in Canadian film. My Winnipeg (2008), which Roger Ebert called one of the ten best films of the first decade of the twenty-first century, has consolidated Maddin's international reputation.

In this sixth volume of the Canadian Cinema series, Darren Wershler argues that Maddin's use of techniques and media that fall outside of the normal repertoire of contemporary cinema require us to re-examine what we think we know about the documentary genre and even 'film' itself. Through an exploration of My Winnipeg's major thematic concerns - memory, the cultural archive, and how people and objects circulate through the space of the city - Wershler contends that the result is a film that is psychologically and affectively true without being historically accurate.

About the author

Darren Wershler is the author or co-author of ten books, most recently The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting (2007) and, with Bill Kennedy, apostrophe (2006). The former senior editor of Coach House Books, Wershler is an assistant professor of communication studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, faculty at the Canadian Film Centre Interactive Art and Entertainment Program, and a research affiliate of the IP Osgoode Intellectual Property Law & Technology program.

Steve McCaffery is the author of over twenty-five books of poetry and criticism. He has twice been awarded the Gertrude Stein Award for innovative poetry and twice shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award. His poems have been published in more than a dozen countries. A long-time resident of Toronto, he is currently the David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters, University at Buffalo.

Darren Wershler's profile page

Editorial Reviews

'If you love movies in the very sinews of your imagination, you should experience the work of Guy Maddin.'

Roger Ebert, <em>Chicago Sun Times</em>