Michael Turner presents James Clavell’s The Sweet and the Bitter

SPECIAL EVENT! IN PERSON: MICHAEL TURNER ► In 1962, the British novelist (Tai-Pan, Shōgun), screenwriter (The Fly, The Great Escape) and film director (To Sir, With Love) James Clavell came to Vancouver to make The Sweet and the Bitter. Little known today and rarely screened, this independent film, written, produced and directed by Clavell, was one of the first dramatic features to treat the subject of the internment of Japanese-Canadians during World War II – or, more specifically here, the aftermath of those events. The plot concerns a young Japanese woman who comes to Canada seeking revenge for the injustices perpetrated upon her father, a fisherman, during the war. Focusing her quest for vengeance on the wealthy businessman she holds responsible for her father’s misfortune, she sets out to seduce the man’s son. The Sweet and the Bitter was the first and only film produced by Vancouver-based Commonwealth Film Productions, an early effort to establish a viable commercial film industry in the city. Financial and legal difficulties forced Commonwealth out of business soon after, and held up the release of The Sweet and the Bitter for five years, until 1967. B&W, 16mm. 87 mins.

DISCUSSION TO FOLLOW!

Also on the program: Rare Behind-the-Scenes Footage! In 1962, an off-duty CBC cameraman named Eric Cable shot behind-the-scenes colour footage, on 16mm film, of the cast and crew of The Sweet and the Bitter during and between takes and on location in West Vancouver and at Vancouver’s then-five-year-old BC Hydro Building. Excerpts from this material, housed in the CBC Vancouver Archives, will be screened.

The evening will be presented by the noted Vancouver author Michael Turner, the Ellen and Warren Tallman Writer-In-Residence at Simon Fraser University for 2009/10. Well known for his poetry, novels and art criticism, Mr. Turner is the author of Company Town (1991), Hard Core Logo (1993), Kingsway (1995), American Whiskey Bar (1997) and The Pornographer’s Poem (1999). His latest work of fiction, 8 x 10 (Doubleday Canada, 2009), was published this fall. He presented “Robert Altman’s Vancouver” at Pacific Cinémathèque in 2006.

Other special guests and respondents will be in attendance and will participate in discussion.

Co-sponsored by The Ellen and Warren Tallman Simon Fraser University Writer-in-Residence Program and Presentation House Gallery.

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This event was organized with the collaboration of Anu Sahota, and would not have been possible without her contribution and assistance.

Screening print of The Sweet and the Bitter courtesy Library and Archives Canada (Ottawa), with kind permission of the Estate of James Clavell. Behind-the-scenes footage from 1962 courtesy of CBC Vancouver. Special thanks to CBC Archivist Colin Preston.