Skinning the Cat Produced by Ben Locche, Jeff Santa Barbara, and Matthew Willson Directed by Jeff Santa Barbara Written by Kevin Land Cinematography by Mario Madau Original Music by Darrell O'Dea Starring Matthew Willson and Jonathan Harrison
Canadian films about things Canadian first came into my life about sixty years ago. A young man in a theatre school in Toronto in the early 50s, I remember a Super 8 film camera, a woman director, a few scenes framed and shot, a pregnant idea, aborted when the director ran out of credibility and cash. Later, I got into rudimentary film editing, cutting and pasting. That one made it through to a couple of in-house showings. Movie-making in Ontario continued on without me then, and I turned to the stage; but a tiny cinematic virus took up residence in my system that still keeps me grounded in the process while I watch a movie. I see the making of it going on as the tale of the thing unfolds. So it is in the case of this Matthew Willson/Jeff Santa Barbara film adaptation of Kevin Land's original play, "Skinning the Cat". I saw that play staged at the The Pearl in Hamilton a couple of years ago.
Land's story morphs well from stage to screen, and I assume he did the morphing himself. Most of the play itself is absorbed comfortably in the process of filming. Actors Willson and Harrison are a big help here, only occasionally challenged by moments when the writer's voice is more insistent than that of the character who speaks. For example there's a scene where Ned (Willson) tells Bruce (Harrison) to think of a time before, when he was nothing. Bruce is a mature, self-made achiever and we're given no reason to think of him with an interior, intellectual life. "Don't think of it as being nothing.." Harrison begins, but, as a kidnapped victim manacled to a chair in an abandoned waterfront warehouse, wearing a humiliating adult nappy, he must deliver from his character Bruce, the writer's concept that such a time can be compared to the image of a brilliant tile mosaic, a sudden cultural metaphor, a gem dropped on the stained floor of an abandoned warehouse, and to my mind the playwright speaking. Actor Harrison neatly gets us over the edge of credibility here and delivers adequately. He is strongly aided by Willson's performance as the street-wise predator/kidnapper, a younger man with a deeper agenda than meets the eye. He is menacing in a frightening, dangerously playful way. Happily these two seasoned artists have put their faith into Land's exemplary writing and made of the work something gritty and real.
Jeff Santa Barbara directs this film with sure hand and grace. I assume he framed and edited it all. His craft sits well up in front with the best of the independent stuff making the rounds in the area. Hamilton outside and in is his setting. He finds light and colour with apparent ease and fully commands all his space, wide and narrow, making everything serve his vision. Contemporary as hell, the filming is polished without being smart-alecky slick, the story and its telling dictate this Director's imperatives. Cramped toilet stall and night streetscapes are equally and masterfully grasped and delivered. A face against a brick wall contrasts the concrete with the emotional, interpolated fragments from the past quiver with life, as carefully created as the long views of present threat in the cold purpose of the plot. Tiny details, hands fumbling with bindings stir suspense, a hooded profile in close-up with a voice detached evokes fearful unease; dialogue is measured succinctly frame to frame. This is fine work, all this.
Cinematography accounts in large measure for the heady achievement of the Director's vision, and with Mario Madau behind the camera, the production becomes a work to rival anything in the market. This film, we are told, has a micro-budget, as in zilch (to speak of). That the producers were able to recruit an artist of such skill on a skimpy five figures overall is my definition of bloody marvelous! The range of the camera, its focus, its capturing of light and dark, of shades and colours, that speak to and of the setting, the actors, and the writing so complimentarily marks Madau a spot in the creative genius category. Together he and Santa Barbara have some future for themselves in the film industry in this country at least, all things being equal.
Why is this fairly short film (80 minutes) waiting on DVDs in paper envelopes and is not making it in the festivals, in the distribution circuits? A recurring symbol plays throughout the piece, a Yo-Yo, variously skinning the cat and walking the dog, hardly noticed until the end. It lies waiting on some surface, its string dangling and unused. As with the film itself, you might say, who will come along and make it function?
Canadian films about things Canadian first came into my life about sixty years ago. A young man in a theatre school in Toronto in the early 50s, I remember a Super 8 film camera, a woman director, a few scenes framed and shot, a pregnant idea, aborted when the director ran out of credibility and cash. Later, I got into rudimentary film editing, cutting and pasting. That one made it through to a couple of in-house showings. Movie-making in Ontario continued on without me then, and I turned to the stage; but a tiny cinematic virus took up residence in my system that still keeps me grounded in the process while I watch a movie. I see the making of it going on as the tale of the thing unfolds. So it is in the case of this Matthew Willson/Jeff Santa Barbara film adaptation of Kevin Land's original play, "Skinning the Cat". I saw that play staged at the The Pearl in Hamilton a couple of years ago.
Land's story morphs well from stage to screen, and I assume he did the morphing himself. Most of the play itself is absorbed comfortably in the process of filming. Actors Willson and Harrison are a big help here, only occasionally challenged by moments when the writer's voice is more insistent than that of the character who speaks. For example there's a scene where Ned (Willson) tells Bruce (Harrison) to think of a time before, when he was nothing. Bruce is a mature, self-made achiever and we're given no reason to think of him with an interior, intellectual life. "Don't think of it as being nothing.." Harrison begins, but, as a kidnapped victim manacled to a chair in an abandoned waterfront warehouse, wearing a humiliating adult nappy, he must deliver from his character Bruce, the writer's concept that such a time can be compared to the image of a brilliant tile mosaic, a sudden cultural metaphor, a gem dropped on the stained floor of an abandoned warehouse, and to my mind the playwright speaking. Actor Harrison neatly gets us over the edge of credibility here and delivers adequately. He is strongly aided by Willson's performance as the street-wise predator/kidnapper, a younger man with a deeper agenda than meets the eye. He is menacing in a frightening, dangerously playful way. Happily these two seasoned artists have put their faith into Land's exemplary writing and made of the work something gritty and real.
Jeff Santa Barbara directs this film with sure hand and grace. I assume he framed and edited it all. His craft sits well up in front with the best of the independent stuff making the rounds in the area. Hamilton outside and in is his setting. He finds light and colour with apparent ease and fully commands all his space, wide and narrow, making everything serve his vision. Contemporary as hell, the filming is polished without being smart-alecky slick, the story and its telling dictate this Director's imperatives. Cramped toilet stall and night streetscapes are equally and masterfully grasped and delivered. A face against a brick wall contrasts the concrete with the emotional, interpolated fragments from the past quiver with life, as carefully created as the long views of present threat in the cold purpose of the plot. Tiny details, hands fumbling with bindings stir suspense, a hooded profile in close-up with a voice detached evokes fearful unease; dialogue is measured succinctly frame to frame. This is fine work, all this.
Cinematography accounts in large measure for the heady achievement of the Director's vision, and with Mario Madau behind the camera, the production becomes a work to rival anything in the market. This film, we are told, has a micro-budget, as in zilch (to speak of). That the producers were able to recruit an artist of such skill on a skimpy five figures overall is my definition of bloody marvelous! The range of the camera, its focus, its capturing of light and dark, of shades and colours, that speak to and of the setting, the actors, and the writing so complimentarily marks Madau a spot in the creative genius category. Together he and Santa Barbara have some future for themselves in the film industry in this country at least, all things being equal.
Why is this fairly short film (80 minutes) waiting on DVDs in paper envelopes and is not making it in the festivals, in the distribution circuits? A recurring symbol plays throughout the piece, a Yo-Yo, variously skinning the cat and walking the dog, hardly noticed until the end. It lies waiting on some surface, its string dangling and unused. As with the film itself, you might say, who will come along and make it function?
