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[[John Hofsess]] remarked in 1971 that Shebib's documentary style, developed over five years, is "suffused with a wry, ironic humanism", a "superb style for needling the sacred cows of the establishment and the sanctimonious bull of counter-culture groups" a style often maintained even in Shebib's second dramatic feature, ''[[Rip-Off (film)|Rip-Off]].''<ref name="Hofsess">{{cite journal |last1=Hofsess |first1=John |title=RIPPING IT OFF BLOWING IT UP COOLING IT |journal=[[Maclean's]] |date=1 November 1971 |page=104|url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1971/11/1/ripping-it-off-blowing-it-up-cooling-it#!&pid=104|accessdate=29 April 2019}}</ref> As late as 1993, ''Goin' Down the Road'' still had "legendary status".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chidley |first1=Joe |title=All in the family: a road movie bogs down in cheesy sentimentality |journal=[[Maclean's]] |date=24 May 1993 |url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1993/5/24/all-in-the-family |accessdate=12 June 2020}}</ref> It had done more than any other work to advance the [[Canadian film industry]] at the time of its release. Within a few years, Shebib's body of work had made him a "unique and recognizable film presence" in Canada and beyond, "verging on international stature."<ref name="Gathercole" />
[[John Hofsess]] remarked in 1971 that Shebib's documentary style, developed over five years, is "suffused with a wry, ironic humanism", a "superb style for needling the sacred cows of the establishment and the sanctimonious bull of counter-culture groups" a style often maintained even in Shebib's second dramatic feature, ''[[Rip-Off (film)|Rip-Off]].''<ref name="Hofsess">{{cite journal |last1=Hofsess |first1=John |title=RIPPING IT OFF BLOWING IT UP COOLING IT |journal=[[Maclean's]] |date=1 November 1971 |page=104|url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1971/11/1/ripping-it-off-blowing-it-up-cooling-it#!&pid=104|accessdate=29 April 2019}}</ref> As late as 1993, ''Goin' Down the Road'' still had "legendary status".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Chidley |first1=Joe |title=All in the family: a road movie bogs down in cheesy sentimentality |journal=[[Maclean's]] |date=24 May 1993 |url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1993/5/24/all-in-the-family |accessdate=12 June 2020}}</ref> It had done more than any other work to advance the [[Canadian film industry]] at the time of its release. Within a few years, Shebib's body of work had made him a "unique and recognizable film presence" in Canada and beyond, "verging on international stature."<ref name="Gathercole" />


Quite apart from his artistic ability or technical skills, [[Peter Harcourt]] pointed out that that Shebib was "his own worst publicity agent ... always complaining that his scripts are weak or that he has had difficulties with his actors".<ref name="Gathercole" />
Despite his artistic vision and technical skills, a perception grew that Shebib was "his own worst publicity agent", complaining that his scripts were weak or that he had difficulties with actors.<ref name="Harcourt" /> By 1993, after having directed eight feature length dramatic films, around thirty documentaries, and "scores of TV dramas and series" over twenty-five years, Shebib was finding it hard to find work, even in television: "People have given me the reputation of being terrible-tempered on the set, of being hard to work with. But I don't know where that comes from, I'm really the softest guy in the world."<ref name="KastnerJ" />


==Personal life==
==Personal life==

Revision as of 04:24, 13 June 2020

Donald Shebib
Born
Donald Everett Shebib

(1938-01-17) 17 January 1938 (age 86)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
EducationM.A. (UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television)
Alma materUniversity of Toronto
OccupationFilm director
Years active1962 - Present
Known forCanadian feature films, short documentaries, television films
SpouseTedde Moore
ChildrenNoah James • Suzanna
Parents
  • Moses "Morris" Shebib
  • Mary Alice Long
Awards

Donald Everett Shebib (born 17 January 1938), often called Don Shebib, is a Canadian film director, writer, producer and editor.[1]

Early life and education

Shebib was born in Toronto, the son of Mary Alice Long, a Newfoundlander,[2] and Moses "Morris" Shebib,[3][4] born in Sydney, Nova Scotia in 1910, himself the son of Lebanese immigrants.[5][2] In a 2011 interview with Andrea Nemetz in the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Shebib said: "I was aware of migratory experiences – like the Okies in California in the dust bowl. I had a cousin who came to stay with us in Toronto in the late 1950’s and he tried to make a go of it and couldn't and went back to the Maritimes."[2]

The young Shebib grew up loving sports, comic books, and Hollywood "chestnuts" or vintage films, the family acquiring their first television set in 1952; for a certain time, Shebib refused to watch any film made after 1940.[6]

Shebib played semi-pro football as a young man, and studied sociology and history at the University of Toronto.[6][7] While very interested in sociological patterns from history, he did not enjoy reading enough to pursue this interest further academically, but was still looking for something to do that would appeal to his "jock and artist impulses".[6]

At the University of California, he studied at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, where he made his first short films.[7] He graduated with a Master of Arts.[8]

Career

Short documentaries

Upon graduation, Shebib returned to Canada and directed, shot and edited several award-winning, "lucid" documentaries for the National Film Board of Canada, CTV Television Network, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the 1960s, notably his thesis film, The Duel (1962),[9] Surfin' (1964), Satan's Choice (1965), an inside view of the motorcycle club,[10] and Good Times Bad Times (1969), before turning to feature filmmaking.[7]

Feature films

Debut

Main article: Goin' Down the Road

Shebib gained prominence and critical acclaim in Canadian cinema for his seminal 1970 feature Goin' Down the Road, which combined narrative storytelling with Canadian documentary tradition influenced by the British.[11][12][13] The low-budget film crew travelled around Toronto in a station wagon, supported by funding from the newly-formed Canadian Film Development Corporation. The movie was screened in New York and hailed by Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert. Kael wrote that the movie showed up the ostensibly forced sincerity and perceived honesty of the films of John Cassavetes. It has consistently remained near the top of the list of Top Ten films made in Canada in three separate surveys of academics, critics and film programmers, and was designated a "masterwork" by the AV Preservation Trust. In 1998 a DVD copy was struck from the master negative by the Toronto International Film Festival in conjunction with Telefilm Canada.[7] The film was digitally remastered as one of the key films in the Canadian film canon and was honoured with a screening at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Later features and sequel

Following the success of Goin' Down the Road, Shebib expressed a preference for making dramatic rather than documentary films going forward,[14] and directed a mix of commercially unsuccessful genre films such as the teen comedy Rip-Off (1971), the critically-acclaimed Between Friends (1973), a tale of a botched mine robbery in Northern Ontario, Second Wind (1976), and Fish Hawk (1979). He found success once more with Heartaches (1981), described by Wyndham Wise as a variation of Goin' Down the Road with a pair of working-class women.[7]

Since the start of the 1980s, Shebib has worked primarily in television, but has occasionally returned to feature films with Running Brave (1983), The Climb (1986), Change of Heart (1992), The Ascent (1994) and Down the Road Again (2011), a sequel to Goin' down the Road, featuring some of the original cast members as well as a new generation of characters. [7]

Television

Shebib earned critical acclaim for Good Times, Bad Times, made for the CBC in 1969.[15]

The director's later television work has included By Reason of Insanity (1982) and Slim Obsession (1984) made for the CBC series For the Record, the television movies The Little Kidnappers (1990) and The Pathfinder (1996). Television drama series work includes The Edison Twins, Night Heat, Counterstrike and The Zack Files.[7]

I have no belief in moral right or wrong. That's evident in all my films. That is the basis of my philosophy. Things are good if they're efficient and bad if they're inefficient. ... I don't consider a man who was a Nazi a morally evil person. I never would consider Hitler an evil person. Hitler would make a fascinating film. He's an incredible, marvelous, strange, twisted, mixed up, sick man and he's got as much of everyman in him as anybody else has. That's man! That's man on the screen and people could sit there and say, "That is a human being, and I can relate to that no matter what he's done."

Donald Shebib[16]

Philosophy and politics

In 1970, Shebib said that his personal philosophy was influenced by television and the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan.[14] A few years later, he said he was "not an intellectual" because he "didn't talk like one", but contended that he was not actually anti-intellectual, just "anti-bullshit"; politically "liberal" but not "laissez-faire" or "bleeding heart", with "socialist leftist leanings", but believed that Marxism is "just another form bullshit", not that capitalists were "any better".[16]

In the Seventies, Shebib also alienated "a lot of people" with his attitude towards the women's liberation movement:

I really believe that there's a stronger and more definitive drive in man. Men are the great creators, and I think creativity is a function of sexual drive. Men and women are different for justifiable reasons to begin with. Many women in the women's lib movement are confusing the inherent differences and those we are conditioned to.[16]

Aesthetics, style, and technique

In 1973, he said that an independent filmmaker must become involved in all aspects of the filmmaking process.[9] Restating this in a 1982 interview, he noted that few filmmakers were capable of directing, writing, and editing the same film, and that, as a Canadian commercial filmmaker, he believed his own taste was more in tune with that of the general public than other "intellectual" filmmakers who were making "pretentious" and "dull" films.[17] Shebib believes in the John Ford style of cinematic storytelling.[6] In 1993, he said that conflict is essential to a film and should be inherent to the basic sructure, and should be present in every scene, every change of scene, of a film: "Conflict is one of the basic essences of humanity."[8]

In 2011, Shebib told Geoff Pevere he had expanded his range of cinematic viewing, now watching films made as late as and even later than 1950, but contended that movies mainly "went in the toilet" after 1950 (with some notable exceptions like Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones, a "perfect movie" made in 1958).[6] His dislike for the styles employed by contemporary films is matched by his "seething disdain of critics" and a "testy" ambivalence with respect to the quality of his own work (he called himself "lazy and sloppy" in the execution of his work):[16] Pevere's assessment: "Shebib is an old-fashioned traditionalist adrift in a modernist cultural movement, and therefore as much an outsider as anybody he'd make movies about."[6] His feelings of ambivalence extend to a "reluctance to accept being the designated representative of Canadian anything":[6] "I don't like the idea of suddenly being used as a model for Canada or something. Why take me - whatever my feelings are - and blame that on the Canadian people?"[16]

Recurring themes

Shebib still considers himself a sociologist at heart, and suggests his films have a strong sociological basis,[6] incorporating social commentary, human relationships being a frequent theme.[9][16]

In the mid 1970s, Peter Harcourt remarked on the frequent moments of silence denoting introspection in Shebib's films, both in the early documentaries and in the feature films, a "feeling of emptiness, of restlessness, often of irrelevance".[18] Shebib places great value on "male comradeship" and "the need of real challenges to give individuals a sense of their dignity".[18] Piers Handling noted that Shebib was so preoccupied with male bonding that women were absent from his work prior to the start of his feature film career, and likewise identified a tension between the desire to transcend boundaries and existential limits.[15]

Critical assessment

John Hofsess remarked in 1971 that Shebib's documentary style, developed over five years, is "suffused with a wry, ironic humanism", a "superb style for needling the sacred cows of the establishment and the sanctimonious bull of counter-culture groups" a style often maintained even in Shebib's second dramatic feature, Rip-Off.[19] As late as 1993, Goin' Down the Road still had "legendary status".[20] It had done more than any other work to advance the Canadian film industry at the time of its release. Within a few years, Shebib's body of work had made him a "unique and recognizable film presence" in Canada and beyond, "verging on international stature."[16]

Despite his artistic vision and technical skills, a perception grew that Shebib was "his own worst publicity agent", complaining that his scripts were weak or that he had difficulties with actors.[18] By 1993, after having directed eight feature length dramatic films, around thirty documentaries, and "scores of TV dramas and series" over twenty-five years, Shebib was finding it hard to find work, even in television: "People have given me the reputation of being terrible-tempered on the set, of being hard to work with. But I don't know where that comes from, I'm really the softest guy in the world."[8]

Personal life

Family

Shebib is married to Canadian actress Tedde Moore, whom he met through a mutual friend.[21] They no longer live together, though Moore remains "very fond" of Shebib and calls him her "life partner."[22] Their two children Noah and Suzanna both have careers in the performing arts: Suzanna is an actress, while Noah, better known as "40", is an actor and music producer (the siblings have an older half-sister, Zoe).[22]

Friendships and connections

Shebib met his lifelong friend Carol Ballard, with whom he often collaborated, while attending classes at UCLA, which he also shared with Francis Ford Coppola.[6] He also "hung out" with Jim Morrison during this period.[6]

Selected accolades

Filmography

Films

Early short films and documentaries

• Student films (UCLA)[25]
  • 1961 The Train
  • 1962 Joey
    • The Duel (thesis)
  • 1963 Revival
    • Reparations (unfinished)[26]
  • 1964 Eddie
    • Autumnpan
• National Film Board
  • 1965 Satan's Choice
  • 1966 A Search for Learning

Feature films

Television

Films

• Documentaries
  • 1964 Surfin' (CBC)
    • Allan (CBC)
    • Olympic Rider (CTV)
    • David Secter (CTV, This Land Is People)
    • Christalot Hanson (CTV, This Land Is People)
    • June Marks (CTV, This Land Is People)
  • 1967 Everdale Place (CTV,This Land Is People)
  • 1968: Unknown Soldier (CBC, The Way It Is)
    • Stanfield (CBC, The Way It Is)
    • Graduation Day (CBC, The Way It Is)
  • 1969: Good Times Bad Times (CBC, The Way It Is)
  • 1972: Born Hustler (CBC, Telescope)
  • 1974: Winning is the Only Thing! (CBC, Gallery)
    • Mrs. Gray (CBC, Of All People)
    • We've Come a Long Way Together (CTV)
• Dramas and docudramas

Dramatic series episodes

Shebib directed at least one episode of the following series.

Further reading

  • Handling, Piers. The Films of Don Shebib. Canadian Film Institute, 1978 (Canadian film series ; 2).
  • Pevere, Geoff. Donald Shebib's 'Goin' Down the Road'. University of Toronto Press, 2012 (Canadian cinema ; 8).

References

  1. ^ Simpson, Kieran (1 June 1983). "Canadian Who's Who, 1983". University of Toronto Press. Retrieved 14 November 2019 – via Google Books.
  2. ^ a b c "Don Shebib - Filmmaker". Who Are Arab Canadians?. CBC. Retrieved 7 June 2020.
  3. ^ "The Canadian Who's who". University of Toronto Press. 14 November 1986. Retrieved 14 November 2019 – via Google Books.
  4. ^ "Moses Shebib Obituary - Mount Forest, ON | ObitTree™". obittree.com. Retrieved 14 November 2019.
  5. ^ http://thechronicleherald.ca/artslife/26291-iconic-canadian-film-goes-down-the-road-again
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pevere, Geoff (2012). "Surfing from Scarborough". Donald Shebib's Goin' Down the Road. University of Toronto Press. pp. 9–20. ISBN 9781442645899. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Wise, Wyndham. "Donald Shebib". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  8. ^ a b c Kastner, Jamie (interviewer) (30 May 1993). ""'I'm the softest guy in the world' sys Shebib". Toronto Star. {{cite news}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
  9. ^ a b c Evanchuk, P.M. (March–April 1973). "An interview with Don Shebib". Motion: 10–14.
  10. ^ "Satan's Choice". National Film Board. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  11. ^ Cole, Stephen (21 October 2011). "Down the Road Again: One last ride with Joey and Pete". theglobeandmail.com. Canada: The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 4 May 2016. ... Shebib, a UCLA film alum...
  12. ^ Lanken, Dane (12 February 1972). "Shebib turns to youth cult for his latest film". news.google.com. The Montreal Gazette. Retrieved 4 May 2016. As a thesis for his graduation from UCLA's film school eight years ago,...
  13. ^ Moodie, Jim (26 January 2014). "Accent: 1973 film shot in Sudbury a neglected classic". thesudburystar.com. Canada: Sudbury Star. Retrieved 4 May 2016. Shebib studied film at UCLA in the 1960s...
  14. ^ a b "McLuhan's Child". The New Yorker. 46 (40): 47–49. 21 November 1970.
  15. ^ a b Handling, Piers (1978). The Films of Don Shebib. Ottawa, Ont.: Canadian Film Institute.
  16. ^ a b c d e f g Gathercole, Sandra (interviewer) (October 1973-January 1974). "Shebib talks with Sandra Gathercole". Cinema Canada (10–11): 33–36. Retrieved 12 June 2020. {{cite journal}}: |first1= has generic name (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ Pittman, Bruce (February 1982). "Shebib exposes himself". Cinema Canada (81): 18–21.
  18. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference Harcourt was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Hofsess, John (1 November 1971). "RIPPING IT OFF BLOWING IT UP COOLING IT". Maclean's: 104. Retrieved 29 April 2019.
  20. ^ Chidley, Joe (24 May 1993). "All in the family: a road movie bogs down in cheesy sentimentality". Maclean's. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  21. ^ "Tedde Moore Net Worth, Movies, Married, Children, Facts, Wiki-Bio". Bio Age Who. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  22. ^ a b Scott, Cece M. "Tedde Morre strongly rooted in Canadian theatre". Active Life. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  23. ^ Wise, Wyndam (ed.) (2001). Take One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press. p. 263. {{cite book}}: |first1= has generic name (help)
  24. ^ "The Winners: The Canadian Film Awards 1976". Cinema Canada. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
  25. ^ Harcourt, Peter (November 1976). "Men of vision: Don Shebib". Cinema Canada: 35–40.
  26. ^ Ramsay, Christine (2002). "Canadian cinema at the margins: the nation and masculinity in Goin' Down the Road". In Walz, Eugene P. (ed.). Canada's Best Features: Critical Essays on 15 Canadian Films. Amsterdam; New York: Editions Rodopi. pp. 3–24. ISBN 9042012099. Retrieved 8 June 2020.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Donald Shebib.
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