CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
1970 - 1971

How Paul longed for a Virgil as he began his descent! But there he was, without a guide.

He got in touch with his best friends, Moshe and Nina Safdie, only to find that their house had burned down while he’d been in England. Apparently, Oren, their six-year-old son, had woken in the middle of the night to a house filled with smoke. He’d leapt up, rushed to his parents’ room and banged on the door until they got up. When they came down the outside stairs in pyjamas into an icy December night, Oren wanted to run back to save his turtles, but right then all of a sudden the house blew up. So the Safdies had rented an apartment down at Sherbrooke and Peel, where Paul now often ate dinners, trying to absorb what had happened to him. In a daze, in denial, he prayed that these doldrums might end and regeneration begin.

His mother and aunt had gone off to their sister Leo in Tangier. His large empty house offered no consolation. But Glenn called to show his designs and photos of the buildings he had constructed on site during the autumn. Paul had an inspiration: “Let’s go to the Saguenay! Tomorrow.” Anything to get away from the overarching gloom and blackness enwrapping his soul.

Off they went in the little green MG with the help of money saved from the previous film. They arrived at dusk by the brooding river, shrouded in mist, banks covered in snow, a foghorn sounding its mournful knell as they waited for the ferry to take them across (the Styx?) to Tadoussac. A dinner with perhaps too much wine almost kept Paul’s rapidly developing panic at bay.

During the autumn while building his beautiful structures of squared timbers, Glenn had become friendly with and enlisted the local craftsmen. They did their celebrating on New Year’s Day, because absolute tradition required attendance at the mass on New Year’s Eve. Now the two of them had to visit Hector Gauthier, the village chieftain without whose assistance Glenn would have gotten nowhere. His party was de rigeur.

They square-danced and drank homemade hooch, and then went on to Emile Savard’s, the extraordinary craftsman who had built the sets. Glenn had appointed him their winter guardian. An accomplished salmon-smoker and fine fiddler, with two foot beaters for rhythm, he kept his guests dancing hard. All this helped allay, albeit briefly, the encroaching terrors.

Deep snow lay everywhere and they emerged to find the little MG stuck in a drift. So Paul got out and they both pushed. Once up to the road and in gear, it took off down the hill with the two of them, drunk, chasing after it, and wedged itself in another snow bank.

Glenn had searched the Saguenay region for two working oxen required by the film. No luck. But Elton Hayes had found a farmer willing to train a team in Shigawake. So off they went to see him. So long as he was on the move, Paul felt better.

The ferry across the wide St. Lawrence was making its final trip, wisely as it turned out. And it did get stuck in the ice. For seven hours, Paul tried to read while Glenn did more sketches for some furniture he was going to build. Finally they docked at Rivière du Loup and drove off. With minor mishaps, like running out of gas, they made it to Elton’s farm. More celebrating and some decent planning followed.

***

Back in Montreal for the rest of the winter of 1971, Paul started on the script again and got a completed screenplay for Journey, still far from what he wanted, for he was still not in any state to write creatively.

Geneviève had to move out of Donald Johnston’s. So in a fit of complete idiocy, hoping his wife might come back, Paul suggested that she and Matthew move into his home at 1272. She had been saying she only needed time. Were she in her comfortable home again, Paul reasoned, sanity might return. So he rented a small apartment in an ugly high-rise across MacGregor that blocked the view from his Redpath Crescent home. In another fit of foolishness, he still used his basement office, though not allowed in the house. How to twist the angst-filled knife...

Glenn’s parents had not been pleased with him dropping out of university, so he moved in to the apartment and worked at designing every hand prop and every stick of wooden furniture to be carved by Tadoussac craftsmen. Paul began casting the twelve followers of the leader, confident the film would shoot as planned. Had it not always happened?

First, the female lead. Paul flew to Los Angeles to see Jane Fonda, another perfect vision of his pioneer woman. He sat cross-legged on a steamer trunk in her Venice home as her little daughter, Vanessa, the same age as Matthew, played on the floor. He outlined the film and talked all about Yin and Yang. For Yang, he needed a “rock” to play Boulder Allen and Jane suggested Oliver Reed, a British actor. Jane would be the river, the Yin. The meeting went well, but a week later, her agent said she was not available.

Struggling with his continuing depression and turmoil, Paul flew to Copenhagen where Oliver was shooting a film with Diane Cilento, the gorgeous British actress. Paul had seen her on stage as Helen of Troy and fallen for her. She did try to cheer Paul up, but his main target, Oliver Reed, seemed either stoned or drunk most of the time. However, if the film started in May, he agreed to star in it.

Financing! The CFDC never invested more than a portion of the budget, so Paul had to find private financing, and a distribution contract. With a script incomprehensible to most people, let alone financiers, Paul got nowhere. But he kept on assembling a cast, hoping somehow the leading lady would drop in his lap. He even called Joni Mitchell, a “name” who told him she would love to be in the film. But in the end, Paul was not sure he should hang a whole film on a singer who had never acted.

For the essential folk singer, Paul rang his old friend Leonard Cohen, but Leonard was busy. Glenn found a young bearded Tennessee draft dodger, Jesse Winchester, who proved amenable.

Every weekend, Paul would walk up Redpath Crescent, knock on the door, and Madame Pecetto would present his son, wrapped in winter clothes. They’d go for a toboggan or walk on the mountain: his only, and painful, contact. Afterwards, the stout oak front door that he had refinished himself would shut as his little son toddled off inside and he would curl up on the icy steps and let the tears come.

One day when he went to get Matthew, Geneviève answered. Paul saw the shock in her eyes. He’d sprouted a scraggly beard, he looked haunted, distraught; later she said she hardly recognized him. She asked how things were going, and he confessed that Jane Fonda had turned down the film and he feared it might never get made.

She thought for a moment and then, to his astonishment, told him that she would do it for him.

What would that mean? Would they get back together? Hope fluttered in his battered heart. Now, he had his lead. With Geneviève and Oliver Reid the film would go ahead.

***

He had run out of grant money by now, so paid for everything on credit cards. Glenn was loyally working without pay, so long as they ate properly. Paul moved into high gear to find financing.

But even with Geneviève, still no luck. His script was simply not commercial.

Time passed. May went by, so Oliver Reed dropped out. Unable to meet his rent any longer, he and Glenn were about to become homeless. Donald Johnston offered his mother’s apartment on Ridgewood Avenue: she had passed away two weeks earlier. So Paul and Glenn moved into the deceased lady’s gloomy flat, her old worn furniture and cupboards of clothes still untouched.

On Wojeck, Paul had worked with John Vernon, hardly a “name”, but Paul got him to accept the role, and again he had his two leads. But Glenn met Jesse Winchester one afternoon to find he had shaved his beard and cut his hair in military fashion. No film for him! Now the crucial part of Jude, the folk singer who must write eight songs, had to be re-cast. Calamity followed calamity.

Glenn finally found a bearded young singer, Luke Gibson, living on his own commune, and he signed on. Optimistically, Paul kept assembling a crew: Peter Carter flew in from Toronto to help him prepare a budget, and from Paris, Jean Boffety agreed to return as cameraman.

They now waited for the Canadian Film Development’s meeting in July. Surely Michael Spencer would come to their rescue. Elton Hayes arrived from Shigawake in a bushy beard grown for the part. Peter Carter, drinking his half bottle of Scotch every night, spent each morning in a haze. He was on tenterhooks, too, hoping that his first film as director, Gordon Pinsent’s The Rowdyman with Larry Dane (Zahab) as producer, would get funding.

The fateful day came. The meeting ended. But no word. Michael Spencer, after meeting all day and unaware of the angst felt by many waiting cineastes, did not bother to phone.

But Peter and Paul had spies out in Toronto. One got hold of a board member and passed on the news. Peter’s The Rowdyman was accepted. Journey was not.

Glenn had taken a leave of absence from University and lost his year. Elton had left his farm and grown a beard; others had given up good paying jobs. Paul, at the end of his card limits and credit at the bank, had finally hit rock bottom.

But some deep survival instinct welled up, and he tore off to see Donald Johnston. Heather gave them dinner, and the two fiddled the budget down to half its size. Donald phoned Mel Hoppenheim, provider of equipment, and got him to invest one-half his equipment rental fee. Harold Greenberg agreed to invest half Astral’s lab fees. An old friend of Paul’s from Bishops College School kicked in a good amount. Donald, the lawyer for Astral Films, pressed them to accept Journey for distribution. Hey Presto!

Paul and Donald then managed to corral Michael in his own home the next evening. Donald twisted his arm and Michael agreed to approach his Board by telephone.

The Board agreed. Journey got its full financing. The film was on.