Wild Geese on Film (Part 3): After the Harvest

The third of three addendums to the recent post about Martha Ostenso's 1925 bestselling novel.

The only film adaptation of Wild Geese released during my lifetime, yet I missed its airing on 4 March 2001.

I was the father of a toddler at time.

After the Harvest was a made-for-TV movie. A part of Baton Broadcasting's Canadian Literature Initiative, a very slim, very small bone thrown so as to get the okay for its takeover of CTV. The corporation promised all of one million dollars spread over two years to encourage independent productions. What followed were adaptations of Anna Porter's The Bookfair Murders, the Gail Bowen mysteries Deadly Appearances and Murder at the Mendel, and Murder Most Likely, which was based on the Michael Harris book The Judas Kiss.

The Porter and Bowen books were murder mysteries, Harris's was an investigation into a corrupt RCMP officer who in 1983 tossed his wife off the 17th-storey balcony of their Toronto condo. All four were published in the 'nineties.

Wild Geese, which features no murder, was a seven-decade-old novel. When first published it sat on store shelves alongside Bliss Carman and E. Barrington, not John Grisham and Daniel Steele. 

Detail of a Henry Morgan & Co ad, Montreal Gazette, 19 November 1925.

After the Harvest was by far the best received of the Canadian Literature Initiative films. Watching it today, it is easy to see why.

The first thing that strikes is the look, which captures the beauty of the Canadian West, using natural lighting to full effect. There are shots that look  like paintings come to life. Cinematographer Gregory Middleton would go on to Passchendaele, The Watchmen, and Game of Thrones.

Care was taken in costuming, sets, and pretty much everything else, farm machinery included. 

Added to these are extraordinary performances. One expects as much from Sam Shepard, who is perfectly cast as tyrannical, yet dispassionate Caleb Gare.  That stare! He commands nearly every scene, as the story demands. Liane Balaband, who plays Lind Archer, is another standout. Her role as "the Teacher" is somewhat greater than in the novel, though I do think CTV's promo reel exaggerates the character's influence:

Finally, there's the script. I've left this for the end because, by necessity, spoilers will follow. Anyone coming fresh to Wild Geese may wish to skip to the After the Harvest YouTube link below.

Read the book, see the movie, and remember they do not tell the exact same story.

According to a Sandra Martin piece in the 3 March 2001 edition of the Globe & Mail, screenwriter Suzette Couture first read Ostenso's novel after having been given a copy by Maggie Siggins when working on the film adaptation of A Canadian Tragedy: JoAnne and Colin Thatcher. Like me, she was hooked.

Couture makes changes in bringing Wild Geese to the screen, but in ways that will, with few exceptions, pass unnoticed by all but the most recent or most familiar reader.

The first words are uttered by Judith Gare, played by Nadia Litz, as she lies seemingly naked in a wheat field:

"I've heard it said that there is one moment in life when we're happy and the rest is spent remembering."

In the second scene, Lind Archer stands alone by the side of a dirt road trying to hail a ride. John Tobacco, who is passing on a horse-drawn wagon, stops:

LIND: I was just dropped here, they wouldn't take me any further. I'm expected...

John says nothing.

LIND: ... at Caleb Gare's?

JOHN: No one goes up that road.

LIND: Then why do you?

JOHN: I go everywhere. I deliver the mail.

So much of the novel is contained in this exchange, so much of the mood is set, and yet like Judith Gare's opening monologue it doesn't feature in the novel.

There's the cinematography, the attention to detail, and the acting, but what impresses most is Couture's script. Her dialogue does much to rein in the novel's length, as in this exchange between Lind and Judith:

JUDITH: Caleb's father farmed this land. We're born to it, to live here and die here. It's just the way it is.

LIND: And your mother? She never takes your side with him?

JUDITH: She doesn't care. Not for any of us.

LIND: You really believe that?

JUDITH: What's it to you anyway?

LIND: You don't know me. You don't know anything about me.

JUDITH: Tell me then.

LIND: The man who was supposed to marry me left.

JUDITH: I've heard worse.

LIND: My father's dead.

JUDITH: I call that lucky.

This is another scene that does not appear in the novel, but it is easy to be fooled in that it fits so perfectly.

Couture provides Lind with a backstory. That she's Catholic explains why she does not join Caleb in services at Yellow Post's church.

Very clever.

I don't mean to suggest that I'm all in on After the Harvest. 

As in Ruf der Wildgänse, the 1961 Austrian-German adaptation, Amelia tells Mark Jordan (inexplicably renamed Jordan Sinclair), that she is his mother. This never happens in the novel. I see no reason to do so aside from the resulting drama. It is indeed tear inducing.

The much criticized ending of Wild Geese is just as contentious in this adaptation. Here Caleb survives the fire to be met with his wife in the final scene. I don't know that it is the perfect ending, but it is superior. Because I think the scene worth watching, I won't quote the dialogue. It begins at the ninety minute mark, pretty much right down to the second, and is just about the best thing I've ever seen from a Canadian television production. 

The film can be seen in it's entirety on on Youtube (for now, at least):

Watch it while you can.

I recommend it highly.

Related post:

Wild Wild Geese

Wild Geese on Film (Part I): Wild Geese
Wild Geese on Film (Part 2): Ruf der Wildgänse

My First Canadian Book of Lists List: Ten Lists That Have Aged Poorly (Featuring Barbara Amiel!)

Being the second post on

The First Original Unexpurgated Authentic Canadian Book of Lists. 

I read Barbara Amiel's columns in Maclean's through my high school years, doing my best to understand her points of view. By university, I understood fully, and yet I'd still read her. Friends and Enemies: A Memoir (Toronto: Signal, 2020) was last thing I read by Baroness Black of Crossharbour. In it, she writes this of husband Conrad Black's convictions on counts of fraud and obstruction of justice in the United States: "our only revenge would be to see our persecutors guillotined. I have worked out 1,001 ways to see them die, beginning with injecting them with the ebola virus and watching."

It was at that point that I stopped reading Barbara Amiel, and then stopped thinking about her. Still, she was top of mind in creating this list of lists:

TEN LISTS THAT HAVE AGED POORLY

1. THE 10 MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN CANADA

At first glance, THE 10 MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN CANADA seems a piece of fluff, particularly when compared to, say, THE 10 BEST CANADIAN COMMANDING OFFICERS IN CANADA'S MILITARY HISTORY, but I would argue it's the book's most noteworthy list in that it, more than any other, is a reflection of the time in which the Canadian Book of Lists was published.

Actually, no... The list is more a reflection of a time that had not long passed when married women were treated as appendages, rather than persons in their own right. List maker John Bassett does a disservice to  "MRS JOHN BASSETT, she of the "wonderfully expressive face," whose career as a broadcast journalist was well underway before the couple wed. I remember Isabel Bassett (née Macdonald) best as Minister of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation under Mike Harris and as CEO of TV Ontario. I knew her name, but not his. I at first confused John W.H. Bassett with John F. Bassett of Face-Off fame.

I am familiar with Julian Porter (and his father, Chief Justice Dana Porter). I've had the pleasure of meeting Mrs Julian Porter, whom I know as writer and publisher Anna Porter.

Is Mrs John Bassett's third place finish worthy of note? Perhaps not. The names appear to be presented in alphabetical order. Or is that just coincidence? After all, the first, Barbara Amiel, is clearly identified as "the most beautiful woman in Canada." 

Amongst Bassett's other contributions to the Canadian Book of Lists is THE 10 MOST OUTSTANDING CANADIANS, which is somehow comprised of one woman and fifteen men.

2. 10 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ESKIMOS AND INDIANS

One of only two lists with a First Nations focus, the other being THE TEN LARGEST NATIVE LINGUISTIC GROUPS IN CANADA, it serves to draw attention the book's most glaring flaw. And then we have this photo and caption:

Both are appended to 10 GREAT CANADIAN SPORTS ACHIEVERS, which acknowledges Tom Longboat as the greatest Canadian marathoner. It is the only photograph of a First Nations person in the entire book.

3. 10 GREAT CANADIAN QUOTATIONS ON WOMAN [sic]

Seven of the ten come from men, including one each by Stephen Leacock and Irving Layton:

In all fairness, Leacock's words come from 'An Appeal to the Average Man,' the preface to his 1926 collection Winnowed Wisdom, in which the economist and humorist takes far more swipes at the male sex than the female. The photo used in the Canadian Book of Lists does not feature in Winnowed Wisdom. Evidence suggests it was taken sometime after 1926. 

4. 10 CORPULENT CANADIANS

Judy LaMarsh is #1. She reappears eight lists later as the fifth worst dressed Canadian celebrity.

5. THE 10 MOST PREVALENT CANADIAN HANG-UPS

The first of five contributions from Dr Daniel Cappon, Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, on this list is "women who don't know that to do with themselves and menopause."

Doctor Cappon is best remembered today for Toward An Understanding of Homosexuality (Prentice-Hall, 1965), in which he writes that homosexuals do not exist, rather they are "people with homosexual problems."

6. BIRTHDAYS AND ASTROLOGICAL SIGNS OF 

10 FAMOUS CANADIANS

7. 10 WAYS TO FINANCE A CANADIAN MOTION PICTURE

Ten tips from Garth Drabinsky!

8. THE 6 MOST HATED FOREIGNERS IN

CANADIAN HISTORY

A list contributed by Paul Rutherford, Chairman on the History Department at the University of Toronto, it runs as follows: 

                    1. Satan
                    2. George Washington
                    3. Josef Stalin
                    4. William of Orange
                    5. Any Pope
                    6. Lord Durham

Of course, "Any Pope" throws the whole thing off. At time of publication, there had been 262 popes. This newly confirmed Anglican didn't hate any of them, not even John XII or Urban VI. In 1978, my teenage self  knew nothing of William of Orange or Lord Durham, but I did know quite a bit about Adolf Hitler.

In short, this is a list that would've seemed dated in 1939.

9. 10 PEOPLE MOST LIKELY TO INFLUENCE

THE COURSE OF EVENTS IN CANADA

Referenced in Monday's post, this Peter C. Newman list is most notable for the fawning admiration of Brian Mulroney. John Turner also features. Notably absent is then-current prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Very much a spent force in 1978, Trudeau would lose the 1979 election (while handily taking the popular vote), only to return nine months later, just in time to lead the federalist victory in the 1980 Quebec Referendum. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms and repatriation of the Constitution followed in 1982.

10. THE TEN HIGHEST TEMPERATURES EVER RECORDED IN EACH OF CANADA'S PROVINCES

Related posts:

My Canadian Book of Lists Lists: An Introduction

My Second Canadian Book of Lists List:
The 10 Most egregious Errors (with Timothy Findley!)

My Third Canadian Book of Lists List:
The 10 Biggest Contributors (Featuring Claire Wallace!)

Teamwork

Freedom for Fanny

Average Leacock for the Average Man

CNQ at 100

It doesn't seem right to describe the new issue of Canadian Notes & Queries as special – every issue is special – but this one, the one hundredth issue, marks a remarkable milestone. That it did so in its fiftieth year is both a reflection of an often precarious past and its stability this past decade under publisher Dan Wells.

I came on board with my first Dusty Bookcase column in issue 81 (Spring 2010). My subject back then was The Miracle Man, the very first book I'd ever read by Frank L. Packard. This time around, the column takes the form of an investigative update on thriller writer and passer of forged cheques Kenneth Orvis (a/k/a Kenneth LeMieux). His is not exactly a household name, though regular readers may remember my reviews of his debut, Hickory House (1956), and Cry Hallelujah! (1970), his greatest flop.

I've also contributed an essay, "For All Its Faults," which has been described by historian Christopher Moore as an evisceration of the killing of the New Canadian Library. In this unpleasant task I was supported by Daniel Donaldson's razor sharp editorial cartoon.

On a related note – two, actually – my daughter Astrid provides an editorial cartoon to "Hints and Allegations," a chapter from Elaine Dewar's GG-nominated The Handover, the shameful story of how it was our country's greatest publisher was given away to a foreign multinational.

Also featured is Andreae Callanan's "The Xenotext's Woman Problem," winner of this year's CanLit Crit Essay Contest. Nick Mount writes on CanLit's beginnings, Anna Porter shares memories of McClelland & Stewart as it was in the 'seventies, and Jim Polk looks at fifty years of the House of Anansi. In "Will Anyone Care?" Mark Sampson lays bare his obsession to preserving his work. The issue is rounded out by contributions from Seth, Pierre Nepveu (translated by Donald Winkler), Robert Wringham, Mary H. Auerbach Rykov, Mark Bourrie, Kamal Al-Solaylee, Jason Dickson, David Huebert, David Mason, J.C. Sutcliffe, Rohan Maitzen, André Forget, Alex Good, Bruce Whiteman, Stephen Fowler.

More information can be found here at the CNQ website. And this link will take you to the subscription page, which will bring you issues 101, 102, and 103.

Every one special.