Reflections on Mortality: “Oh, Canada” Makes Its Cannes Debut
At the 77th Cannes Film Festival, Paul Schrader’s latest film “Oh, Canada” made its world premiere, reuniting the acclaimed director with Richard Gere 45 years after their collaboration on “American Gigolo.” The press conference following the screening provided profound insights into the film’s themes of mortality, memory, and moral reckoning.
A Personal IP Adaptation Project Inspired by Loss
“Oh, Canada” emerged from deeply personal circumstances for Schrader. When asked why he wanted to adapt Russell Banks’ novel “Foregone,” Schrader revealed that Banks, a close friend since their collaboration on “Affliction” (1997), had been diagnosed with cancer.
“He was my very close friend ever since ‘Affliction,'” Schrader explained. “I was going to go summer before last and he said, ‘You can’t come, you know, I’ve got cancer, I’m going through chemo.'” This prompted Schrader to read Banks’ book about “the depredations and the degradations of death,” which Banks had called “his Ivan Ilich”—referencing Tolstoy’s meditation on mortality.
The film became Schrader’s own “Ivan Ilich,” a contemplation of life’s end. Additionally, Schrader honoured Banks’ original intent for the novel’s title. “When he found out that I wanted to do it, he said, ‘Please use the title that I originally wanted: Oh Canada,'” Schrader recounted.
A Story of Moral Failure and Memory
“Oh, Canada” follows filmmaker Leonard “Leo” Fife (played by Richard Gere in the present and Jacob Elordi in flashbacks), who sits for a final interview as he’s dying of cancer. During this interview, he begins dismantling the progressive mythologies he’s built around himself, revealing the many moral compromises and abandonments that marked his life.
The film explores how memory shifts and changes, particularly at life’s end. As Gere noted during the press conference, “These things of memory and what they work on us, none of it is definitive… Everything changes, memories change, everything evolves.”
Schrader enhanced the moral stakes of the story beyond Banks’ original text. “In the book, he does bad things, but we finally added the scene where he turned out his own son, which is evil of biblical proportions,” Schrader explained, noting that after Banks’ widow saw the film, she agreed with this darker approach.
A Reunion of Longtime Collaborators
The press conference highlighted the special reunion between Schrader and Gere, whose collaboration on “American Gigolo” in 1980 helped define both their careers. Gere recalled how Schrader showed him Alain Delon films, particularly “Purple Noon,” telling him, “Look at this guy. He knows one thing for certain: he knows that when he steps into a room, it’s a better place.”
Uma Thurman, who plays Fife’s wife Emma in the film, expressed her admiration for working with the two veterans: “It was a privilege to work with these two national treasures,” and described Schrader as “a master of cinema.”
Personal Connections to the Material
For Gere, the film took on additional personal resonance. “My father passed away a few months before Paul came to me with the project. My dad was almost 101… The way his mind was coming in and out of many different realities and many levels of consciousness, I think that’s what I related to very much in this script.”
Gere also noted the strange experience of seeing himself made up to look much older: “It was kind of freaky when we were going through the process of aging in the film, how much I saw myself some years from now, what I was going to look like—assuming that I live to be as old as my father.”
Technical and Stylistic Mega-plan
Schrader revealed that the film employs four distinct visual styles to represent different time periods, with distinctive aspect ratios and colour palettes. The present-day interview scenes are shot in colour with dark lighting; the protagonist’s trip to Canada is brighter; memories are shot in black and white; and scenes of his son’s visit to Canada are tinted in what Schrader called a “Bergman-esque orange.”
The film also features music by Phosphorescent (Matthew Houck), which Schrader chose for its “anti-anthemic” quality.
Production Challenges
Producer David Gonzalez noted the challenges of making the film during “two unprecedented labor strikes the industry has not seen in 60 years.” The production secured a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement “mere days” before restrictions would have prevented them from proceeding. The film was completed in just 20 shooting days, reflecting the compressed schedules that have become common in modern filmmaking.
Schrader commented on this industry shift: “When Richard and I were saying, we began—45 days was the normal for a shoot. Now it’s around 20-22. You’re getting more footage in half the time. That means you have to work twice as fast.”
Looking Forward
During the press conference, Schrader announced his next project with Gere, a noir film called “Non Compos Mentis,” which he described as “a sexual obsession thing” and “the stupid thing men do for love.” The Latin title means “unsound mind.”
As “Oh, Canada” makes its Cannes debut, it stands as a meditation on mortality and moral failure from a filmmaker confronting his own mortality. Schrader, who decided to make a film about death after his own battles with long COVID, has crafted what appears to be among his most personal works—one that grapples with how we face our end and the truths we choose to reveal or conceal as death approaches.
The film is scheduled for release in the United States on December 6, 2024, by Kino Lorber.
Editor in Chief of Ikon London Magazine, journalist, film producer and founder of The DAFTA Film Awards (The DAFTAs).
