Clement Virgo

Clement Virgo is of average height. He has a firm handshake and speaks slowly, and confidently. He has directed festival-dominating films and an internationally recognized television series, and while he has been called many things, he has always been, at least to himself, a filmmaker and a storyteller.

Before my interview with him, he joked that he got into film because he couldn't really do anything else. This doesn't come off as cheap self-deprecating humour, especially from a man who has put forth such heavy-hitting works as Rude, Lie With Me, and Poor Boy's Game. When he says it, you believe it: there's nothing else he could do because there's nothing else he wanted to.

Talk to me about what you just finished with the CFC and Black History Month.

Well I had this idea to invite a prominent filmmaker and to have them talk with myself and with Norman about black images in cinema. Norman has made three great black films, In the Heat of the Night, Soldier Story, and The Hurricane, and I thought it would be a great time to explore that. It was a great conversation. Norman is very knowledgeable, and we were lucky enough to have Lee Daniels, who had just been nominated for six Oscars.

How did it feel to be part of a panel discussion like that, about a topic that you're passionate about?

If I wasn't a filmmaker, I probably would have been a talk show host. I really enjoy talking to filmmakers about their process, because oftentimes as artists, you work alone. So its great to sit down and pick Norman's brain about how he made In the Heat of the Night, and the climate of the civil rights movement, meeting Robert Kennedy, and being there during the peak of tremendous amounts of change. Then there's Lee Daniels, who is the first black filmmaker to be nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, which is extraordinary. So for me, as a filmmaker, it's a chance to connect with my fellow artists from two different generations.

What would be one film that you would love to talk about in a public setting like that?

I am a big fan of Truffaut. He made a film called The 400 Blows; it's one of my favourite films. I would have loved to talk to Truffaut, because he wrote a book where he interviewed Hitchcock. It's really one of the seminal film texts and I believe any filmmaker worth their salt would have read this book. Of course, a grand master like Hitchcock I would have love to have interviewed as well.

What was the first film you ever made?

Probably when I was 18 or 19, for a night school course on film and video. I shot something on video that I really loved. It was very smokey, kind of noir. That was probably the first film I did, and it's like a drug. Once you do it, you have to keep doing it. And now I can't imagine not doing it.

The truth of the matter is that all my life I wanted to be a filmmaker. The problem was that I couldn't imagine myself actually doing it, because I didn't have any role models. I couldn't see anyone else who looked like me doing it. Then I saw She's Gotta Have It when I was 20. Spike Lee made this film and I thought, "Okay, I could do this." I come from a very working-class background, where there's a sense that you should learn a trade, or become a professional, because the arts are a hobby and you can't make a living like that. I never imagined that I could be a filmmaker, because no one I grew up with was.

In your earlier works, what kind of storyteller would you say you were?

A lot of artists starting out, their work tends to be very personal, trying to make sense of who they are and the world that they occupy. The first films that I made were all about that, all about identity and trying to understand my place in the world. They were all almost embarrassingly personal. Now it's still personal, but I try to camouflage it within other kinds of narrative. My films are still personal to me, but not to the point that it might be considered narcissistic.

What are you working on now?

I just optioned a book called The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. It's one of the books that I love, and I'm hoping to make that into a film over the next couple of years.

I read the book and I wrote Lawrence Hill a little note and sent him a couple of movies, and a list of things that I've done, I've worked for HBO's The Wire and a couple of other TV shows, and I explained to him why I think it would make a great film, and why I think I'm the person to do it. I think he trusted me to make it happen, and so that's what I'm trying to do.

I recently read an interview of yours in which you said "I believe the more specific you are in your storytelling, the more universal you are." Could you elaborate?

I think that there's a lot of pressure to be general, and to try to make your story so broad that it appeals to everyone. But I'm not so certain that that truly works. I'm thinking about all of my favourite films of the last few years. A film like City of God or Slumdog Millionaire. Those films shouldn't really work, technically. Who wants to see a film about a bunch of kids in Bombay? Who wants to see a bunch of stories of a bunch of kids in Rio? But those stories were so specific to that experience that it resonated with a lot of people. There's a common humanity that we recognize if something is emotionally truthful. If it's honest and if it's emotionally truthful, we understand it and we feel that story. But if it's vague and it's broad, and the story is trying to ingratiate itself to you because it wants so desperately to be liked, I think we don't readily identify with it.

A lot of filmmakers, especially filmmakers that are not in the mainstream, end up feeling that their story has no appeal, because no one wants to see a story about their experiences of being from say, Newfoundland, growing up in a small town. No one wants to hear about their experiences because it's too regional, too Canadian. But I feel like if you make it specific, it will resonate with people from the other side of the world.

The need to make palatable and easily digestible movies, is that a sign of the times?

I'm not sure. There's a lot of pressure to be commercial, but I'm not sure of what that actually really means. When I think of commercial, I think of genre primarily. I'm always a little bit suspect when someone is trying to do a genre film. Who is going to do a better romantic comedy than Hollywood? Nobody. They specialize in doing good romantic comedies, and when people from around the world try to mimic Hollywood romantic comedies, it's almost embarrassing. They just don't get it right.

However, someone like Cronenberg I love, because yes, he's a genre filmmaker but he is an auteur genre filmmaker. I love seeing a film where I know the director that has made that film, even if it's a genre film. When I look at a Cronenberg film or a David Lynch film, or Scorsese, I know there's no one else that could have made those films than those men. I like, as an artist, to see the specificity of that director coming out in their own voice, as opposed to something generic and bland that anyone could have done.

Michael Bay is an example of an auteur to me because you know by the first frame that a movie is his. Helicopters, sunsets...See people running around in slow motion [laughs]. I love watching filmmakers that have specific styles, as opposed to something that any Tom, Dick or Harry could have done. That's why I like James Cameron. You always know a James Cameron movie. They're big, they're experimental, they have strong female characters and are always trying to marry entertainment with some kind of a message.

I hear a rumour that you really want to do a western. What would you do differently in a genre film?

I would make it my own. I hope I have a specific voice that people will recognize.

What's your favourite western?

It changes all the time, but if you asked me today I think it would be The Searchers. I love The Wild Bunch. Peckinpah and Howard Hawkes I love. In terms of later-day westerns, I liked 3:10 to Yuma a lot and No Country for Old Men I think is very cool.

To form that specific voice, as a black filmmaker working in Toronto, are you making narratives that are black narratives or Toronto stories?

We live in a world where we need to label things all the time. When I was younger I would get defensive all the time if people said "You're a black filmmaker," or "You're a Toronto filmmaker." But now, you know, I'm a filmmaker. Whatever stories appeal to me I make. If someone wants to describe me as a black filmmaker, that's okay. If someone wants to describe me as a Toronto filmmaker that's okay too, because I feel that a lot of my films come from my experiences living in Toronto. I've been called a Jamaican-Canadian filmmaker. A lot of adjectives have been used to describe me, but what do I call myself? I'm a filmmaker. I tell stories and sometimes those stories are black stories, sometimes they're Toronto stories, sometimes they're not.

What kind of experiences of Toronto inform the way you tell your stories?

Well I was born in Jamaica, I moved to Toronto, and I grew up in a place called Regent Park. My value system and my cultural point of view are informed by living here, so I think there is a lens that I see stories through that was shaped by Toronto.

Now, how do you describe that? It's like describing what it is to be Canadian. It's very difficult. You know it's not American, you know it's not British. It's almost like we define our Canadian-ness or our Toronto-ness in what we're not. But we know it when we feel it.

Rude is still regarded as one of the first landmarks in Canadian black cinema. How does it make you feel hearing something like that?

It's nice when people say that your film is now a landmark. It makes me feel old, but hey, I'm very proud of that film. It's the first film that got me some attention, and I feel, without false modesty, blessed that I had a chance to make that film. Students and audiences are still responding to it and I feel blessed by that. I'm hoping that I make some other films that people like, but I'm glad that they like Rude.

Are there more landmarks that we need to cross?

I think that we as Canadians and we as Torontonians still have a ways to go in terms of our idea of diversity. I take the subway every day and I would love to see our media look how it looks at Yonge and Bloor at 5:30 in the afternoon. You see different shades of people, and the diversity of the city, and yet I still feel like our media, or our television still doesn't really reflect that. If you look at American television, I think they do a little bit better of a job of reflecting the viewers. I think that there's still room to grow and improve. There's still a black history month, and it's something that we don't really talk much about in Canada.

What would you tell a young filmmaker that wants to make a similar mark across these landmarks?

The thing about being an artist, any kind of artist, is that you're going to hear no a lot. The personality types that survive are those that don't take no for an answer, who persevere and keep working. It's so easy to get discouraged and get "a real job." The biggest asset that anyone could have is their tenacity, even moreso than talent. You have to build up a skin that is very tough, and that will allow you to endure all of the hardships and rejections that you are going to get. There's no way around that. So you have to pick yourself up and say "I'm going to be a filmmaker." There's no way around it.

What would you hope a panel discussion would say about your movies?

That he was honest. That he didn't bullshit. That his films were truthful. I think that's what any filmmaker would want, that the audience recognizes the work as emotionally truthful.