
Film left blues far behind Role launched singer's acting career 18 years ago
BYE BYE BLUES SCREENING/REUNION
Thursday, June 21, 2007
By Glen Schaefer, The Vancouver Province
It's been more than 18 years since director-writer Anne Wheeler and a small cast and crew got together in a little Alberta crossroads to make Bye Bye Blues, Wheeler's fictionalization of her own mother's experience singing with a band during the Second World War.
The resulting movie turned out to be a perfect confluence of personalized story-telling, subtly rendered period detail, intimate performances and music that served those characters and their story. The movie won three Genie awards, including best actress for star Rebecca Jenkins.
Wheeler, Jenkins, cinematographer Vic Sarin and other crew will be at tonight's screening, sponsored by Moving Pictures and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. Director, cast and crew will talk about the making of what has become a Canadian classic.
For singer-actor Jenkins, who had spent the 1980s touring with Toronto new-wave acts The Parachute Club and Jane Siberry, her first starring role proved to be a springboard to acting. She had earlier had a supporting role in Wheeler's Cowboys Don't Cry, but says she had to convince the director that she could play a 1940s singer and mother.
"I had this bleached white hair, sticking straight up, just so far removed from what was in Anne's mind. She said 'You're too Queen Street, you couldn't play my mother.' She made me audition seven times."
The fictional Daisy Cooper joins a small-town jazz band to support her two children after her army-doctor husband goes missing at the fall of Singapore. The movie captures the bittersweet spirit of a generation of women forced to seize their independence, and then give it back again at war's end.
The production filmed for six days in India, and split its Alberta schedule into a summer and winter shoot. Sarin, who went on to shoot Margaret's Museum and direct the recent historical drama Partition, frames the actors against the spectacular hills and valleys around Drumheller.
Jenkins, now based in Vancouver, rode the movie's success to roles opposite Kevin Spacey in the TV drama Darrow and Tim Robbins in the political satire Bob Roberts. She went from being a singer who acted, to an actor who sang.
She last saw Bye Bye Blues about five years ago, when her then six-year-old daughter Sadie watched the movie with her grandmother.
"Sadie made me sit down and watch it with her, we watched it three times in a row. I was knocked out, I could see everyone else's work so clearly once I'd had so many years of distance. The look of it, the music from [musical director] George Blondheim. A gorgeous film, but authentic and real. Anne didn't miss a thing."
Jenkins' own musical tastes turned more strongly to jazz afterwards. She and guitar-player husband Joel Bakan have just released Blue Skies, a CD of jazz standards.
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BYE BYE BLUES SCREENING/REUNION
Thursday, June 21, 2007
By Glen Schaefer, The Vancouver Province
It's been more than 18 years since director-writer Anne Wheeler and a small cast and crew got together in a little Alberta crossroads to make Bye Bye Blues, Wheeler's fictionalization of her own mother's experience singing with a band during the Second World War.
The resulting movie turned out to be a perfect confluence of personalized story-telling, subtly rendered period detail, intimate performances and music that served those characters and their story. The movie won three Genie awards, including best actress for star Rebecca Jenkins.
Wheeler, Jenkins, cinematographer Vic Sarin and other crew will be at tonight's screening, sponsored by Moving Pictures and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. Director, cast and crew will talk about the making of what has become a Canadian classic.
For singer-actor Jenkins, who had spent the 1980s touring with Toronto new-wave acts The Parachute Club and Jane Siberry, her first starring role proved to be a springboard to acting. She had earlier had a supporting role in Wheeler's Cowboys Don't Cry, but says she had to convince the director that she could play a 1940s singer and mother.
"I had this bleached white hair, sticking straight up, just so far removed from what was in Anne's mind. She said 'You're too Queen Street, you couldn't play my mother.' She made me audition seven times."
The fictional Daisy Cooper joins a small-town jazz band to support her two children after her army-doctor husband goes missing at the fall of Singapore. The movie captures the bittersweet spirit of a generation of women forced to seize their independence, and then give it back again at war's end.
The production filmed for six days in India, and split its Alberta schedule into a summer and winter shoot. Sarin, who went on to shoot Margaret's Museum and direct the recent historical drama Partition, frames the actors against the spectacular hills and valleys around Drumheller.
Jenkins, now based in Vancouver, rode the movie's success to roles opposite Kevin Spacey in the TV drama Darrow and Tim Robbins in the political satire Bob Roberts. She went from being a singer who acted, to an actor who sang.
She last saw Bye Bye Blues about five years ago, when her then six-year-old daughter Sadie watched the movie with her grandmother.
"Sadie made me sit down and watch it with her, we watched it three times in a row. I was knocked out, I could see everyone else's work so clearly once I'd had so many years of distance. The look of it, the music from [musical director] George Blondheim. A gorgeous film, but authentic and real. Anne didn't miss a thing."
Jenkins' own musical tastes turned more strongly to jazz afterwards. She and guitar-player husband Joel Bakan have just released Blue Skies, a CD of jazz standards.
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