ararat ( film )
ararat has stirred controversy across the globe in turkish communities where the genocide is denied .
the armenian ambassador conveyed his dismay that a democratically advanced country has become the second country–only after turkey–to ban the film ararat .
ararat review: a harrowing look into myths and paranoia | birth. movies. death .
though ararat radiates intelligence, its impact is diminished by an overly intricate plot and cerebral style .
egoyan, atom. ararat: the shooting script. new york: newmarket press, 2002 .
the making of ararat. dir. michele francis. perf. mychael danna, atom egoyan, robert lantos. 2003. in bonus disk of ararat. dvd. miramax home entertainment. 2003 .
looking for movie tickets? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing ararat near you .
it' s all familiar territory for canadian - armenian filmmaker atom egoyan, who in 2002 put out ararat, a different film about the genocide .
the film also features roughly shot documentary camcorder footage of lake van and real ruined armenian churches in the deserted city of ani, near mount ararat .
the excised scene and egoyan’s commentary are included on the bonus disk to the ararat dvd. [ ↩ ]
ararat' s other genies were for music score (mychael danna) and costume design (beth pasternak) .
asbarez online (04 - 28 - 2003 )
italy bans release of atom egoyan' s ararat
.
local newspapers also reported that the turkish embassy in rome admitted to the turkish government’s disapproval of the showing of ararat in italy–but denied involvement in provoking the film’s ban .
mr. picard beat out veteran and front - running contender christopher plummer and newcomer david alpay, both from ararat .
———. audio commentary to deleted scenes. in bonus disk of ararat. dvd. miramax home entertainment. 2003 .
ararat is a contemporary story of two estranged families and their search for reconciliation and truth. it is also a historical reenactment (a film within a film) being made by a famous armenian director, edward saroyan (
egoyan, whose 2002 film
ararat
explored the challenges of depicting the genocide in art, said it' s critical that turkey recognize its role in the slaughter .
the film was screened out of competition at the 2002 cannes film festival. the film also played on the opening day of the 2002 toronto international film festival on 5 september. the film opened on 15 november 2002 in los angeles, new york city and toronto .
“the song ‘yeraz’ (‘dream’) is heard in the film ‘ararat. ’ it’s the only thing my grandmother remembered from her childhood. it was so emotional to include these fragments of my story in the film, ” notes egoyan .
ararat is a sincere attempt on the part of the film' s creators to acquaint the audience with the horrors of the genocide delivered by the turkish government upon its ...
other scenes were shot at cherry beach in toronto. the film could not be shot in turkey or at the real mount ararat because of turkey' s denial of the genocide .
the film won several awards. these included five awards at the 23rd genie awards, which ararat star arsinée khanjian co - hosted with actor peter keleghan. egoyan was not present .
egoyan and khanjian are probably best known to armenians for “ararat” (2002), a film dealing with the 1915 genocide. “i decided to make a film to portray how denial was passed from generation to generation and how it impacted people. it is a complex film, ” notes egoyan .
toronto international film festival the website for the toronto international film festival. check out the latest film news and links to the bell lightbox, the film reference library, cinematheque ontario, sprockets, reel learning, film circuit, canada' s top ten, and related features .
david cronenberg a profile of celebrated canadian writer and film director david cronenberg. from the toronto international film group .
ararat won several awards. at the 2003 genie awards for best canadian film, it was named best film of the year, and picked up awards for costume design and original score; in addition, arsinée khanjian won the best actress award and elias koteas best supporting actor. egoyan won a prize from the writers guild of canada awards, 2003. the film also won an award for best human rights film from the political film society, and won the golden apricot at the yerevan international film festival, 2004. an edited version of ararat has been shown on the turkish television station kanal turk .
ararat intertwines the paths of two families. at the center is an 18 year old boy on the cusp of adulthood, raffi (
in film, atom egoyan was honoured with a screenwriting prize for ararat, about the armenian genocide. h. jefferson lewis also won for his script of claude jutra: an unfinished story .
. while the academic study of
film and religion
as a subfield within religious studies has only come of age since the late 1980s, the connection between film and religion is as old as film itself. as film theorist andr
in his self - satisfied (but otherwise excellent) commentary track on the ararat dvd, egoyan doesn’t quite cast his movie as i did .
powerful, moving, impressive and entertaining,' sojourn at ararat' is an unqualified delight .
- - clifford gallo, herald examiner
'' ararat'' is rated r (under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). it has scenes of violence and sexual situations .
artistic license - geography / eiffel tower effect: in - universe example; someone points out to saroyan while he' s filming that you wouldn' t actually be able to see mt. ararat from the city of van (while saroyan' s film has mt. ararat as a backdrop). saroyan decided to keep it in anyway for the effect .
stone, jay. “egoyan and the urge to forget: memory, resolution are director’s themes in film, ararat. ” ottawa citizen (6 september 2002): d3. lexisnexis academic: cited december 2004 .
and so ararat will generally be projected at 1. 85. it was originated on eastman 5248 exr 100t and kodak 5279 vision 500t color negative stocks .
best supporting actor was ararat' s elias koteas. supporting actress honours went to pascale montpetit, who played one of the cult victims in savage messiah .
dillon, mark. “egoyan, sarossy think bigger on ararat. ” playback (16 september 2002): 43. lexisnexis academic: cited december 2004 .
part of ararat rural city’s appeal is its variety. architecturally, ararat is renowned for its classic art deco buildings, many of which can be seen in the central business district. the city is also characterised by magnificent victorian - era homes – a vestige of the wealth generated during the regional gold rush .
from american reviews :
two absolutely superb, exquisite, virtuoso performances highlight sojourn at ararat… no one leaves unaffected .
- - steven zeller, dramalogue
ending media speculation of a quiet battle between canada’s star directors atom egoyan and david cronenberg for the most coveted spot at this year’s toronto international film festival, egoyan’s latest film ararat has been confirmed as the opening night gala feature at the 27th tiff, unspooling sept. 5 - 14 .
the coverage in the film - within - the - film scenes consists predominantly of long shots, long takes and little camera movement .
ararat jumps from the reenactment of the tragedy in the film - within - a - film to the modern day to scenes of 1930s surrealist painter arshile gorky (simon abkarian) in his new york studio, agonizing over a portrait of himself and his mother, who perished in the genocide .
ararat and spider are also nominated in the best feature category, along with tim southam’s the bay of love and sorrows, and deepa mehta’s bollywood / hollywood .
in an announcement at the cannes film festival two years ago, he said he was
beyond excited
to be shooting the film .
like all of mr. egoyan' s films,'' ararat'' is a multilayered work that burrows ever more deeply into its subject as it goes along. this director has always been fascinated with how film and video distort the reality they purport to reveal. a searching question embodied in the very structure of the film is how a historical trauma like the armenian catastrophe should be represented in the movies and television. as'' ararat'' follows the making of a movie about that catastrophe, titled'' ararat,'' it suggests how films process unimaginable horror into high - minded but manipulative entertainment .
the film was shot over the course of 45 days last summer. considering that the turkish government has never acknowledged the genocide, shooting the film on location near turkey’s actual mount ararat was out of the question. the village scenes were shot at toronto’s cherry beach with a deliberately studio - bound style .
mckay, john. “already hot, ararat skips spotlight: atom egoyan’s controversial film on armenian genocide will be hors - concours at cannes. ” montreal gazette (25 april 2002): c8. lexisnexis academic: cited december 2004 .
atom egoyan, the canadian - armenian film - maker, says his new film ararat is a
meditation on the spiritual role of art in the process of struggling for meaning and redemption in the aftermath of genocide
. and it is clearly a deeply personal film which takes as its subject the wholesale massacre of armenians by the turks in ottoman turkey during the first world war .
in 2008, the government of israel also awarded the dan david prize to egoyan for
creative rendering of the past .
ararat was especially a reason for the honour .
beyond that, satire and levity from somebody whose work — in general and here — is so humorless seem incongruous. and whether this film - within - a - film is badly executed or an unsuccessful attempt at skewering is not important; its quality drops ararat to second - tier egoyan, which is still pretty damned wonderful .
the film was featured out of competition at the 2002 cannes film festival. it won five awards at the 23rd genie awards, including best motion picture .
these preparations show that ararat is a carefully designed film that is intended to be the most effective stroke of a larger strategy some armenians have been working on to prove their hypothesis of the so - called “armenian genocide” to the whole world. the timing of the film also seems to be intentionally chosen for this purpose, which will be discussed later. a close analysis of ararat’s film script has revealed, that this film is a significant example from the point of view of its image - creating, image - reinforcing and stereotyping strategies that already started to show their effect during its filming process which is planned to continue during its show and even more so at its reception phase by particular audiences of the world to which the film is intended to appeal .
how does a bloke find himself running around after polar bears at the north pole, having grown up in ararat? steve martin finds out more about the amazing journey of jason roberts .
critical reception was mixed. ararat received a 57% rating at rotten tomatoes [ 4 ] and a metascore of 62 (
generally favorable reviews
) at metacritic. [ 5 ]
and that horror is nearly unrelenting. ararat offers supreme creepiness within a suffocating, claustrophobic atmosphere. really bad things go down in the ship - cave as a maelstrom of a blizzard traps the group until they can safely leave. but time ticks on, and the body count rises. fans of similarly claustrophobic tales and settings such as alien and the descent will love ararat .
ararat depicts the efforts of an armenian director, edward saroyan, to make a hollywood - style film about the armenian genocide, from the fictionalised point of view of a genuine historical figure, arshile gorky. the name of aznavour' s character is a modified version of his character' s real name in the classic french film shoot the piano player .
rated sr socially relevant film festival new york is a new non - profit film festival which will run march 14 - 20, 2014 at new york’s ...
he said the
campaign to vilify
the promise has had a spillover effect on ararat' s imdb page, with a wave of new one - star and 10 - star ratings. that can be troublesome, as egoyan believes a film' s ratings do count .
it is not only the content of film that connects film and religion, for as a number of critics have observed, one can find religious interests and implications in the formal style of film, as well as in the cinematic experience of viewing film. as another early film critic and director, jean epstein, once said ,
i would even go so far as to say that the cinema is polytheistic and theogonic
( abel, 1988, p. 317). film, and the experience of viewing film, may be religious in and of itself, creating its own gods, goddesses, and myths, and film does not merely represent or reflect an already established religion. so, while not mutually exclusive categories, film studies and religion studies can be usefully divided into three key approaches, and the second half of this entry will examine the various scholarly responses to the connections between film and religion: religion in film, religion as film, and the cinematic experience and ritual .
another theme of the film is gaps between generations, as it explores how later generations understand the historical record rather than the armenian genocide itself. numerous armenian canadian characters in the film identify symbols with their heritage, such as pictures of mount ararat. the fictionalized arshile gorky' s symbols are a button and a photo of his mother. gorky is depicted in the film as a link between the history and current life of the armenian people .
ararat, director atom egoyan' s study of truth and reconciliation that shifts between wartime events of 1915 and the present, has taken five of its nine genie award nominations, including best picture .
filed in best of culture snob, movies and tagged ararat (1), atom egoyan (6), dramas (61), misunderstood movies (16), reflexivity (12) .
although it includes themes from his previous films, ararat is a work quite unlike anything else egoyan has attempted. unfortunately, he attempts too much, and stumbles with script, acting and an overcomplicated structure. the film lacks his usual certainty and often seems both incoherent and unsatisfactory .
ararat
explicitly views the past from the perspective of the present, using the device of a film - within - a - film. director (charles aznavour) and screenwriter (eric bogosian), both from armenian descent, are shooting a historical drama in present - day toronto, based on an american eye - witness account of the siege of van .
but recent film roles such as her murderous cia agent, marissa, in hanna, which opened this year' s sydney film festival, have not been universally applauded .
egoyan and dop paul sarossy screened kazan’s 1963 turn - of - the - century story of a greek boy escaping turkish oppression in considering the visual look of the film - within - a - film (mark dillon, “egoyan, sarossy think bigger on ararat, ” playback [ 16 september 2002 ]: 43; lexisnexis academic: cited december 2004). [ ↩ ]
meanwhile from north of the border, atom egoyan ‘s “ ararat ” opened over the weekend in six screens with an astounding $ 211, 130 take giving the miramax film a lofty $ 35, 188 per screen average. the canadian - produced toronto film festival opener deals with the effects of the armenian massacre on the lives of two present - day families living in toronto .
if you think the subject of atom egoyan’s ararat is the genocide in 1915 of 1. 5 million armenians by turks (as most critics seem to believe), you’ll find the movie a confused mess .
lane, anthony. “worlds apart: far from heaven and ararat. ” the new yorker 78: 35 (18 november 2002): 104 - 105. iipa full text: cited 4 january 2006 .
' ararat' weaves simple, potent images of armenia. it also provides a microcosm on the broader view of what it means to be a human being .
- - alan raeburn, news press
arsinée khanjian was named best actress for her role in ararat. along with comic actor peter keleghan, ms. khanjian served as co - host for the event. her husband, mr. egoyan, was not scheduled to attend; he' s heading the jury at the berlin film festival .
because mr. egoyan is canadian - armenian,'' ararat'' has an especially deep personal resonance. throughout the film, you can feel him brooding passionately on questions of remembrance and denial in an obsessive quest for a way to take in the catastrophe without letting its anguish devour him. one paradoxical question that'' ararat'' confronts is whether it is possible to leave the past and its pain behind while retaining lessons that can be absorbed only by chewing on history' s bitter residue .
studios may have a reason to be cautious. the film business is an increasingly globalized one, with major movies depending on foreign revenue to make a profit. when hollywood has dramatized the genocide, the blowback has been fierce. atom egoyan has the scars to prove it: his 2002 film “ararat, ” which depicted a hollywood director trying to make a film about the genocide, was the focus of a vast campaign targeting the film’s distributor, miramax, and disney, its parent at the time. the studio received so many negative emails that its website crashed .
the story has three central strands: (1) a film is being made about the atrocity; (2) some of the scenes of this film - within - the - film re - create historical incidents, for our information; (3) there is a web of connections between the people working on the film and other characters in the story .
on egoyan’s longtime desire to make the film, see 2004: 887. [ ↩ ]
also record - breaking was paramount classics ‘ release of “ the way home. ” the film earned $ 29, 737 on 3 screens for an opening weekend average of $ 9, 912. it was the best opening ever for a korean film in the united states. the film already holds the record as highest - grossing korean film in south korea .
edward saroyan: elegant, respectable, speaking with french accent, very famous film producer .
'' ararat,'' which opens today in manhattan and los angeles, is informed by the nagging fact that turkey to this day officially denies this historical tragedy. although the film is ultimately committed to the belief that anguished remembrance is far preferable to willful amnesia, it touches on both sides .
i recently read golden’s dead ringers, a bizarre tale of dopplegangers hunting down their twins in boston, and loved it. i’m glad to say that golden hits another chilling novel out of the park with ararat .
egoyan’s films are known for their meditative quality, and so ararat shocks in being the first to include battle scenes. they are presented in the context of staged scenes in the film - within - the - film, but egoyan and sarossy decided to only subtly differentiate the look of these sequences from those of modern - day reality, thereby allowing the viewer to be drawn into the historical happenings .
the italian release of ararat was intended to for 24 april 2003. however, its showing was unexpectedly banned by italian authorities a day before the planned release, with the authorities explaining that the film' s distributor missed the deadline to apply for a mandatory censorship certificate. the embassy of turkey in rome acknowledged its government did not want the film screened in italy, but said it was not involved in the decision that the film would not be shown. belge film had permission from the turkish government to release the film in turkey itself, but opted not to when nationalists pledged to
take action
. it ran on the turkish tv station kanaltürk four years later .
renowned film directors koen mortier, atom egoyan, and paula van der oest will each direct a segment in the international feature film rotterdam, i love you. this was announced by the producers during a press conference, this morning at international film festival rotterdam (iffr) .
the italian release of ararat was intended to for 24 april 2003. however, its showing was unexpectedly banned by italian authorities a day before the planned release, with the authorities explaining that the film' s distributor had failed to submit in time the application to obtain the required censorship certificate. the film' s distributor bim diztribuzione stated that they had never encountered such a problem before. there was media speculation that the film had actually been banned at the request of turkey. [ 3 ]
ararat. dir. atom egoyan. perf. david alpay, charles aznavour, eric bogosian, marie - josée croze, bruce greenwood, arsinée khanjian, elias koteas, christopher plummer. alliance atlantis communications, 2002 .
“these initial numbers are the first real vindication for our efforts to bring this untold chapter of history to the screen. ” commented “ararat” producer robert lantos in a prepared statement yesterday. “the extraordinary response at the box office corroborates my conviction that there definitely is a commercial audience for a thought provoking film with substance. ”
[ born atom yeghoyan ] is a canadian citizen of armenian descent. other armenian film artists include
shortly after the film' s world premiere at the toronto international film festival (tiff) last september, the film got a flood of scathing one - star ratings on the internet movie database (imdb), even though it didn' t have its official release until last friday .
egoyan and khanjian discussed the importance of this 1985 episode in their own lives, and, implicitly, in ararat, in a three - way phone conversation with richard ouzonian on the occasion of the gala opening - night screening of the film at the toronto international film festival (“dealing with the ghosts of genocide, ” toronto star 5 september 2002: a01; lexisnexis academic: cited december 2004). [ ↩ ]
nora armani is an writer, actor and filmmaker born in egypt of armenian parents. her own stage creations sojourn at ararat, nannto, nannto and on the couch with nora armani earned international accolades during extensive to ...
early film theorists considered issues of religion on a regular basis. for a good critical study of early film theory and the quasi - religious language that the theorists used see rachel o. moore ,
jason roberts, a wildlife photographer is literally on top of world. originally from ararat, he spends around ten months of every year in 24 - hour daylight. jason left victoria at 21, as soon as his schooling was finished, and headed north, ending up working in film - on both sides of the camera .
ararat is egoyan' s most ambitious film to date, both in terms of production and its screenplay' s multilayered approach towards representing a historical event. the event in question is the not - widely known - and sometimes contested - armenian genocide of 1915 perpetrated by the ottoman turks. but egoyan does not simply create a period epic; rather, the wounds of the world war i - era atrocity are opened on the occasion of a film about it being produced in modern - day toronto. the film - within - a - film' s director (charles aznavour) is of armenian descent, as is egoyan .
yerevan (armenpress) –italian authorities banned the presentation of atom egoyan’s ararat scheduled to be shown across the country on april 24 as part of events commemorating the 88th anniversary of the armenian genocide committed by the government of turkey in 1915 .
corrections, june 6, 2011: this article originally stated that ararat came out in 1992. (return to the corrected sentence .) this article also misidentified ken loach as an irishman. (return to the corrected sentence. )
critics of the film bemoan the loss of clarity regarding the armenian genocide because of these shifts between reality and make believe - reality, egoyan’s film and saroyan’s film - within - the - film. the film suffers no such loss of clarity; rather, this lack of clarity is the theme of the film—the elusive nature of history and truth. egoyan uses saroyan’s film to deconstruct the armenian genocide that has become swathed in layers of turkish denials and political agendas all - around. all such “clear” acts on the world - stage are convoluted and muddled, and who the heroes are, and who the villains, may depend on one’s point of view. an actor of turkish descent, who plays a villainous turk in saroyan’s film, sincerely believes the armenians in 1915 posed a threat to turkey’s survival .
the dispute is an unhappy development for a film that was shot with high hopes in western australia .
douglas fetherling, ed. , documents in canadian film (toronto: broadview press, 1988) .
wyndham wise, ed. , take one' s essential guide to canadian film (2001) .
( 1999), a prime film for teaching religious studies, as it deconstructs an exoticizing gaze .
early film theorists, chiefly because of the visual prominence of silent film, emphatically stressed formalist understandings of cinema. they argued about the psychological and social effects that the medium of film has on its audience due to its rearranging of
normal
space and time through cinematography, mise - en - sc
film and religion .
encyclopedia of religion. . retrieved july 09, 2018 from urltoken urltoken
the sarajevo film festival (aug 14 - 22) is to pay tribute to canadian armenian director atom egoyan, who will receive honorary heart of sarajevo for his contribution to film, screen daily reports .
“this was personal for him, ” says eric esrailian, one of the film’s producers. “he always wanted to make an epic film with the best actors available that wouldn’t just be a history lesson. ”
students are expected to complete all assignments in a timely manner. for example, students who owe a film paper are often sent from class to finish it before they are allowed to watch the next film .
“it’s a sort of mirror image of our film, but with a totally denialist perspective, ” said mr. george, adding that he suspected that the erdogan government had a hand in the rival film .
here, too, material excised in the final cut amplifies this relationship (ararat dvd, 2003). the encounter with raffi that concludes in the scene in which she urges him, in her only seemingly unselfish moment, to travel to the land around ararat to find meaning begins with her ignoring her lover’s dilemma by typing away at her keyboard. another scene had her visiting the site of her father’s death, simulating the plummeting height through a vertiginously held video camera. [ ↩ ]
there are three key scholarly approaches to the relationship between film and religion. the first might be called
religion in film ,
a way of analyzing the religious dimensions of film by focusing primarily on its narrative content .
film as religion
is the second key approach, and is based on formal parallels between the aesthetic styles of film and religious practices. finally, there is an interest in
cinematic experience and ritual ,
where a focus on spectatorship and its relation to ritual takes precedence. these categories often overlap in individual studies, and are charted here for heuristic reasons. the key question that divides these approaches seems to revolve around the location of meaning: is religious meaning found in the subject matter of the film, in the aesthetic form of the film, or in the experience of viewing the film ?
‘the film - within - the - film is a very conventionally shot movie, made by a very conservative director. we were not trying to render the historical film as filmmakers would today. it’s a much more david lean / attenborough approach, as opposed to spielberg in saving private ryan or schindler’s list. ’
( indiewire: 11. 19. 02) — it was a great weekend for a number of new releases with “ the crime of father amaro, ” “ ararat ” and “ long way home ” all making waves in their debut weekends .
the festival will screen three of his films: exotica (1994), set in and around a fictional strip club; cannes award - winner the sweet hereafter (1997); and ararat (2002), a drama about the armenian genocide .
atom egoyan has something he wants us to know. in 1915, he tells us in his new film
ararat ,
turkey committed genocide against its armenian population, massacring two - thirds of its 1. 5 million citizens of armenian descent. this crime, denied to this day by turkey, has largely been wiped from the pages of history .
ararat plays on this visual motif in a different way befitting the film’s uneasy relationship between the early and recent attitudes toward the past. in a key choice made at the editing table, egoyan excised a scene in which he had explicitly located gorky’s studio on the set of saroyan’s ararat. while egoyan recounts that he cut the scene because the self - consciousness of a conversation between ani and “gorky” would have overly alienated audiences, the omission has another effect as well: it postpones resolving the ambiguity of the gorky sequence until the premiere of saroyan’s ararat near the end of the film, when we see simon abkarian, the actor who plays gorky, attending, and conclude that his scenes, also, were a part of the film. 28 this ambiguity is key to the meaning of the film, since it postpones a decisive knowledge as to whether we are to interpret the scenes set in new york during the 1930s as identified with saroyan’s film or egoyan’s. if the former, we must interpret them according to their role within the historical melodrama; if the latter, we must interpret them according to the ostensible “realism” attributed to the modern - day scenes, and, in particular, according to ani’s exegesis of the painting and her explanation of gorky’s erasing of the hands .
has the obsessiveness and audacity of a film that had to be made or its filmmaker would have combusted .
this story simon baker' s new film runs into ugly dispute first appeared on the sydney morning herald .
year is a long time in the movies. fifteen months ago, i met the canadian film - maker
issues explored in the film include truth and art. using a story within a story device, the film explores whether films should recreate war crimes, and whether films can alter facts to communicate more important truths .
atom egoyan, the canadian - armenian film - maker, says that his new film is a
meditation on the spiritual role of art in the process of struggling for meaning and redemption in the aftermath of genocide
. ararat, clearly a deeply personal film, takes as its subject the wholesale massacre of armenians by the turks in ottoman turkey during the first world war. the massacre is denied by the present - day republic of turkey, but there is no doubt that something terrible did take place, and that relations between the two nations are still strained today .
during the press conference, producers matt jaems and joeri pruys provided background information on the unique construction of the film: the eleven directors will consult and collaborate with each other, to create several touch points in the film between the characters and locations in their diverse stories. this construction ensures rotterdam, i love you becomes a cohesive feature film experience, while maintaining the creative freedom for directors that the film series is known for .
chloe is a 2009 erotic thriller film directed by atom egoyan, a remake of the 2003 french film nathalie... . it stars julianne moore, liam neeson, and amanda seyfried in the title role. its screenplay was written by erin cressida wilson, based on the earlier french film, written by anne fontaine .
ararat, egoyan’s biggest production to date, stars david alpay, charles aznavour, eric bogosian, brent carver, marie - josee croze, bruce greenwood, arsinee khanjian, elias koteas and christopher plummer. the story concerns how two families in modern toronto are impacted by the armenian genocide at the hands of the ottoman turks (1915 - 1923). a production of alliance atlantis and serendipity point films, the film played out of competition at the recent cannes film festival .
'' ararat,'' is hands down the year' s most thought - provoking film. but it pays a price for its intricate intellectual gamesmanship. at a certain point fairly early on, its chinese - box structure begins to seem overly contrived. that point is reached in a scene depicting the customs inspector' s own intergenerational family conflicts involving his son philip (brent carver). although those conflicts eventually affect the outcome of the interrogation, the scene still seems an unnecessary extra wrinkle. as'' ararat'' hardens into an essayistic moral puzzle, dramatic credibility is increasingly sacrificed for intellectual precision .
as quoted by david spaner in the vancouver province on the occasion of the film’s premiere in egoyan’s home town, the director had the “‘romantic idea’ to assemble for ararat as many accomplished actors with armenian backgrounds as possible” (“egoyan returns to his roots, ” vancouver province [ 10 november 2002 ]: b8; lexisnexis academic: cited december 2004). [ ↩ ]
ararat is a bit clumsy, but only compared to the director’s other films. i can’t think of another director who can consistently tie together — through plot and theme — so many disparate elements. the trouble egoyan runs into with ararat is that he has enlarged his scope so much that elegance suffers. instead of dealing with intimates — as in calendar — or a single community — as in the sweet hereafter — the narratives and themes encompass history and entire cultures. the result is almost necessarily heavy - handed .
in the 1930s, mgm scuttled a plan to make a movie about the killings after turkey exerted intense pressure on the state department and the studio itself. when the canadian filmmaker atom egoyan, who is of armenian descent, was making “ararat, ” his 2002 film about the genocide, he was deluged with threats and told that armenians in turkey might be harmed as a result. an ultranationalist group later threatened turkish theaters planning to show the film, resulting in canceled screenings .
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justify
> the well known canadian film director of armenian origin atom egoyan’s film ararat (a? r? da? ?) is going to be in the theaters soon, this year. the film has been publicized, reviewed and discussed widely in america and in europe before it is shown to the public. this can be taken as an indication of a partial fulfillment of the film’s goal, namely to draw the attention of a large audience to the armenian issue. its talented director, its carefully selected cast who are very well - known actors and actresses to the european and american public, comprising charles aznavour, bruce greenwood, christopher plummer, eric bogosian, elias hoteas, david alpay, raffi migdesyan and arsinée khanjian, as well as the substantial amount of financial support the film has received from canadian, french and armenian sources will contribute to its success as envisaged by the film’s initiators .
since egoyan has suggested both reasons, although never at the same time, i am assuming that, as with many such decisions, they had equal weight notwithstanding the radically different spheres in which the weight of each reason would have asserted itself. for the artistic version, see jay stone, “egoyan and the urge to forget: memory, resolution are director’s themes in film, ararat, ” ottawa citizen (6 september 2002): d3; lexisnexis academic: cited december 2004; eve gabereau, “portrait of a genocide, ” the independent (london) (15 november 2002): features 12, 13; lexisnexis academic: cited december 2004; egoyan says something similar in the making of ararat (2003). for the lack of budget version, see john mckay, “already hot, ararat skips spotlight: atom egoyan’s controversial film on armenian genocide will be hors - concours at cannes, ” montreal gazette (25 april 2002): c8; lexisnexis academic: cited december 2004. [ ↩ ]
an interview with writer / director boots riley about his incendiary new film ,
sorry to bother you .
all this sparked an equal and opposite reaction — by the armenian camp — urging people to see the film .
egoyan first visited armenia in 1991 when his film “the adjuster” was screened at the moscow film festival. he and his wife – actress, producer and playwright arsinée khanjian – took the opportunity to travel from moscow to yerevan .
founded by filmmaker nora armani, rated sr socially relevant film festival new york aims to raise awarene ...
director atom egoyan and his wife, actress arsinée khanjian, are armenian canadians, and some of egoyan' s ancestors had been lost in the genocide. egoyan had attempted to explain the genocide to their son, arshile, when he was around six. arshile asked ,
did the turks say sorry ?
the film ararat is intended as a response to that question .
that ararat would impress the genie juries is hardly surprising considering the $ 15 - million film is on a grander scale than any other canadian film this year and that egoyan has been a genie fave since next of kin, his debut feature, garnered a nom for direction in 1985. he has been previously nominated 19 times, and has won for exotica (picture, direction and original screenplay), the sweet hereafter (picture and direction) and felicia' s journey (adapted screenplay) .
nowhere has that difference been made more evident to me than in a question egoyan received at the screening of the film during the new york film festival asking him the address of the club in toronto. the director’s understandably nonplussed and dismissive response to the question nevertheless ignored its emergence out of the success of the film’s fundamental premise. [ ↩ ]
material for a film being shot in toronto. david suspects otherwise and his questioning leads to an intense psychological examination .
reviewed at toronto film festival (gala presentations), sept. 11, 2016. running time: 134 min .
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it is true, though, that the turkish mass murder of armenians doesn’t certify any film on the topic as a good film. consider steven spielberg’s sentimental melodrama about nazi germany’s jewish genocide, schindler’s list (1993). reviewers seem to quarrel most with egoyan’s complicated script. “we can’t feel anything about anything, ” they opine, “because the film goes back and forth between time periods, between these characters and those, between reality and a film - within - the - film. ” self - reflexivity? postmodernism? isn’t 2002 time for rip van winkle to wake up ?
( 1922) — were not as profitable as his first, they were not failures. only his last film —
sandra gathercole, “the best film policy this country never had, ” cinema canada (june 1978), 28–31 .
katherine monk, weird sex and snowshoes: and other canadian film phenomena (vancouver: raincoast books, 2001) .
students need parental approval to join film class, since some of the films we watch will be r - rated .
the film was screened out of competition at the 2002 cannes film festival. [ 2 ] it was then given only a limited release in most countries, and failed to make a significant gross at the box office. [ 1 ]
amanda seyfried' s performance in this film also helped her to gain industry acclaim and become considered for more roles .
the canadian cooperation project helps to explain why, during the 1940s and 1950s, there was virtually no feature film production in canada outside of québec (see the cinema of québec). however, thanks to the economic boom in canada following the second world war, a number of small, independent producers began to establish themselves, making primarily industrial films and shorts. in 1941, nat taylor founded the trade magazine canadian film weekly, and in recognition of the nascent private film sector, the canadian film awards were established in 1949. (the canadian film awards would become the genie awards in 1980 and the canadian screen awards in 2012 .) the inaugural presentation was held in ottawa, and crawley films of ottawa won the first film of the year award for the short film, the loon' s necklace (1949) .
in the film, adolf hitler is quoted discussing his plans for genocide and asking, “who remembers the extermination of the armenians? ” the film presents this as fact, although there is enormous controversy over whether hitler actually ever said it .
in 1915, the turks deported and massacred nearly a million armenians, a genocide which has never been admitted by the turkish authorities. it' s this often - overlooked holocaust, and its impact on generations of armenians, which inspired atom egoyan' s labyrinthine
ararat
.
ararat is also up for best actress for arsinee khanjian, who is married to egoyan and who has been a staple in his films since next of kin; original musical score for mychael danna; art direction / production design for phillip barker; and costume design for beth pasternak .
like most of egoyan’s work, ararat is nonlinear, and the writer / director doesn’t coddle audiences. he jumps around in time, without obvious markers to orient viewers. this technique is certainly precious, but it’s not an affectation. egoyan reveals his stories and themes slowly, and he uses structure to create initial confusions and mysteries that involve the audience; he wants you to work. his storytelling method is also designed to gradually provide context for his establishing scenes. in other words, ararat ’s “difficulty” is of - a - piece with the rest of egoyan’s work .
joe' s pub to present
sojourn at ararat
for one night only the world stage' s leading performance of armenian poetry in english is recreated by its authors, nora armani and gerald papasian. poetic evening of epic proportions reveals the spirit of a people and a nation .
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( durham, n. c. , 2000). useful anthologies on film theory include richard abel, ed. ,
for overviews of some of the studies dealing with religion in film, see chapter 1 of john c. lyden' s
film and religion .
encyclopedia of religion. . encyclopedia. com. (july 9, 2018). urltoken
these questions manifest themselves in interesting, troubling ways in ararat ’s multiple storylines. a young woman blames her stepmother for the death of her father, even though neither of them really knows what happened. a customs agent holds a young man and tries to figure out by talking with him whether he’s being truthful about the contents of some film cans. that same young man, working on the film about the genocide, confronts one of the lead actors — a man of turkish decent — about his belief that the death of 1. 5 million armenians was a justified part of war. the makers of the film - within - a - film sacrifice facts for a stronger narrative, even though one of their primary missions is to educate the public about the nearly forgotten atrocity .
egoyan 2002, 83. according to egoyan’s audio commentary, the background setting was shot in alberta and the extras were digitally added later (ararat dvd); gabereau adds the detail that it was drumheller, alberta, matched to surreptitiously shot dv camera footage of armenian hills. [ ↩ ]
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
national film board of canada watch full - length films, clips, and trailers - all free for home viewing. scroll down the page to see links to online animated shorts and films in other categories. from the national film board of canada .
i have seen other film by atom egoyan. i respect him as an artist. this film, ararat, is lovingly made and very sensitive to a horrid subject. i found the acting very good, especially that by christopher plummer and david alpay. i am shocked to see how limited the release was in the u. s. 6 screens, in the whole country? this film deserves far better treatment. i am also dismayed by the official imdb blurb
interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the armenian genocide claims .
very good until the last word ,
claims .
political correctness has no such place here. the only country in the world which continues to deny the armenian holocaust is turkey .
note: in the film, adolf hitler is quoted discussing his plans for genocide and asking ,
who remembers the extermination of the armenians ?
the film presents this as fact, although there is enormous controversy over whether hitler actually ever said it .
: the turkish actor playing jevdet bey, portrayed in the film as a monster, begins having doubts that the genocide occurred .
atom’s first short films were shown at festivals and received successfully while he was still a student. in 1979 egoyan founded the film company ego film arts (his parents’ furniture store, ego interiors, had burned down). in 1984, egoyan’s first feature length film, “next of kin, ” garnered him recognition not only in canada, but also throughout north america and europe .
ararat has a wildly different agenda, but its formal structure reworks its historical material in quite a similar way to egoyan’s reworking of the novels at the basis of his three other most recent films. although the first version of the screenplay focused exclusively on historical events, egoyan eventually came to realize that, for both aesthetic and practical reasons, he could only depict the events as a film within a film. 20 by framing a tragedy of epic dimensions with the resolutely childish perceptions and traumas of three young persons — raffi’s and celia’s respective searches for the meaning of their fathers’ deaths and gorky’s for that of his mother — and the emotionally raw and socially immature results of those searches — drug smuggling, vandalism, and suicide, respectively — egoyan situated the meaning of his film within a child’s perspective. 21 the perspective of the young gorky in van is seized on by the film - within - a - film’s makers as an emotional conduit to the historical melodrama they envision, while egoyan’s more intellectual approach to that same figure structures his own narrative. that ani’s reading of gorky’s painting, mother and son, is drawn from egoyan’s highly personal portrait of his son and exegesis of the painting, a portrait of arshile (included on the bonus disk of the ararat dvd) only heightens the sense of the child’s perspective, just as the fact that he “had always wanted to make a film about the armenian genocide of 1915” frames his own engagement with the film in terms of a youthful perspective. 22
ararat is a 2002 canadian-french historical-drama film written and directed by atom egoyan and starring charles aznavour , christopher plummer , david alpay , arsinée khanjian , eric bogosian , bruce greenwood and elias koteas . it is about a family and film crew in toronto working on a film based loosely on the 1915 defense of van during the armenian genocide . in addition to exploring the human impact of that specific historical event , ararat examines the nature of truth and its representation through art . the genocide is disputed by the government of turkey , an issue that partially inspired and is explored in the film . the film was featured out of competition at the 2002 cannes film festival . it won five awards at the 23rd genie awards , including best motion picture . 
ararat is a 2002 canadian-french historical-drama film written and directed by atom egoyan and starring charles aznavour, christopher plummer, david alpay, arsinée khanjian, eric bogosian, bruce greenwood and elias koteas. it is about a family and film crew in toronto working on a film based loosely on the 1915 defense of van during the armenian genocide. in addition to exploring the human impact of that specific historical event, ararat examines the nature of truth and its representation through art. the genocide is disputed by the government of turkey, an issue that partially inspired and is explored in the film. the film was featured out of competition at the 2002 cannes film festival. it won five awards at the 23rd genie awards, including best motion picture.
ararat is a 2002 canadian-french historical-drama film written and directed by atom egoyan and starring charles aznavour, christopher plummer, david alpay, arsinée khanjian, eric bogosian, bruce greenwood and elias koteas. it is about a family and film crew in toronto working on a film based loosely on the 1915 defense of van during the armenian genocide. in addition to exploring the human impact of that specific historical event, ararat examines the nature of truth and its representation through art. the genocide is disputed by the government of turkey, an issue that partially inspired and is explored in the film. the film was featured out of competition at the 2002 cannes film festival. it won five awards at the 23rd genie awards, including best motion picture.