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Emergency Ward

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Candid Eye

1959 30 min
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This 1959 documentary short is a frank portrait of the daily operations inside the Montreal General Hospital’s emergency ward.

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Emergency Ward
  • The Back-breaking Leaf
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    Terence Macartney-Filgate 1959 29 min

    Here is a graphic picture of the tobacco harvest in southwestern Ontario. At the end of July, transient field workers move in for a brief bonanza when the plant is ripe. The tobacco harvesters call it "the back-breaking leaf."

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    Terence Macartney-Filgate (The Back-breaking Leaf) takes a light, humorous look at the automobile circa 1960, and the Great American itch for a place on the road. From a used-car lot to the public highways, slow-motion and stylized photography provide a provocative, revealing look at a people’s obsession with cars.

  • Country Threshing
    Country Threshing
    Wolf Koenig 1958 30 min

    This short documentary records the rural sights and sounds of the Chateauguay Valley of Quebec. The day of the big stationary threshing machine is almost over, as the machine is pushed into obscurity by the combine harvester. But there are still parts of Canada where crops are gathered in the old-fashioned way as the men work out in the fields and the women manage the kitchen. This film offers a rare and charming glimpse into mid-20th-century rural and family life in Canada.

  • The Days Before Christmas
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    Terence Macartney-Filgate Stanley Jackson , … 1958 29 min

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    This 1959 documentary short is a frank portrait of the daily operations inside the Montreal General Hospital’s emergency ward.

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  • Festival in Puerto Rico
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    Wolf Koenig  &  Roman Kroitor 1961 27 min

    This short documentary features Canadian contralto Maureen Forrester as she sings at the Festival Casals, a musical event founded by the great Spanish cellist and conductor Pablo Casals and sponsored annually by the Puerto Rican government. Part concert film, part tourism film, Festival in Puerto Rico offers viewers candid glimpses of mid-20th century Puerto Rico intercut with performance footage of Forrester and her husband, violinist-conductor Eugene Kash.

  • A Foreign Language
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    Stanley Jackson 1958 29 min

    This short documentary focuses on a Montreal public school where thousands of immigrant children learn English for the first time. Part of the Candid Eye series.

  • Glenn Gould - Off the Record
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    In this short documentary, Canadian concert pianist Glenn Gould enjoys a respite at his lakeside cottage. This is an aspect of Gould previously known only to the collie pacing beside him through the woods, the fishermen resting their oars to hear his piano, and fellow musicians like Franz Kraemer, with whom Gould talks of composition.

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    This short documentary follows Glenn Gould to New York City. There, we see the renowned Canadian concert pianist kidding the cab driver, bantering with sound engineers at Columbia Records, and then, alone with the piano, fastidiously recording Bach's Italian Concerto.

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Details

Shot unscripted and unrehearsed, this NFB documentary series for television is a seminal offering in the history of doc filmmaking.

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