Moritz: At the same time, the National Film Board was also being cut back.

Back: Unfortunately, yes. The problem today is that there are no more artists and thinkers at the head of organizations, only bureaucrats who make notes and count numbers. They have no ideas to offer. They don't take risks--and artistic creation is always taking a risk; you can't guarantee how it will come out, there's no safety in art. And the bureaucrats actually don't even seem to be able to count numbers very well, because after Radio Canada dropped the animation department, I learned that more than half of the money that comes back to Radio Canada from sales of product comes from animation films, which are actually few in number: I made 9, Paul Driessen made 3, Graeme Ross made 2--that means 15 or so animation films gave as much income to Radio Canada as hundreds of hours of regular live-action programs. And the animation films also won hundreds of prizes at film festivals.

Moritz: One terrifying thought to me is that since the same Radio Canada which closed down the Animation Department owns your films, they could presumably withdraw them from circulation, not show them, they could be lost, decay in the vaults.

Back: Well, at least now they show them quite a bit, especially at fesitvals, where they are in demand. And Man Who Planted Trees and Mighty River are available on videocassette, so they are used by teachers and environmentalists continually.

Moritz: But even now, your earlier films, like the two based on Algonquin and Micmac myths, are hardly seen--though the artworks from them in this exhibit are very beautiful. In any case, does the demise of Radio Canada and the crippled National Film Board mean that you can't make any more animation?

Back: No, actually I could. I have had several proposals, even one from National Film Board, but I promised my wife Ghylaine not to take on another large animation project, because she became a sort of animation widow during the long making of Man Who Planted Trees and Mighty River. Now I have actually started animation work on a te10 minute film sponsored by Trees for Life, in Wichita, Kansas, which will promote planting fruit trees in third world countries. Also, I never really stop working. Right after Mighty River I made a number of book illustrations, one about Inuits, one about beluga whales, and of course The Mighty River book itself. And I worked a lot with Greenpeace, and other organizations that protect animals, seals. There's always a lot of work to do.

The Man Who Planted Trees. © SRC

Moritz: After spending so much time making your filmed images move and change, do you mind seeing them as still book illustrations?

Back: No, I think they work very well as books, and I always make some special artworks just for the books. Mighty River is particularly important as a book, because in 24 minutes you can't give too many facts, since the visual information is so rich, you would get dizzy if there were statistics, too. But in the book there are many details and facts that you can study at leisure, and learn, perhaps intellectually, as you learn emotionally from the film. The Mighty River book has been translated into Japanese, as well, so I hope the Japanese fishing fleet read it and disappear.

Moritz: Surprisingly, even Crac! worked very well as a book, I thought. One of the things that I liked most in Crac! the film was the way great Canadian paintings--Cornelius Krieghoff's Merrymaking or Lucius O'Brien's Sunrise on the Saguenay, for example--just seem to "happen" in the course of the action. When the ASIFA-Canada Bulletin devoted an issue to you in 1988, they printed a picture of your early art teacher, Mathurin Méheut, with his class (including you)--and a few of his sketches. He seems like such a romantic figure, you should make a film about him in which his paintings could also "just happen" in the course, since he is almost unknown here.