Pinsent’s is the story of Canadian entertainment
The show: The River of My Dreams: A Portrait of Gordon Pinsent The moment: The anchor
“Gordon is one of the anchors,” R.H. Thomson says of his fellow actor Gordon Pinsent in this documentary. “He anchors the culture. The culture is the sea of the world. In English Canada especially, we get blown away,” by England and the U.S. “But Gordon holds the ship of culture.”
There’s a reason this doc, from director Brigitte Berman (who won an Oscar for her doc Artie Shaw: Time is All You’ve Got), is airing on Canada Day. It argues that Pinsent’s story is the story of Canadian entertainment.
Born to humble circumstances in Grand Falls, N.L., where he inhaled Hollywood dreams at the local movie house, Pinsent (now 86) took the ferry “to Canada” in 1948, arriving six months before Confederation. He proceeded to help build Canadian theatre (in Winni- peg, Toronto and Stratford); television (he was on the CBC’s first live network show) and — after a brief detour to Los Angeles — film.
“People went to Hollywood,” Pinsent says. “They rarely left. I wanted to work where I wanted to live.”
So he wrote The Rowdyman and other screenplays, which in turn inspired others to stay — including Sarah Polley, who gave Pinsent one of his greatest roles in her debut feature, Away From Her.
The doc shouts “National Treasure!” a tad insistently at times. But Pinsent wears his iconhood lightly. “Gordon and I share an irreverence for anything pompous,” Christopher Plummer says. “As a Canadian, he is passionate about his country. But as a Newfie, he can’t wait to expose its shortcomings — and mock them mercilessly.” River of My Dreams will have its world broadcast premiere at 8 p.m. July 1 on CBC’s documentary channel, with a repeat July 2 at 1 p.m. on CBC and 9 p.m. on documentary. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.