THE ERNIE GAME

Canada, 1970, 89 minutes, Colour.
Jackie Burrows, Leonard Cohen, Alexis Kanner.
Directed by Don Owen.

The Ernie Game is a film produced by the Canadian Film Board. The Board was noted in the 60s and 70s for the quality of its documentary film making, for its quality in animation, for its range o f imagination in short films. It has not made many feature films. However, this is one example and was made by director Don Owen. Probably more interesting for Canadian audiences. It shows some human themes well explored. but is not exactly popular entertainment.

1. The significance of the title?

2. The Canadian Film Board made many ‘slices of life’ message documentaries. The Ernie Game fits into this style. Was this evident – in the screenplay, photography, techniques? Were the techniques successful?

3. The basic theme of the film? Basic message?

4. What kind of person was Ernie, sympathetic, ‘typical’, what was wrong with him, physically and mentally? Why did he not relate well to people? Why was he so unreliable – leaving the house at the beginning, his relationship with the thin girl, with Donna? Too self-centred, the story he was telling, his security?

5. What kind of girl was Donna? Pursuing Ernie? Her child, independence, men, friends, her attitude towards Ernie on his first visit, a type of seduction, her dance for him? How did her relationship with him grow? Did each change? How?

6. Comment on the social situation in which Ernie lived, job-seeking, pawning the typewriter. Did Ernie want to work?

7. What did the sequences of Ernie’s looking in the mirror mean, his imagining himself in different types of clothes, what did this reveal about Ernie’s opinion of himself?

8. How selfish was he to the thin girl, after she had prepared the lunch? To Donna (arriving at her place in the middle of the night and shouting)?

9. The significance of the Leonard Cohen song? The group’s listening to it? Its place in the mood and style of the film?

10. Why was Ernie picked up by the homosexual? Why did he get involved in the robbery plans, the shooting? Was there nothing to stop him?

11. By this stage, Ernie felt that he could not relate normally, quietly and satisfactorily with anyone at all. Why? Who was to blame: society, his friends, himself? Was his suicide inevitable?

12. How sad was the suicide sequence? How pathetic watching Ernie’s desperate need to communicate? The significance of talking to Donna?

13. The effect of Ernie’s looking at the children and his discovery that he wanted to live and love life?

14. How moving a film? How particularly Canadian? Relevant for contemporary audiences?