Atom Egoyan's 'The Adjuster'

128 Pages·2009·1.06 MB·English

by  Tom McSorley

ATOM EGOYAN’S
THE ADJUSTER
One of Canada’s pre-eminent auteur fi lmmakers, Atom Egoyan has
been celebrated internationally, earning multiple awards from the pres-
tigious Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals as well as an Academy Award
nomination. The Adjuster, an accomplished and controversial early work,
is a dark drama about the complex and intense relationship between an
insurance adjuster and his clients.
In this accessible analysis, Tom McSorley traces the genesis, produc-
tion, and reception of Egoyan’s fourth feature fi lm from its Cannes Film
Festival premiere to its North American commercial release. The book
locates The Adjuster in the larger context of Canadian cinema history’s
peculiar and often troubled evolution, and offers a provocative inter-
pretation of the fi lm’s unique analysis of the malaise of materialism in
North American culture. Featuring new interview material with Egoy-
an himself, this study in the Canadian Cinema series offers an insightful
review of one of Atom Egoyan’s most searching, unsettling fi lms.
tom mcsorley is the executive director of the Canadian Film Institute,
a sessional lecturer in Film Studies at Carleton University, fi lm critic
for CBC Radio One’s Ottawa Morning, and a contributing editor at POV
Magazine.
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CANADIAN CINEMA 3
ATOM EGOYAN’S
THE ADJUSTER
TOM MCSORLEY
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS
Toronto Buffalo London
© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2009
Toronto Buffalo London
www.utppublishing.com
Printed in Canada
isbn: 978-1-4426-4116-7 (cloth)
isbn: 978-1-4426-1048-4 (paper)
Printed on acid-free and 100% post-consumer recycled paper with
vegetable-based inks.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
McSorley, Tom
Atom Egoyan’s The adjuster / Tom McSorley.
(Canadian cinema ; 3)
Includes bibliographical references.
isbn 978-1-4426-4116-7 (bound) isbn 978-1-4426-1048-4 (pbk.)
1. Egoyan, Atom–Criticism and interpretation. 2. Adjuster (Motion
picture). I. Title. II. Series: Canadian cinema (Toronto, Ont.) ; 3
pn1997.a31127m37 2009 791.4302’33092 c2009-903707-6
TIFF and the University of Toronto Press acknowledge the fi nancial
assistance of the Ontario Media Development Corporation, the Canada
Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council.
University of Toronto Press acknowledges the fi nancial support for its
publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book
Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).
Contents
Introduction: Intimate Distance 3
1 Welcome to Canada 9
2 Out of the Ashes 19
3 Before the Fire 27
4 The Adjuster: Labyrinths of Solitude 41
5 Arrivals 75
6 Departures 83
Production Credits 92
Further Viewing 95
Notes 96
Selected Bibliography 102
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ATOM EGOYAN’S
THE ADJUSTER
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Introduction: Intimate Distance
The Adjuster is a fi lm born in fl ames. Both inside and outside its impres-
sive widescreen cinemascope frames, it is a cinematic phoenix rising
from the ashes of real and metaphorical apocalyptic fi res. Indeed, fi re
is the genesis of the fi lm itself, as the concept for The Adjuster originates
in a devastating, and apparently random, act of arson in Victoria, B.C.
On New Year’s Eve 1989 Atom Egoyan’s parents’ furniture store and
home burned to the ground. During this time of crisis, Egoyan was
intrigued by the insurance adjuster working on their case. More than
simply processing the claim, the adjuster seemed to act as a source of
material comfort and consolation for the Egoyan family: an ordinary
briefcase-toting guardian angel, a bureaucratic agent of life’s restora-
tion. As Egoyan recalls, ‘It was one of the most heightened weeks of
my life. Sifting through the ashes with the adjuster, coming up with an
arbitrary value of things that didn’t exist anymore. It was very inspiring
for me to watch this very ordinary person elevated to almost the status
of a mystical god through this process. He was the angel of reconstruc-
tion who was going to rematerialize our lives.’1 This professional fi gure,
detached in his assessing of damage and assigning of monetary value to
often priceless family heirlooms and memorabilia, yet intimately en-
gaged with the details and distress of the intense emotional topogra-
phies of the family itself, is the exact profi le of the quintessential Egoy-