Although TOGA!, the latest retrospective to play at the TIFF Bell Lightbox, is referred to as “The Reinvention of American Comedy,” this series has a distinctly Canadian element to it. One need only look at the credits of Ghostbusters to notice our influence on American comedy: Ivan Reitman, Dan Akroyd, and Rick Moranis all hail from north of the border.
“There wouldn’t be Saturday Night Live without Canadians, because Lorne Michaels is a Canadian. There’s that whole comedy moment, that Animal House is the sort of lighthouse of, that is deeply connected to a Canadian sort of sensibility and sense of humour,” I’m told by Jesse Wente, head of Film Programmes at the Lightbox “And it’s something we should be immensely proud of.”
One of those Canadians is Ivan Reitman, a Toronto-bred producer that went on to become one of the most influential comedy filmmakers in Hollywood. Reitman will be appearing at the Lightbox this weekend to introduce three of his films, including his directorial debut Meatballs, a Canadian summer camp comedy from 1979 that features Bill Murray in his first lead role.
“Ivan isn’t talked about enough as being one of the greatest filmmakers that Canada has produced, maybe because he makes comedies, but he is one of the greatest Canadian filmmakers that ever lived.”
Reitman has a strong connection to TIFF and the Bell Lightbox, which was built on land donated by the Reitman family and is now known as Reitman Square. That might explain his presence in Toronto this weekend, but TIFF’s other guest of honour this weekend is John Landis, who directed National Lampoon’s Animal House, the raucous R-rated comedy that Wente believes is the most influential film of the series. The series that is called “TOGA!” after all.
“Animal House, in terms of its base construction, is actually a fairly traditional comedy,” Wente explains “and yet, it’s the way they do it that is ultimately so revolutionary. It does push all the boundaries and it doesn’t shy from potentially controversial moments.
The emphasis on the word “TOGA!” makes all the difference, transforming its meaning from a signifier of ancient Mediterranean civilizations to a signifier of the somewhat less civilized American campus culture. For when “TOGA!” is said so emphatically, it brings to mind not an image of Julius Caesar with laurels on his head, but of Jim Belushi, wearing something sort of laurel-like and screaming “TOGA!”
Animal House will be playing at the Lightbox this Thursday as the first film in the TOGA! Series, and before the film you can also catch a reunion of the film’s cast and crew, including Director John Landis and Producer Ivan Reitman.
“It’s interesting that there’s so many people for whom this was their first movie and then launched these careers. In particular the folks behind the scenes: Ivan and John. They went on for the rest of their careers to make some of the classic comedies of all time,” Wente says, assuring me that, even if the TOGA! Series appears to be artistically lightweight in comparison to the Jacques Demy retrospective that wraps up this week at the Lightbox, it still shines light on an important part of film history, “Even if teenagers of today or young people today haven’t seen Animal House, they’re still laughing at stuff that Animal House made funny.”
John Landis will also be at the Lightbox over the weekend, introducing Animal House and The Blues Brothers and signing books on Saturday afternoon, but the TOGA! programme extends beyond that period of the late 70s and early 80s. The TIFF Bell Lightbox will be playing a number of popular comedies from the past three and a half decades, including favourites like Beverly Hills Cop, Airplane!, Anchorman, and Bridesmaids.
The full schedule for TOGA! can be found at the TIFF website, and it’s probably worth a look. Even if you get bored with this discussion of the “reinvention” of comedy, you can always ignore this fancy intellectualization and rally behind that one word: TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!
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Alan Jones writes about film (and sometimes music) for Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @alanjonesxxxv.
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