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Turkish Weekly
Turkish Weekly
Wednesday, 6 May 2009
Atom Egoyan: Life and His Cinema
Sedat Laciner
Atom Egoyan is a Canadian citizen, a well-known film director and scriptwriter.
EARLY YEARS: Mr. Egoyan was born in 1960 in Cairo (Egypt) as the first child of Joseph and Shushan Yeghoyan. Then the family was in the furniture business. However, his parents were interested in arts. Joseph Yeghoyan, in his youth, had studied painting in the Art Institute of Chicago. Sources say that the reason behind the family naming their first-born ‘Atom’ was the building of the first nuclear reactor in Egypt (Siobhan Rossiter, ‘Atom Egoyan’, Northern Stars, https://www.northernstars.ca/directo...goyanbio.html; ‘All about Atom’, http:/members.cruzio.com/). The family migrated to Canada three years after Atom was born. While there was a considerable Armenian population being established in Nontreal and its environs, the family settled in british Colombia with their newborn daughter ‘Eve’ (Atom’s sister Eve Egoyan is also an artist. Eve, who is a well-known pianist, has contributed to Atom Egoyan’s mo¬vies, family Viewing, Speeking Parts, The Adjuster and Calander, with her piano. The Things in Between is her the latest work). In other words Atom Egoyan found himself a part of the Canadian society from an early age and was detached from the Armenian culture. The family deciding to change their last name to Egoyan shows their struggle to found a new life and to forget the past. The family continued to do their furniture business in Canada. Atom, in his youth ignored his Armenian background and lived like a typical Canadian. For many years, he was so hostile to his Armenian identity he refused to learn how to speak Armenian. Egoyan believes that this was due to Iiving at a place where there were no Armenians and the people around him were unreceptive to foreigners. In other words, Egoyan who was discriminated by the environment felt a lot of resentment to his own identity and tried very hard to be a part of the dominant culture. Egoyan describes those years by:
“During my childhood I was desperate to assimilate, in Victoria, I wanted to be like the other kids.[1] They used to call me the little Arab boy because I was a little darker, had a strange name and came from egypt. It wasn‘t until adolescence that I realized something had been lost in my life,” (Hrag Vartanian, ‘The Armenian Stars of the Canadian Cultural Universe’, Feature Articles on Canada, www.agbu.org).
According to himself, he became aware of his ethnic identity when he started his university education in Toronto (Hrag Vartanian, ‘The Armenian Stars of the Canadian Cultural Universe’, Feature Articles on Canada, www.agbu.org). We can easily say that the reason why assimilation is the most prevalent topic he uses in his movies, is due to his experiences from his childhood and youth (Hrag Vartanian, ‘The Armenian Stars of the Canadian Cultural Universe’, Feature Articles on Canada, www.ag¬bu.org).
As a student, Egoyan worked at the Empress Hotel as a busboy for four summers. Egoyan says that his experiences there prepared him for what he was to do later in his life. He summarizes these experiences as “to see events through many angles”. The movie Speaking Farts (1989) might be the movie where he used these experiences the most because it takes place at a hotel room.
Egoyan intensified his artistic endeavors while continuing his higher education at the Toronto University Trinity College. It is interesting to note that Egoyan chose to study International Relations. While studying diplomacy, Egoyan learned how to play guitar and continued his attempts at writing script.
EGOYAN REALIZES THAT HE IS AN ARMENIAN:
As mentioned before, Egoyan for years denied his Armenian identity. His transformation corresponds with his years in Toronto. Maybe under the influence of the politics education he was receiving or maybe in Toronto’s particular environment, Egoyan rediscovered his Armenian roots and joined an Armenian association at the university. As a member of this association he concentrated on the history and language of Armenia and under the tutelage of an Anglican priest, developed his Armenian identity. Afterwards, he was active in every Armenian social event and tried to develop his identity as an Armenian. Egoyan explains those times by saying, “Armenian student events at that time became a part of my life” (Hrag Vartanian, ‘The Armenian Stars of the canadian Cultural Universe’, Feature Articles on Canada, www.ag¬bu.org). According to Egoyan his revolutionary transformation was due to him being in a part of an Armenian group for the first time in his life. Egoyan, who lived apart from Armenians for many years, discovered that being an Armenian was not something to be ashamed of, and started to enjoy having a different ethnic identity. In this framework, it can be said that Atom Egoyan became an ‘identity convert’.
If we study Egoyan’s artistic identity, we should not be surprised that he turned out to be an artist, considering he grew up in a family that gave primary importance to art. Young Egoyan started writing plays when he was only 13 years old and continued this hobby into his university years, becoming more professional. The writers that influenced him the most were Eugene lonesco, Samuel Beckett and Harold Finter (Brian D. Johnson, ‘Exotic Atom’, Maclean’s, Vol. 107, No: 40, 3 October 1994). During his years in university, he also became interested in music and cinema. Egoyan started to make short films when he was at the university. His first movie, Howard In Particular (1979), was made with help from Hart House Film Board. This movie brought him an award from Canadian National Exhibition. This became his first of many awards. This success brought many other opportunities and Hart House continued to help him with other short films.
Atom Egoyan also discovered his talent for writing screenplays during his university years. Open House, which he wrote while he was at the university, was a movie script for a half an hour-long film. Canadian organizations acknowledged his talent and Egoyan received every support they could provide. In forming his identity, his struggles with the Hollywood and Western culture and the policies of local governments were influential. The backing provided by the Canadian Art Council for his script support this conclusion.
After graduating from Toronto University in 1982, Atom Egoyan started working at the Tarragon Theatre as a play writer. At that time Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) became interested in Open House and bought its broadcasting rights and later broadcasted it on national TV (1982).
In 1983, in spite of his moderate successes, Atom Egoyan was trying to overcome his identity crisis, trying to succeed in what he was doing but was known only by a limited number of people. While working on his first long-movie, Next of Kin, he met his current wife Arsinee Khanjian, and she helped him find himself and later his Armenian identity became more dominant.
Arsinée is a Lebanese Armenian and she migrated to Canada when she was 17 years old. In other words Arsinee Khanjian is an Armenian who lived as an Armenian for much longer than Egoyan. This caused her Armenian character to be stronger, distinct and maybe more radical. Arsinee was working as an actor in an Armenian movie called Mousetrap. Arsinee was a young actress, who was helped by her dentist husband, in trying to get famous. The dentist husband insistently followed Atom Egoyan for giving his wife a chance. While this caused him to lose his wife, she eventually became famous. The professional relationship between Atom Egoyan and Arsinee Khanjian soon became a passionate love affair that lead to marriage. For Arsinee, getting married with a talented director was important. However that director being an Armenian was even more important. Arsinee summarizes this situation as such,
‘I had met an artist with my history and culture. This had always been, maybe unconsciously, my dream.’ (Brian D. Johnson, ‘Arsinée Unveiled’, Maclean’s, Vol. 112, No.37, 13 September 1999, p.597).
Atom Egoyan’s relationship with his wife affected his professional life and forced him to think more strongly about his Armenian identity. Egoyan admits this:
‘Our relationship with Arsinee merged with the stories of the movies.’
Egoyan’s nickname for his wife, ‘Armenian Princess’, shows that the basis of the relationship is being Armenian. Arsinée, just like Egoyan, studied political science at university. This later affected her political behavior. Khanjian currently is 42 years old and the couple has a seven year-old son. Khanjian’s nationalism is at such a level that, when the role of a Latino woman in the TV program Foolish Heart was given to her, the character was changed in to an Armenian woman. Because the story of the program was about a middle class lady’s ‘liberal’ adventures, Arsinee admitted that she was a little worried about how the Armenian society would react towards it (Rick McGinnis, ‘Khanjian Emerges from the Shadow, Actor’s recent Work Establishes Her Own Identity’, National Post, 9 September 1999). In other words Arsi¬nee tries to keep her relations with the Canadian Armenian society at the highest level and in this way, can also influence her husband.
After finding ‘his desired actress and wife’, Atom Egoyan recorded his first long movie Next of Kin in 1984. This movie is also the first film in which his Armenian identity becomes apparent (Jonathan Rosenbaum, ‘Tribal Trouble’, Chicago Reader, 19 August 1994). The movie is about the relations between an Armenian family and the lead character (Peter). This movie was also funded by official Canadian organizations. Without the help of Canada Council and Ontario Art Council, this movie could not have been made. The movie was screened but it’s hard to say that it received much appraisal from the viewers. The movie was judged as being ignored by a movie critic (Brian D. Johnson, ‘Exotic Atom’, Maclean’s, Vol. 107, No. 40, 3 October 1994). At that time Egoyan was in dire straits and some television projects provided his only income.
Soon after this period, Egoyan agreed with CBC to direct a political movie about the Fife of an Irish boxer. As a result In This Corner (1989) came to being. These successes brought him many other projects from Canadian and the US television corporations. Egoyan, based in Toronto, directed many TV shows until the mid-1980s.
In the mid-1980s he directed his second long movie, Family Viewing. The story is about a woman’s relations with her husband and stepson, and Arsinee Khanjian and Gabrielle Rose play in the lead. The movie was first screened in 1987, and was the first movie of Atom Egoyan to attract considerable attention from the cinema world. Egoyan started to appear in many international and national film festivals. At that time he emphasized his support for the development of the Canadian culture and as a result was duly awarded. Ft is not surprising to see Armenian actors is Atom Egoyan’s movies that are full of Canadian nuances. In an interview, Egoyan stated that he felt this movie to be closest to him (Johnson, ‘Exotic...’).
Family Viewing was followed by Speaking Parts (1987) (About this movie see: A Taubin, ‘Up and Atom’, Film Comment, Vol. 25, No: 6, November-December 1989). The story of the movie is about a Hotel maidservant’s love and surrounding stories. It was shown in 1989 Cannes Film festival. The actors were, Aidan Tierney, David Hemblen, Gabrielle Rose and Michael McManus. The Adjuster made in 1991 is one of the rare big budget movies of Egoyan. The budget was 1.5 million dollars and was the second movie of Egoyan to be shown in Cannes.
Adjuster was a movie with many sexual overtones. (About this movie see also: B. D. Johnson, ‘Journeys Into Darkness’, Maclean’s, 16 September 1991, B. D. Johnson, ‘Bleak Beauty’. Maclean’s, 30 September 1991. D. Ansen, ‘A Holiday From The Hype’, Newsweek, 29 June 1992). Even some critics said that the movie was an important illustration of Egoyan’s “sexual obsessions”. The lead of the movie was again Arsinee Khanjian. Other actors were Elias Koteas and Maury Chaykin. When asked about the sexual nature of the movie and the con¬servative Armenian society. Arsinee said that. ‘I was never uncomfortable with Atom’s way of presenting sexuality. Maybe it was satisfying my secret fantasies too’. Johnson, ‘Exotic ...‘. It is quite surprising to hear these words from a person who constantly talks about respecting the conservative nature of the Armenian society. Cannes appearances attracted the Orion Classic to sign a U.S. distribution deal with Egoyan. As a result, Adjuster was the first Egoyan movie to have received wide audience viewing in the U.S. and Egoyan became a well-known director. Moreover Adjuster received the Jury Award at the Moscow Film Festival. This one million-ruble award laid the foundations for his next movie in Armenia. Because a special clause of the award was to make a movie in the old Soviet Union lands. Egoyan became known as the ‘Canadian director’ as a result of this movie. The movie also received the ‘Best Canadian Film’ and 250 thousand dollars from the Toronto Film Festival.
but it is a pretty good way to talk to Armenians from all over the world. We were conversing the other day to someone from New Zealand, forgot his name, sorry; but from Armenia, the West Coast, the East Coast, Canada various cities, England, Greece and you name it, it's just a wonderful way to connect to Armenians this way, isn't it?
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