fiction.wikisort.org - Movie

The Bitter Ash is a Canadian drama film, directed by Larry Kent and released in 1963.[1] One of the first narrative feature films ever shot in Vancouver,[2] the film stars Alan Scarfe as Des, an unhappy blue collar man who is drawn into the city's counterculture underground, where he clashes with bohemian intellectual Colin (Philip Brown) over the affections of Colin's wife Laurie (Lynn Stewart).

The Bitter Ash
Directed by	Larry Kent
Written by	Larry Kent
Produced by	Larry Kent
Starring	Alan Scarfe Lynn Stewart Philip Brown
Cinematography	Dick Bellamy
Edited by	Dick Bellamy Larry Kent
Music by	Jack Dale Wilf Manz Clint Solomon Jimmy Thomas
Production company	Larry Kent Productions
Release date	1963
Running time	80 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	English

Kent made the film while he was a student at the University of British Columbia, and the film was acted primarily by university drama students rather than professional actors.[3]

The film was controversial at the time because it depicted sexual activity, brief nudity, profanity and drug use.[4] Unable to secure commercial distribution, Kent exhibited the film by personally undertaking a cross-Canada tour to screen it on university campuses.[3] The film has often been characterized by critics as an exploitation film, but Kent himself disputed this characterization on the grounds that it didn't have enough sex in it.[5] The Globe and Mail also later wrote that "the story of the collision of bohemian and working-class values in provincial, precountercultural Vancouver, today seems less striking for its formerly transgressive content - sex, extramarital pregnancy, pot-smoking and nudity - than for its fiercely expressed attitude of utter socioeconomic despair."[4]

The film later received screenings at the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival in the Front & Centre program,[6] and at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival in the Cinemathèque program.[4] It was also part of a retrospective screening of Kent's films, alongside Sweet Substitute, When Tomorrow Dies and High, which screened at a number of venues in 2002 and 2003, including Cinematheque Ontario in Toronto, the Pacific Cinémathèque in Vancouver and the Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa.[3]

References

External links

• The Bitter Ash at IMDb

---