Canterbury Tale (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

Critic Dave Kehr describes Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger´s "A Canterbury Tale" (1944) as "very nearly plotless." In the liner notes that accompany the Criterion DVD, Graham Fuller emphasizes that the film doesn´t rely on "the twists and turns of a conventional story." It is easy to understand why both men would describe this ambling, lazybones of a movie in such terms, but with just a little digging, you can unearth a fairly standard narrative structure here.

Our three main characters are Sgt. Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price), a gruff but likeable British soldier; a country boy from Oregon with the very, very American name of Sgt. Bob Johnson (John Sweet); and Alison Smith (Sheila Sim), a plucky recruit in the Women´s Land Army. They all disembark from the same train in the town of Chillingbourne (a very, very British town-name) which is only a stone´s throw from a somewhat more famous town called Canterbury. As they enter town late at night, Alison is attacked by a shadowy figure who pours glue into her hair, then disappears into the night; this mystery man is known by the locals, appropriately enough, as the Glue Man, and he has struck often before.

In screenwriting parlance, the Glue Man´s attack is known as the inciting incident. This incident will lead us to ask a question that forms the central tension of the second act: in this case, "Will our heroes discover the identity of the Glue Man?" The second act does not end until this central tension is resolved (Yes, they find out who the Glue Man is) which then introduces a whole new tension which drives the third and final act: "Will our heroes turn the Glue Man into the authorities?"

So you see, it´s all there. With just a little work, you can easily shoe-horn "A Canterbury Tale" into the standard three-act narrative structure taught in screenwriting classes throughout America. Of course, you can also fit a square peg into a round hole if you use a big enough hammer, but why in the hell would you want to do that? Not only would you make a mess, you´d miss the entire point of Powell and Pressburger´s gentle, vibrant portrait of pastoral England during the Second World War.

In the standard narrative model, everything the characters do in the second act has to move them closer to resolving the main tension. As screenwriting gurus have told us time and again, all good movie characters have a clearly-defined goal, and they work relentlessly in the pursuit of this objective. No dilly-dallying allowed!

But "A Canterbury Tale" is all about the dilly-dallying (another very, very British word, don´t you think?) Peter, Bob and Alison want to find out who the Glue Man is, but they have plenty of other interests as well. Bob is a stranger in a strange land, so he is understandably thrilled when he meets a local wheelwright who shares his knowledge and passion for the lumber business. Alison has been sent to work on a local farm, but she also takes time out to search for the original path that pilgrims took to Canterbury. Peter is a no-nonsense soldier, but he still has time to engage Chillingbourne´s grand poobah Thomas Colpeper (Eric Portman) in philosophical debates, or to play catch with Bob as they amble through the countryside on their way nowhere in particular.

"A Canterbury Tale" is built around these seemingly idle moments. It´s not fair to call them digressions from the plot, because they are the very heart of the film. It´s the so-called plot – the hunt for the Glue Man - that´s the real MacGuffin here, which makes Kehr´s and Fuller´s comments seem much more understandable. Freed from the single-minded pursuit of a goal, the film can stop for a prolonged sequence in which Bob joins in with a group of local boys playing in war games which they take ever-so seriously. Alison and Colpeper can let their slow-developing attraction simmer as they languish on a hillside and soak up the sights and sounds and smells of the countryside. But what about the Glue Man? He´ll have to wait; it´s time to dilly-dally instead.

Like several other Powell and Pressburger films (especially the drop-dead gorgeous "I Know Where I´m Going!"), "A Canterbury Tale" paints a vital portrait of time and place that will play very differently to viewers depending on their familiarity with the settings. For director Michael Powell, this tour of the Kent countryside was a return to his childhood; for him and, I suspect, for many British viewers, these scenes of war-time England evoke a sense of nostalgia. As an American who has never visited England, I feel more like a gawking tourist who wants to see everything, but can´t decide what to see first.

One of the oddest qualities of this film is that even though it is set in wartime England (August 1943 to be precise) there is little evidence of either the panic or destruction of war, save for the signs that which shops have "relocated" in recent months. If the shadow of war hangs over this land, it´s hard to tell for all the sunny summer days. In Chillingbourne, the abiding spirit is not one of fear, but rather guarded optimism and can-do pragmatism. Life must go one, both for the soldiers, and for the men, women, and children left behind to tend to daily business. "A Canterbury Tale" is not just an ode to the beauty of the English countryside (though it is certainly that), but also to the people who work that land (strong women, as well as strong men), and have been working it for many years, since the days of the first Canterbury pilgrims in fact.