Perspective (film series)

Perspective
Directed by	B. P. Paquette
Written by	B. P. Paquette
Produced by	B. P. Paquette
Starring	Stéphane Paquette Patricia Tedford Pandora Topp
Cinematography	Ivan Gekoff
Edited by	Ernest Riffe
Music by	Daniel Bedard
Production company	Nortario Films
Distributed by	Nortario Films
Release date	2012-2020
Running time	128 minutes (as of 2018)
Country	Canada
Language	English

Perspective is en episodic drama film from Canada written and directed by B. P. Paquette and starring Stéphane Paquette, Patricia Tedford, and Pandora Topp in a love triangle. The film is divided into nine chapters, shot over nine years, that span nine years in the lives of three characters named “Alex.” The first seven of the nine chapters, titled, respectively, Chapter 1: Salt & Soda (2012), Chapter 2: Chris and Other Beards (2013), Chapter 3: Hush, hsuH (2014), Chapter 4: Reflecting (2015), Chapter 5: Triangulation (2016), Chapter 6: The Saddest Lines (2017), and Chapter 7: Me, Myself, and I (2018) have been completed and presented as of 2018.

Production History

Subtitled Variations on a Love Triangle in 9 Chapters, Perspective is unique in that it is a feature-length fiction film in progress, started in 2012, and that will continue to evolve until 2020. Every year a new chapter of the film will be presented exclusively at Cinéfest until the project is complete. Each chapter runs approximately 10 to 20 minutes, with the completed film expected to be approximately 120 minutes. The time lapse between chapters is integrated into the narrative.

At the premiere of each additional chapter, the preceding chapter(s) are replayed. To date, the first seven chapters, titled, respectively, Chapter 1: Salt & Soda (2012), Chapter 2: Chris and Other Beards (2013), Chapter 3: Hush, hsuH (2014), Chapter 4: Reflecting (2015), and Chapter 5: Triangulation (2016), Chapter 6: The Saddest Lines (2017), and Chapter 7: Me, Myself, and I (2018) have been completed, and the duration of the film thus far is 128 minutes.

Shot and set in Northern Ontario, the film features music and sound design (the onscreen credit states "soundscapes") by Daniel Bédard, production design by Joseph Kabbach, and cinematography by Ivan Gekoff.

An accomplished educator, filmmaker B. P. Paquette is using Perspective as a teaching tool for his film production students in the Motion Picture Arts program at Thorneloe University (federated with Laurentian University). In this context, Perspective offers students a unique opportunity to work on, and observe first hand, a professional production. "It was to encourage the students that they don't need millions of dollars, big movie stars and huge crews to make a feature-length film," said Paquette. When he led the creation of the film program, Paquette was inspired by Orson Welles, an innovator who used his films as incubators to experiment with new techniques. "When he got to Hollywood he was kind of shocked that none of the big studios had any kind of department that was meant for research and innovation," Paquette said.

Intermittent Nine-Year Production

Since the project was begun in 2012 with the first chapter, another six chapters have been produced, and another two are to be produced, a year apart, with a year spanning between the narratives of each chapter. While not unprecedented, films made over a period of years while integrating their ellipses into their narratives are extremely rare for obvious reasons. A most recent example is the critically acclaimed Boyhood, which was in production, intermittently, from 2002 to 2013. Perspective spans nearly a decade in the lives of fictional characters that actually age. “As a recording art form, motion pictures are uniquely paradoxical,” says Paquette, “they can capture realities that authenticate its artifice.”

Casting

From Rolf Leslie playing twenty-seven characters in the life story of Queen Victoria in the silent feature Sixty Years a Queen in 1913 to Eddie Murphy playing eight characters in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps in 2000, the casting of a performer to play two or more characters in a film is, and always has been, common. The history of casting a single actor as multiple characters in a play is perhaps as old as acting itself. Excepting Old Comedy, there is a well-known but little discussed rule in the drama of ancient Greece that only three actors played all the speaking characters in a tragedy. Over two thousand years later, even Shakespeare had a limited number of actors to cast in his plays (scholars’ estimates vary from eleven to sixteen), a theatrical exigency that occasioned much doubling and tripling of roles. This theatrical troupe mentality of having various actors playing various characters may also be located in the movies, such as those featuring the comedy group Monty Python, like Life of Brian in 1979. Regardless, the casting of an actor in multiple roles in the movies has been primarily conceptual, and not due to a lack of other performers.

The opposite concept, that of casting multiple actors to play a single character, is extremely rare. In the first chapter of Perspective, Stéphane Paquette and Patricia Tedford play a domestic couple, and Pandora Topp plays Patricia's best friend who, at a house party, discreetly propositions Stéphane. Each of these three characters is named Alex. The chapter then restarts with the identical narrative except the actors have switched characters: now Patricia and Pandora are the domestic couple and Stéphane plays Pandora's best friend who propositions Patricia. Again, the chapter restarts with the identical narrative except now Pandora and Stéphane are the domestic couple and Patricia plays Stéphane's best friend who propositions Pandora. In the second chapter, the three actors continually rotate the three characters they play, not only within the same scene, but sometimes during the same dialogue exchange. “We’re not letting the audience identify a character with an actor,” according to Paquette in The Hollywood Reporter about his decision to cast his actors as shifting characters. “So, at all times, all of the actors are all of the characters.” “The audience can neither immediately nor continually identify a specific character with a specific actor,” says Paquette. “It democratizes the three characters.”

Other films that employ two or more actors to perform a single character include Todd Solondz's Palindromes, wherein eight different actors of different ages, races, and genders play a 13-year-old girl named Aviva during the course of the film, and Luis Buñuel's That Obscure Object of Desire, wherein two actresses, Carole Bouquet and Angela Molina, play the role of Conchita; the actresses switch roles in alternate scenes and sometimes even in the middle of scenes.

Chapters

To date, the film contains only three actors who all play, at various points, each of the three characters named "Alex." Within the narrative, each chapter occurs months to a year apart from the proceeding chapter, and the duration of each chapter is between 10–20 minutes.

#	Title
1	"Salt & Soda"
The film starts with Stéphane Paquette and Patricia Tedford, who play a domestic couple, and Pandora Topp, who plays Patricia's best friend. At a house party, Pandora 's character discreetly propositions Stéphane's character. Each character is named "Alex."
2	"Chris and Other Beards"
An affair commences. The adulterous couple discuss the idea that we only present specific versions of ourselves to each other, and that, were it possible for us to access these versions of ourselves, would we recognize ourselves. The domestic couple has a playful discussion regarding each member's potential unfaithfulness to the other (hence the inclusion of "Beard (companion)" in the chapter title.
3	"Hush, hsuH"
The adulterous member of the domestic couple contemplates the termination of their domestic partnership while the other member of the domestic couple contemplates the possibility that their partner is involved in an adulterous affair.
4	"Reflecting"
Each of the three characters named Alex shares a personal experience wherein they were "the other (wo)man."
5	"Triangulation"
The affair may or may not be over while Alex may or may not be engaging in "splitting," wherein someone plays two others against each other.
6	"The Saddest Lines"
The treatment of time is ambiguous as this chapter begins with what may be Alex reflecting on past incidents, including: a sequence that may be the last meeting of the adulterous couple; a scene wherein Alex leaves a nasty voicemail intending to end the adulterous affair; a probably non-real confrontation scene in a theatrical theatre; for reasons unknown, Alex performs a Spanish-language version of Pablo Neruda's poem Tonight I Can Write into a laptop; Alex threatens to expose their affair.
7	"Me, Myself, and I"
This chapter concerns a difficult moment between a parent and child; a theatricalized reflection on a relationship now soured; Alex on the verge of a nervous breakdown; and a nightmare.
8	"TBD in 2019"
TBD in 2019
9	"TBD in 2010"
TBD in 2020

Festival recognition

The first seven of the nine chapters that compose Perspective have each premiered at Cinefest in, respectively, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Theatrical release

Perspective will be released commercially in theatres across Canada when it is completed in 2020.

See also

• List of films shot over three or more years
• Antoine Doinel – In five films, French filmmaker François Truffaut followed the fictional life of Antoine Doinel (played by Jean-Pierre Léaud) - beginning in 1959, with following films for 1962, 1968, 1970 and 1979.
• Up series – a series of documentary films that have followed the lives of fourteen British children since 1964, when they were seven years old.
• That Obscure Object of Desire – Luis Buñuel's last film is now considered by many to be a masterpiece wherein two actresses play the same character interchangeably.
• Palindromes – Heavily criticized upon release, especially for director Todd Solondz's decision to cast eight actors as his lead character.