FRENCH WAS THE PRIMARY LANGUAGE OF MONTREAL '6_, and in the first year or so that was the only unchanging thing about it; the editors seemed to be testing, testing. For example, the first few issues contained original French and English articles about the same subject and both writers got bylines. Later, if a topic was original in either language and translated into the other, the original writer got a byline and was credited on the translation. After that, there never were two originals, and writers were not mentioned with the translations of their articles. Translators were never identified.
Names of months appeared on covers in French, English, Spanish, Italian and German, and in a few early issues there was some experimenting with brief summaries or photo captions.
Good translation is surprisingly difficult because you must intuit some of the writer's soul, their unique spirit, before you can select correct words....
I first translated from French in Switzerland in 1959 for a Polish auditor of faculty meetings at the University of Fribourg. During the '60s I helped Dad with letters he had to write in English. Bill Bantey liked my French-to-English style and used me often for Montreal '6_. Regrettably, I didn't keep track of which items I translated or how much he paid for either originals or translations.
My second original piece for him:
"montreal OCTOBRE OCTOBER OCTUBRE OTTOBRE OKTOBER '64
"VOL. 1 No 6
"where Canada's prize-winning films are produced
"The National Film Board of Canada is a world-famous pioneer. At its studios on Montreal's Côte de Liesse Road, documentary, news and art films are produced in 20 languages for distribution in some 100 countries.
"During 1962-63, the NFB won more than 40 awards at international film festivals from Brussels to Argentina. In the same period, men and women from nine countries were sent to the NFB by UNESCO for training. NFB employees also have helped in the establishment of film industries in Australia, New Zealand, Ghana, Nigeria, Israel and Ceylon. Yet the board is only 25 years old.
"Canada's Department of Trade and Commerce had begun to produce films in 1914 through the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau. Its films earned international prestige before the depression arrested progress at a time when new and expensive equipment was needed for the making of sound films.
"In 1938 the Department asked England's John Grierson to advise it on reorganization of the industry. His study led to the adoption on May 2, 1939, of "An Act to create a National Film Board." Mr. Grierson became the first Government Film Commissioner and chairman of the nine-man board, which set about coordinating and encouraging bilingual production of films by the bureau and private firms.
"However, the Second World War made the proposed leisurely development of the industry impossible. Films were a valuable weapon, they were needed quickly and in great numbers. In 1941, the NFB absorbed the bureau and assumed 'director control' over production of films and still photographs. In little more than three years, the board's employees increased to 739 from 55.
"By the time Mr. Grierson returned to England in 1945, documentary films had gained for this country a leading position in international movie-making, a distinction she maintains.
"Today, many millions of people see NFB films in theatres and on television screens throughout the world. Its films are distributed through local offices in many Canadian centres and five other countries, through film libraries, community councils and international agencies. The board produces both 35 mm and 16 mm films itself and commissions others from among some 60 private film companies in Canada. They deal with every imaginable subject from how to cook fish to an old prospector's search for gold in the Northwest Territories, from the education of deaf children to civilian survival measures in the event of a nuclear attack.
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GLIMPSES of how Canada worked: a writer's memoir.
Non-FictionDuring the first 30 years of my journalistic career in the second half of the 20th century, good jobs of all kinds were available all over Canada. Those of us born in the 1930s and early '40s were in great demand because our generation was very smal...
