Repetition, Compulsion, and Representation in Atom Egoyan’s Films

[Introduction]: “Scarcely forty years old, Toronto-based filmmaker Atom Egoyan has proven himself to be astonishingly prolific. He has managed to complete eight short films, three operas, several installations, extensive work for television (including episodes for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Friday the 13th, and the made-for-TV movie Gross Misconduct}, and eight feature-length films in which he has more often than not taken responsibility for the writing and producing as well as the directing. Since 1984, when Next of Kin was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Director, his features have earned him innumerable awards and accolades in Canada and abroad. Much of his early fame in the international scene came as a result of Wim Wenders' gesture at the 1987 Festival of New Cinema and Video in Montreal when Wenders offered the prize money for Best Film he had been awarded for Wings of Desire to Egoyan, the young director of Family Viewing. The Adjuster, from 1991, won Best Canadian Feature at the Toronto Festival of Festivals as well as the Special Jury Prize at the Moscow Film Festival. Exotica was the first Canadian film in more than a decade to be invited to compete at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the International Critics Prize. The Sweet Hereafter also had its premiere at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury, International Critics, and Ecumenical Jury prizes before going on to win eight Canadian Genie awards, including Best Picture and Best Direction. Egoyan also received Academy Award nominations for his direction and screenplay adaptation of this film, unprecedented recognition for a Canadian director of a Canadian movie. For his successes, he has been offered five honourary doctorates from Canadian universities, inducted into the Order of Canada, elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, and even knighted with a Chevalier dans l'ordre des arts et des lettres by the French government in 1996.”