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Four Seasons

Accession number: 
1944.0019
Alternate Titles: 
Pays de mon coeur
French
Production Years: 
1944

Languages:

Film Properties: 
Length (feet): 
1130 (16mm)
Length (minutes): 
31
Holding Institutions: 

Library and Archives Canada: 16mm.
"A profile and promotion of the Gatineau area and provincial park. The Gatineau Mountain region is explored across the four seasons. Shown are animals, trees, plants, land, lakes, and streams. Farming and lumbering in the area are also shown."

"Profil et promotion de la vallée de la Gatineau et du parc provincial. Les montagnes de la Gatineau sont une région explorer tout au long des quatre saisons. On y aperçoit des animaux, des arbres, des plantes, des terres, des lacs, des ruisseaux, des fermes et des chantiers de bûcherons."

Alberta University
From the Catalogue of 16mm Educational Motion Pictures. Published by Educational Media Division, Department of Extension, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1967.

"Gatineau Park, summer and winter playground and game sanctuary, is a land of flowers and forests, of rivers, lakes and rocks "older than the serpent and the knowledge of man". In a great variety of scenes picturing the colorful pageantry of the months, the lives of its wild birds and beasts, the seasonal economy of farm and forest, the film builds up a cumulative impression of this lovely region in the Laurentian mountains."

Bibliography: 

Online database National Film Board of Canada.
"The four seasons in one of Canada's many wildlife sanctuaries--Gatineau Park. In its idyllic midsummer setting young people stroll, and deer, birds and squirrels face the camera unafraid. The seasons pass, autumn reigns with still lakes awaiting the first frost. Then comes the first snow, melting beneath a winter sun. A skier's paradise, the Gatineau hills provide ideal runs. Finally, with the advent of sudden spring, the ice-bound logs are swept downstream, catkins blossom, and the birds return to make their nests."

"En trente minutes, nous vivons une année entière dans l'un des plus beaux coins des Laurentides. Au parc national de la Gatineau, la caméra déroule sous nos yeux la changeante tapisserie des quatre saisons; dans leur décors d'hiver et d'été, dans le flamboiement de l'automne et le renouveau d'avril, les animaux folâtrent sans crainte, car ce parc est pour eux un refuge. Sur l'un des plus vieux sols du monde, un merveilleux centre de repos et de divertissement."

"The Four Seasons," Film News (May 1947): 6.
"'In the sympathetic accord of director and cameraman, the best story telling is achieved. Only through their mutual understanding and their combined skills can the best script ever written be significantly or beautifully filmed.' (From the Motion Picture Association's bulletin, 'What's Happening in Hollywood.'). . . Judged on this basis we would say, either that there was unusually sympathetic accord between the director and cameraman on this picture; that the director and cameraman were one and the same person; or that they were maybe closely related, as are Cicely Sparks, who wrote the poetic commentary for this lovely picture, and Radford Crawley who, under the supervision of the National Film Board of Canada, produced it . . . Production extended over the period of the four seasons so sensitively documented and the film, in full color, is like a collection of paintings. Many of them, especially the winter scenes, are startlingly reminiscent of Currier and Ives. Others, especially the early spring and late autumn scenes, are like reproductions of the works of famous Canadian 'Group of Seven' artists . . . 'Four Seasons' deals simply with the changing seasons in Gatineau Park, a game sanctuary on the edge of the Laurentians ('Older than the serpent and the knowledge of man are the rocks of Gatineau'). Some of the loveliest scenes are those portraying the onset of winter, with lowering fog and drifting mist obscuring the quiet lakes and rushing streams. The amazing closeups of wild birds and animals are delightful. Shooting the rapids in a canoe, skiing, logging, and the introduction of the forest ranger provide a note of human interest. . . . In its quiet way this film is exciting, and obviously a labor of love on the part of the enthusiastic canoer, skiist and outdoors man that producer Crawley is known throughout Canada to be. Descended of a long line of chartered accountants, Mr. Crawley broke with family tradition when he married a Canadian camerawoman of note and began working on color films, some years ago, in a tiny attic. The Crawleys now work from an old church, nicely fixed as a studio, and supported by commercial film production chiefly. But 'Four Seasons' is what they have long wanted to make. We think audience groups of adults, as well as school classes in natural history, art, music or Canadiana, will be glad, as we are, that they finally got around to it. Nor would this review be complete without a word about the specially composed musical score which succeeds in giving the 'feel' of the small but eloquent voices of water and deep woods."

3-reels, 16mm. sound and Kodachrome; 32-minutes. French and English versions available. Produced by Crawley Films Limited, for the National Film Board of Canada, at Ottawa. Write the National Film Board of Canada at 620 Fifth Avenue, New York 20. Rental $7.50. Sales price $225."

Film News (September-October 1947): 26.
"As regards the individual producer in Canada: The Board itself frequently commissions private producers to make films for the government programme. Four Seasons, was made for the NFB by Crawley Films, in Ottawa."

Film News (September 1948): 15.
"Last year, the National Film Board Annual Report states, printing materials for 54 subjects were sent abroad. Such subjects include Peoples of Canada, Red Runs the Fraser, Life on the Western Marshes, Canada World Trader, Vegetable Insects, Four Seasons and Painters of Quebec."

"Four Seasons," 16mm Motion Picture Films - Canadian Travel Film Library (Chicago/New York, 1954): 4.
"A colourful pageant of the year in the Gatineau Park, game sanctuary and holiday playground. As the green summer flares into orange and scarlet autumn, the camera follows beaver and deer, camper and ranger, through the woods. In winter the Park fills with pleasure-bound skiers, and hard-working lumberjacks. With the coming of spring, the river ice breaks, pussy-willows and trilliums appear, and returning birds gladden the woods with song."

Canadian Tourist Association, Conservation Films (1954): 6.
"The seasonal pageantry of Gatineau National Park, Quebec. A story of bird and beast, farm and forest, through spring, summer, fall and winter, told in sensitive photography."