A Second Transcontinental Nation (1872)
1969 · 58m · Canada
Directed by Ronald Dick, Pierre L'Amare
Genres: documentary, historical
Tones: contemplative, tense
After the Treaty of Washington, Canada faces pressure that threatens its borders and its future separate from the United States. The historical documentary examines the context, forces, and alternatives that shaped whether the young country could survive.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A straightforward historical doc about why Canada didn't get absorbed into the US — solid premise, but Dick and L'Amare play it completely straight, no formal risks, no argument with the archive itself. Feels like the kind of film that *should* be subversive and isn't.
Made in 1969 with the confidence of filmmakers who understood they were working in a lineage of Canadian documentary rigor; the contemplative pacing and archival assembly sit squarely in the NFB tradition while asking a genuinely structural question about nationhood and survival. This is the kind of historical essay that rewards slow looking.
The choice to let the tension live entirely in the editing and sound design — sparse, waiting — rather than in dramatic reenactment or narration tells you everything about how carefully these directors trusted the material to do its own work.