William Shatner Sings O Canada
2011 · 5m · Canada
Directed by Jacob Medjuck
Genres: biography, comedy, musical
Tones: humorous, theatrical
Honoured with a Governor General's lifetime achievement award, actor William Shatner marks the occasion in his own inimitable style by performing a memorable rendition of Canada's national anthem.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Everyone expects the bit to be that Shatner's famous for bad singing, but Medjuck actually lets him *commit*—turns a Governor General's ceremony into deadpan performance art where the joke is the sincerity, not the mockery. It's the kind of premise that sounds like a cheap celebrity roast until you realize it's doing something way weirder.
A formally composed tribute that respects both the ceremonial weight of the Governor General's Award and Shatner's long-standing relationship with theatrical excess—the five minutes sit at an interesting intersection between documentary evidence and choreographed homage, honoring a Canadian institution through its most distinctive voice.
The entire film hinges on the decision to shoot this straight and let Shatner's natural cadence do the work—no winking, no cuts undermining him—and that restraint is what transforms a premise about Canada's most famous ham into something genuinely touching.