In the summer of 1971 Robert Fresco and Kris Paterson made two documentary films, Mudflats Living and Pleasure Faire, for the National Film Board of Canada.
Mudflats Living, shot in North Vancouver on the Dollarton mudflats, documented an idyllic community of approximately 25 people who were being threatened with eviction by North Vancouver District authorities to make room for a proposed shopping centre.
The mudflats community, associated with a group of young men who called themselves the DeLuxe crew, developed an alternative, off-the-grid lifestyle in the intertidal zone on the northern shore of Burrard Inlet. They built their own waterfront houses in the late ‘60s out of repurposed materials obtained from the teardown renovations of older homes in Vancouver.
One of the members of the DeLuxe crew, leathersmithe Davy Joel Rippner, did not live on the mudflats but spent many hours there with his buddies and business partners. “They had truckloads literally of ticky tacky from the taking apart of Seventh Avenue which was a sloping hill then covered with ramshackle buildings and lots of Victorian stuff. One of the guys at the mudflats, Willie (Wilson), was a collector and he had amassed three warehouses full of ticky tacky Victorian teardowns. That was how DeLuxe got its start.” Rippner met the DeLuxers through Dan and Wendy Clemens who made leather bags. The reno work “was a way to fill the time between leather season which was warmer weather when people are out spending money and to get us over the hump periodically we were able to do renovations and teardown jobs,” says Rippner.
Other people, such as artist Tom Burrows and neuroscientist/cetologist Paul Spong and their young families, were also part of the mudflats community. Spong is one of the people Fresco and Paterson interview in Mudflats Living along with Leonard George and Ron Andrews, the mayor of North Vancouver District at the time.
At the same time they shot Mudflats Living, Fresco and Paterson also followed the DeLuxe crew out to Mission where the group were the organizers behind the Dewdney Trunk Road Pleasure Faire which was held Sept. 4 to 6 in 1971. It was advertised as a craftsman’s market with booths set up to sell handcrafted leather goods and such, but there were also games and entertainment. Joni Mitchell performed a concert and hung out the entire weekend.
Filmmaker Robert Fresco will be on hand when The Cinematheque screens Mudflats Living on Monday, Jan. 22 at 7 p.m. as part of The Image Before Us: A History Of Film In British Columbia series.
More on the mudflats:
http://nsnews.com/entertainment/squatters-recycled-utopian-dreams-1.2226735
Fresco spoke to the News earlier this week about the making of Mudflats Living. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
North Shore News: How did the film come about?
Robert Fresco: I had a business partner, Kris Paterson, and we were developing different projects. We had a contact at the National Film Board and they gave us the go-ahead based on a proposal we submitted.
North Shore News: When you were shooting the film did you live on the North Shore?
Robert Fresco: We stayed at the mudflats houses for awhile. Different people staying with different folks there. We actually bunked in and stayed over and had meals with them and stuff - it was very nice, actually.
North Shore News: How long would the shoot have been?
Robert Fresco: Knowing how we made films in those days it was probably spread out over three weeks.
North Shore News: Would you have been working on anything else at that time?
Robert Fresco: Yes, I was actually doing another film which was called Pleasure Faire. I remember taking a car ride (to the Dewdney Trunk Road Pleasure Faire in Mission) with some people. We were all hippies and crazy in those days and I don’t remember a lot of stuff that happened in there. We got some great material. The one thing I do remember is we saw a live acoustic performance by Joni Mitchell. It was incredible but they wouldn’t let us film it, unfortunately. We did the films back–to–back. We may have done one and then the other or we may have shot them both at the same time.
North Shore News: What equipment did you use on Mudflats Living?
Robert Fresco: I shot everything in 16mm. The reason why Kris gave me a co-director credit is we both worked out what we were going to do and how we were going to set that up and then I shot all the stuff that was required and he did the interviews.
It was popular at the time to use Arriflex cameras when shooting documentaries. I never liked Arriflex. I found the viewfinder awkward, it had lines in it and it wasn’t very clear. I used the Eclair NPR instead. It was state of the art because it had a fibre optics viewing system which meant I could do really fine photographic details and make sure the focus was working and all that kind of stuff.
North Shore News: Did Leonard George go to the mudflats or did you go down the waterfront to his place?
Robert Fresco: He came to visit us on the mudflats and that’s when the interview took place.
North Shore News: How about the segments with the mayor Ron Andrews?
Robert Fresco: We interviewed him at city hall.
North Shore News: At the end of the film there’s footage of the District evicting the mudflats community in 1971. Did you shoot that?
Robert Fresco: No, that was done by a news company, We had already finished the shoot by that time. That actually happened a while after we did the main shooting. That would have been the last part in post-production.
North Shore News: Did you get hassled by the police or District officials while you were on the mudflats?
Robert Fresco: Oh yea. There was constant (surveillance). The police would come by and watch us but they didn’t stop us from doing anything.
It was a very musical community and they had a lovely lifestyle with a healthy approach to things. When you hear the interview with the mayor you will understand what other perspectives (they had to deal with) at the time.
