Margaret Perry (partial data)
Also known as: Margaret Rice
Country: Canada
Born: 1905
Died: 1998
Films directed by Margaret Perry
Quote by Margaret Perry
"I came to the [National Film] Board in June, 1942. I had been living in Millerton, New Brunswick, and Mr. Leonard O'Brien, an M.P. living in South Nelson not far away happened to see some movies I was attempting to make as an amateur. They were of a documentary nature: short 10-minute films of happenings in this Miramichi area. He thought my attempts looked promising and apparently told Mr. [John] Grierson about me, although I was not aware of this until I received an offer to go to the N.F.B. in Ottawa. [...] After a time, because I was somewhat familiar with using a camera, I was given various assignments. What really gave me my start was the fact that the N.F.B. had purchased some footage of the Island of Grand Manan. No one at the Board had been there, and I had, so they passed the footage over to me to edit. [...] And after that I was given various assignments as camerawoman: to do a film being produced by Gudrun Bjerring (now Gudrun Parker); to complete some footage necessary for a film on Prince Edward Island, etc. Then Grierson dispatched me to Halifax in 1945. I had a request to go down to the Nova Scotia Travel Bureau, and he said, 'The very thing you should do'. [...] Well, I worked there for 24 years. And the first few years, I was doing everything myself: carrying camera, shooting, scripting, editing; just everything. Sometimes I didn't know if I was going to sink or swim. The only good thing about it was that nobody else knew more than I did, and so it was just up to me. And I made out, and I enjoyed it. [...]"
-- Margaret Perry
(source)
Quotes about Margaret Perry
"Margaret Perry began in 1942 as a traveling projectionist in New
Brunswick, joined the Ottawa Film Board, worked a negative cutter, editor,
and then camera operator for Gudrun Parker and Beth Zinkan. She
eventually became film producer for the province of Nova Scotia."
-- Barbara Halpern Martineau
(source)
"[Margaret Perry] entered filmmaking in 1936 after her husband's death, and joined the NFB [National Film Board of Canada] in 1942 where she stayed until 1945. She was appointed director of motion picture publicity films for the government of Nova Scotia in 1945, and ran a one-person film unit until 1959. She produced more than fifty films before her retirement in 1969."
-- Peter Morris
(source)
"Over the years, [Margaret] Perry's work at the [Nova Scotia] Film Bureau was done for various government departments, but the primary focus and intent was always the promotion of tourism and industrial development in Nova Scotia. This dual purpose—to promote tourism with images of pristine landscape while depicting Nova Scotia as integrated into the technological flux of modern life—creates a consistent and interesting tension within the films, between images evoking an anti-modern culture amidst natural splendor, and those that glorify relentless industrial progress."
-- Darrell Varga
(source)
"Margaret Perry was pregnant when her husband, a geology professor at the University of New Brunswick, died after being struck by a fire truck in 1936. Widowed and pregnant with their child, Perry was forced to find a way to earn money. Formerly a stenographer—a job she hated—Perry turned to photography. Her love of the outdoors meant she had no desire to be cooped up in an office. She sold photos to magazines and wrote articles. She also took a correspondence course in still and movie photography, and started making films. That interest in filmmaking would turn into a decades-long career, one that produced a large catalogue of work that archivists in Nova Scotia are now digitizing so it can have greater recognition and once again be watched by a wide audience."
-- Richard Woodbury
(source)
For QUOTES about a specific film by Margaret Perry, please see: Prince Edward Island
Battling 'Blue-Fins'
Notes about Margaret Perry
- Born in Upper Mills, New Brunswick.
- Worked for the National Film Board of Canada from 1942 to 1945.
- Began working for the Nova Scotia government in 1945.
(sources)
Bibliography for
Margaret
Perry
Section 1: Publications about Margaret Perry
Brief Sections of Books
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Khouri, Malek. Filming Politics: Communism and the Portrayal of the Working Class at the National Film Board of Canada, 1939-46. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2007.
(pp. 153-154)
Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites
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Woodbury, Richard. "Work of pioneering N.S. filmmaker Margaret Perry goes under the lens." CBC, February 26, 2022.
Web Sites
Archival Collections
These archival institutions have holdings related to Margaret Perry or her films:
