The Ernie Game

The Ernie Game
Directed by	Don Owen
Produced by	Robert Allen Gordon Burwash
Written by	Don Owen
Starring	Alexis Kanner
Music by	Kensington Market
Cinematography	Jean-Claude Labrecque
Edited by	Roy Ayton
Production company	National Film Board of Canada
Release dates	1967 (1967)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	English

The Ernie Game is a 1967 Canadian drama film directed by Don Owen.

Called "One of the most innovative examples of personal cinema to come from English Canada in the Sixties" by the Cinematheque Ontario, The Ernie Game was part of a proposed trio of works intended to celebrate the Canadian Centennial. The film centres on Ernie Turner and his attempts to survive in the world after he's released from an asylum. He grows increasingly alienated and his fragile mental state declines, moving between two women, ex-girlfriend and current lover. "The Ernie Game provides a resonant portrait of mental illness," writes Steve Gravestock of the Cinematheque, "its pathologically narcissistic protagonist representing Owen’s most nightmarish vision of the artist as fraud and pariah."

Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, The Ernie Game received the Etrog Awards, now known as Genie Awards, for Best Direction and Best Feature Film in 1968. It was also entered into the 18th Berlin International Film Festival. Owen had risked his career at the National Film Board when he discreetly turned an intended half-hour educational piece into one of the few dramatic feature films made in the English language in Canada during the 1960s.

Cast

• Alexis Kanner as Ernie Turner
• Jackie Burroughs as Gail
• Anna Cameron as Social worker
• Leonard Cohen as Singer
• Corinne Copnick as Landlady
• Rolland D'Amour as Neighbour
• Judith Gault as Donna
• Derek May as Ernie's accomplice
• Louis Negin as Ernie's friend

External links

• The Ernie Game at IMDb