Review: ‘The Group of Seven Guitar Project’

The Canadian documentary The Group of Seven Guitar Project, produced in conjunction with the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, looks at two art forms that one wouldn’t expect to go together as well as they ultimately do: the landscape paintings of the famed titular core of artists and the construction of playable, handcrafted guitars. It sounds like quite the leap, but it’s surprisingly thoughtful, and filmmakers Jason Charters and Liam Romalis do a fine job of bridging this thematic and artistic gap.

The Group of Seven Guitar Project stems from the brainchild of luthier Linda Manzer, who in 2014 got an idea for a unique Canada 150 heritage project: the creation of guitars that would honour some of the country’s greatest painters. Not only was Linda taken by her idea immediately, but it was one that had great personal resonance. In the 1970s, Manzer was part of her own group of seven: a band of luthiers who all apprenticed and worked with noted guitar craftsman Jean Larrivée. Much like the original Group of Seven did when they changed the face of landscape painting, Larrivée’s co-workers and disciples supported and pushed each other to do better work while living in and around Toronto. Manzer was able to “get the band back together,” and the similarities between their kinship and that of the Group of Seven were too tempting to ignore.

Manzer takes a closer look at the works of Lawren Harris, while Sergi de Jonge takes a crack at J.E.H. MacDonald, Tony Duggan-Smith tackles Arthur Lismer, David Wren channels Franklin Carmichael, George Gray analyzes Frank Johnston, William “Grit” Laskin reimagines F.H. Varley, Larrivée interprets A.Y. Jackson, and they all team up to create a special eighth guitar in memory of Tom Thomson. The Group of Seven Guitar Project sits down with each of these guitar makers to find out how they connected their craft to the vision of their chosen painter, and the film watches as these newfound works of musical art are played by some of Canada’s finest guitarists.

The most charming thing about The Group of Seven Guitar Project is that it’s a film that could have easily been mediocre drivel akin to an instructional film meant to be played on a loop at the McMichael Gallery while people made their way through an installation. Charters and Romalis dodge the potential pitfalls of their project by nicely balancing the project’s personal, historical, performative, and professional threads, giving equal time to every aspect of the project.

The Group of Seven Guitar Project doesn’t dwell too heavily on the already tackled histories of the painters whose shadows loom large over this homage, and instead looks at the nuts and bolts of how such an ambitious undertaking would come together, and the relationships shared between the luthiers. It’s one thing to look at a painting and discern some form of artistic, personal, or historic meaning from it, but it’s another to take that interpretation and create a tactile and aural piece of usable art from it. Paintings are meant to be looked at and admired. The guitars crafted by this new Group of Seven are meant to be seen, heard, and handled while simultaneously functioning as a tribute to some of Canada’s most revered painters.

There’s no drama to be found in The Group of Seven Guitar Project; not that it needs any. Everyone gets along, and the editorial structure of Charters and Romalis’ film is rudimentary, functional, and straightforward. There isn’t too much of a deep dive that’s done into the technical construction of the guitars outside of some montage footage that has been nicely cut into split screened performances of the instruments in use. The project literally speaks for itself through the visual and audio representation of these guitars and the personalities of the people who crafted them, so in a sense, Charters and Romalis have most of the heavy lifting already done for them before even stepping up to the camera.

What emerges from The Group of Seven Guitar Project is a documentary that’s better than many might expect to see from a film with such a dry sounding premise. It’s the kind of film that I like to call “coffee viewing”: a specific kind of movie or program that’s gentle and pleasant enough to compliment a good cuppa joe. It’s comforting and insightful without exactly being vital or indispensible. In short, it’s a nice film that’s nicely produced. It will probably be of more interest to those keen on learning more about either Group of Seven, but it’s charming enough to engage with almost any viewer.

The Group of Seven Guitar Project opens at The Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema on Friday, February 2, 2018.

You can also get a look at the guitars created for the project through March of 2018 at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario.