Wise Thoughts: Trigger, Bruce McDonald’s Cinematic Love Poem to Tracy Wright
Wise Thoughts: Trigger, Bruce McDonald’s Cinematic Love Poem to Tracy Wright
Wyndham Wise, northernstars.ca, October 4, 2010
There are so many layers, fond references and back stories to Bruce McDonald’s latest film, Trigger, that it’s hard to know where to start. So let’s start with the obvious - it’s an 80-minute cinematic love poem to the late, great Tracy Wright.
Wright, for those who don’t know her, was primarily a Toronto stage actress with the occasional film role, usually in supporting parts. Her film résumé dates back to 1990 when she appeared in a bit role in McDonald’s debut feature, Roadkill. The long-time companion of Don McKellar (who wrote Roadkill), with a relationship that dated back to the early days of his theatrical career, Wright died earlier this year from pancreatic cancer at the age of 50. In a supremely romantic gesture, the couple married shortly after being given the news that the cancer was terminal.
Trigger was written by Daniel MacIvor at the request of McDonald to highlight Wright’s immense acting talents, but that was sometime before her cancer became known. McDonald came up with the idea of combining the static value of filming two people talking intelligently and passionately over dinner à la My Dinner with Andre with the hysterics of a punk band reunion à la Hard Core Logo, although this time the warring protagonists would be women. (Molly Parker stars as the other half of the punk duo that was known as Trigger.) Part of this back story is that when McDonald was searching around for writers for Roadkill, he was impressed by the work of MacIvor but ended up hiring McKellar, mistaking the two “Mcs.” He once told me in an interview that he always wanted to make it up to MacIvor for the mix-up, the result some 20 years later being Trigger.
Rest of the story is more spoiler-y for Trigger, so I've linked to the full article rather than place below the cut.
Wyndham Wise, northernstars.ca, October 4, 2010
There are so many layers, fond references and back stories to Bruce McDonald’s latest film, Trigger, that it’s hard to know where to start. So let’s start with the obvious - it’s an 80-minute cinematic love poem to the late, great Tracy Wright.
Wright, for those who don’t know her, was primarily a Toronto stage actress with the occasional film role, usually in supporting parts. Her film résumé dates back to 1990 when she appeared in a bit role in McDonald’s debut feature, Roadkill. The long-time companion of Don McKellar (who wrote Roadkill), with a relationship that dated back to the early days of his theatrical career, Wright died earlier this year from pancreatic cancer at the age of 50. In a supremely romantic gesture, the couple married shortly after being given the news that the cancer was terminal.
Trigger was written by Daniel MacIvor at the request of McDonald to highlight Wright’s immense acting talents, but that was sometime before her cancer became known. McDonald came up with the idea of combining the static value of filming two people talking intelligently and passionately over dinner à la My Dinner with Andre with the hysterics of a punk band reunion à la Hard Core Logo, although this time the warring protagonists would be women. (Molly Parker stars as the other half of the punk duo that was known as Trigger.) Part of this back story is that when McDonald was searching around for writers for Roadkill, he was impressed by the work of MacIvor but ended up hiring McKellar, mistaking the two “Mcs.” He once told me in an interview that he always wanted to make it up to MacIvor for the mix-up, the result some 20 years later being Trigger.
Rest of the story is more spoiler-y for Trigger, so I've linked to the full article rather than place below the cut.