Production Context of Bye Bye Blues :: Anne Wheeler Bye Bye Blues Essays

Production Context of Bye Bye Blues In his essay on the historical fiction film, Leger Grindon writes: "History is no more than a useful device to speak of the present time. The historical film indulges its contact with the immediate and generally refuses the past its distinct and foreign character" (Grindon 189). It is exactly this distinct character, however, that director Anne Wheeler hoped to capture in her 1989 film Bye Bye Blues. In an interview taken during the film’s production, Wheeler explained: "I’m trying to present history as it was, not as we hope it was" (Hays 9). With Bye Bye Blues, Wheeler has created more than simply what Grindon purports the historical fiction to be; her film captures much of the detail of life on the Canadian home-front during the Second World War. Wheeler does, however, weave into the film a deeper message about the role of the woman in society, which, ultimately, speaks directly to the audience of the 1990’s. While Bye Bye Blues is factual, the film does not d epict history entirely as it happened. This is not to say that Wheeler has overtly classified the forties as a period of triumph for feminists the world over, for she has not. Much of Bye Bye Blues is indeed authentic. "Wheeler has said time and again in interviews that stylistically, she likes to keep things as realistic as possible" (Hays 9). This is evidenced by the manner in which Wheeler tackles her subject; the film treats the events of the past with subtlety. "The overall impression left by accounts of life on the home-front is of ... boredom and ... deprivation punctuated by moments of terror" (Klein 10). Had the director exaggerated the events of the war, even on the home-front, she would have sacrificed some of the film’s realism. Instead of glorifying the war and over-dramatizing events like the return of Daisy’s husband, the story is presented in a straight-forward and unsentimental manner. Wheeler presents problems that are true-to-life, such as Daisy being unable to afford new shoes for her son . And certainly the events the film addresses are historically accurate: Japan did invade Singapore at the end of 1940, taking enemy soldiers hostage as prisoners of war (Snyder 267). During the war, women were left to fend for themselves and their children, without knowing whether their husbands were dead or alive, let alone where they could write to them (Vickers 25).