The contextualized case study of Don Shebib's Goin' Down the Road (1970) demonstrates what film characteristics came to be especially valued by the Canadian critical establishment in the early 1970s. It is precisely thanks to the presence of these characteristics that this feature has been singled out as a foundational film of the Canadian canon. Also, the author comments on a most significant shift in critical reception of the film from the 1970s to the 1990s, one that reflects the same shift in the understanding of the Canadian nation as a whole. The discussion of the film Le violon rouge (François Girard, 1998), on the other hand, provides opportunity for commentary about the state of Canadian cinema at the turn of the millennium as well as about the pitfalls that lie ahead for Canadian filmmakers in the globalized cultural marketplace. The article is concluded by a brief summary of significant achievements and problems in the realm of Canadian feature film.
Tomáš Pospíšil (2011) studied this question.