“The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz” is a 1974 Canadian film adapted from Mordecai Richler’s novel of the same name. It stars Richard Dreyfuss as the title character, his first lead role.
Winner of the Golden Bear at the 24th Berlin International Film Festival, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz has been described as a ‘coming of age’ for Canadian cinema, as both a widespread critical and commercial success internationally. It won the Canadian Film Award for Best Motion Picture, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film. The film has been designated as a “masterwork” by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada.
The storyline of the film is essentially about a brash young Jewish Montrealer who embarks on a string of get-rich-quick schemes in a bid to gain respect.
The novel focuses on the young life of Duddy Kravitz, a poor Jewish boy raised in Montreal, Quebec. Family, friends, lovers and teachers all contribute to Duddy’s burgeoning obsession with power and money — desires embodied in the possession of land. As a child, Duddy is told by his grandfather that “a man without land is nobody,” and Duddy comes to believe land ownership to be life’s ultimate goal and the means by which a man becomes a somebody.
While the plot of the film makes for rich entertainment, it is not without its stinging moral narrative as well. I cannot relate to the sometimes tortuous enterprises depicted in the movie but I nonetheless embrace the underlying entrepreneurial theme having been an entrepreneur for most of my career. If it were not for the fact that I was born in Montreal, that is likely where my connection with the film begins and ends.
The film ends on a happy note but not one without its remorsefulness too. By comparison my own spectacle has been very different; and certainly the dénouement (or what of it I have seen thus far) is not what I’d call penitent or regretful. Outstanding however is pondering the obsession that land ownership is life’s ultimate goal. I am drawn to this topic because I now advocate against land ownership. As I sit at my desk overlooking the country meadows and the river flowing upstream in our rented apartment, I hardly think I need bemoan my real estate ineluctability. But for many people to this day real estate ownership remains a critical factor of success.
For most of my early life (that is, prior to practicing law at the age of 25 years) land ownership was irrelevant. I was either in boarding school, a university dormitory or Domus Legis at law school. My first personal introduction to real estate was my first house which I bought as much out of necessity as anything else. I had previously, upon arrival in Almonte, rented the home of Rev. and Mrs. Geo. Bickley while Rev. Bickley was rector of St. Paul’s Anglican Church and they lived in the manse. My first house was impressive not by its superlatives but rather the opposite. As I like to quip, “It was so small you had to back into it!” I paid the very manageable sum of $24,500 for it. I mention that figure not for any other reason than to illustrate that, as palpable as it was for me in my early career, it didn’t bankrupt me or force me to abandon any of my other preferred vices. To be transparent I should add that I sold it for double what I paid (but less than I had invested after adding the cost of improvements).
Within the subsequent decade I would go on to repeat the purchase of real estate “out of necessity” on four further occasions. It was not uncommon almost half a century ago that securing oneself (especially in the country) meant the need to manage one’s own future without peril of unintended or unanticipated change. At least that may in part explain my hidden projections. And while I excuse my business ambitions as arising purely out of necessity, I am bound to confess the greater recommendation was my innate obdurate nature which forbade me to take direction from anyone. To be blunt I was building my own little empire of which I was king. Of course I would learn that ownership is not without its servitude.
The further (and moderately less disparaging) qualification is that, apart from real estate, I didn’t know anything about monetary policy, fiscal responsibility or financial management. Like real estate before it, budgeting had never been a top priority. But by the serendipity of things I was incontestably a real estate lawyer (and at the time one predominantly involved with residential real estate) so I had a passable acquaintance with the subject albeit vicariously through my clients. The more compelling though unflattering truth is that I had the modest intelligence to recognize that if I didn’t moor myself to mortgages and real estate I would certainly find some other guaranteed less propitious way to spend my money.
In the end both Duddy Kravitz and I have landed in the same place though significantly by different avenues (though I wonder whether for different reasons). To illustrate my point, allow me to repeat that during my career I maintained a Line of Credit with every chartered bank in Canada. Although my “achievement” was not nefarious (“rather than give up on his dream, Duddy forges Virgil’s name to a cheque”) my balancing of debt approached the edge. I was so confidant of my propriety in doing so that I offered advice to another young lawyer who expressed the desire to buy a new BMW 3-Series Sedan. I told him to ask his bosses for a raise of $1.75/hour. This translates to about $300/month which just happened to be the amount payable for the loan to buy the car. From my perspective I had what at the time I considered the additional advantage of being able to “write off” a portion of the cost as a “business expense”. I realize all this is small potatoes in the hierarchy of business models but it characterized what was to become a familiar feature of my burgeoning commercial venture.
Duddy is left with no friends, supporters or money. When he goes to visit his father in a St. Urbain bar, though, he is given a bar credit, because the waiter recognizes him as the owner of the land in the Laurentians. The novel ends with Duddy celebrating, as he feels this officially marks him as someone who has made it.
Out of respect for the author behind the book, I thought you might be interested to read the following:
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is Mordecai Richler’s fourth and best-known novel. Published in 1959, it tells the story of a young Jewish man from Montreal who is obsessed with acquiring status, money and land. Bitingly satirical, it is a landmark Canadian novel. It established Richler as an international literary figure and sparked an interest in Canadian literature both at home and abroad. It also drew criticism from those who felt the main character embodied anti-Semitic stereotypes. Richler also received several awards and an Oscar nomination for his screenplay for the 1974 feature film adaptation, co-written with Lionel Chetwynd and directed by Ted Kotcheff.
Though initial sales of the book were low, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz received much praise in the United States and the United Kingdom. Richler became a notable literary figure across the English-speaking world after its publication.
In a 1959 review, the New York Times praised the book as “brash and blatant as a sports car rally — and as suggestive of power.” A reviewer with Canadian Literature praised Richler for his humour, social critique and ability to turn “the vernacular into a poetry, making Duddy memorable, without departing from the dirt, the sadness and the spikes.”
Both a story and a character study, the film can be tough to watch even if occasionally softened by touches of humour. By the end we’re left to wonder if it was all worth it and we sense that Duddy is wondering the same thing.