from
Essays on Quebec Cinema
MSU Press Canadian Series #2
Ed.
Joseph I. Doualuie, Jr.
Michigan State University Press
East Lansing, 1991
THE EMERGENCE OF QUÉBÉC CINEMA: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
Philip Reines
American control of the Canadian market was attained during the First World War, largely because that conflict brought film production to a virtual halt in every involved country except the United States. In Canada, the Hollywood studios moved quickly to expand their already extensive theatre chains by the purchase of many locally operated outlets. Having increased its control of the market by adding distribution and exhibition to its production monopoly, Hollywood used political influence gained through foreign investment to persuade government officials in Canada to discourage any attempts to challenge this status quo. (2) Commenting on the dearth of any important film production in anglophone Canada during the years prior to the founding of the National Film Board in 1939, cinema historian Gerald Pratley wrote:
Canada's early work in film-making is not important and there is little point in trying to pretend otherwise. Between the years 1896 when films as we know them were first projected in ... [Canada] and 1939, when The National Film Board was formed, the production of motion pictures in Canada was often interesting, determined, usually wellmintentioned ... but in the end sadly insignificant, with little impact on audiences and containing little value for present-day study .... (3)
From the 1920 through 1939, with rare and isolated exceptions, English-language films exhibited in Canada were almost always either of Hollywood domination of from Hollywood or England and, because made in an American studio in England, e.g., MGM-British. As a result English cinema. the English product was, more often than not, a film of this monopoly, the feature-film industry in anglophone Canada remained nonexistent. Until the establishment of the National Film Board in 1939, film production in Canada was mostly confined to industrial, government, or educational short films made with small budgets and for limited distribution. (4) Tbe only consistently creative and modestly successful independent production efforts were to be found in the Province of Québéc from 1937 to 1953. It was during this period that Québéc cinema began to grow.
Québéc, unlike the English-speaking Canadian provinces, was almost totally dominated by a francophone culture dating back to the sixteenth cen tury and France's colonization of the New World. Separated from anglophone Canada by language, culture, and religion, the people of the province became even more protective of their separate identity after the French defeat in the mid-eighteenth century. Attachment to the land and spiritual ties to France and the French culture, together with the strong influence of the Catholic Church, created a cultural triumvirate that ensured the preservation of a separate Québécois identity.
The exhibition throughout the province of French-language films imported from France beginning in the 1930s both built upon and enhanced the francophone character of Québéc. The freedom from monopolistic distribution of English-language elilms, which the success of this activity supposes, was an important factor in providing local francophone production companies a ready-made and willing audience when time and circumstance permitted. Prior to the move of the National Film Board to Montreal and the subsequent creation of the French language unit in 1959, francophone film studios barely subsisted; afterward, one finds a steady increase in number and in sophistication. (5)
As such, the indigenous industry would reflect the momentous political and social changes in post-World War II Québéc that helped to shape it: at first as an uncertain hybrid, "French-Canadian Film," it would emerge after the turbulent sixties as the "cinéma québécois," made in the image of the "new" Québéc, reflecting cultural self-assurance and eager to test its creative capabilities.(6)
In order to understand the dramatic growth of independent francophone film production in Québéc, it is necessary to begin with the presence of the Catholic Church. From the beginning of colonization to the mid-twentieth century, the precepts. of the Church dominated the social and cultural fabric of francophone Québéc. In 1907, it exercised a powerhil moral influence and admonished its followers in the province not to attend cinema showings on Sundays, and to avoid films in general because of their "corrupting influence." In 1912, strongly influenced by the Church, Québéc Province adopted a censorship law on motion pictures in order to "protect" further the people from the medium. (7) Fourteen years later in 1926, the censorship was considered so restrictive that major domestic and foreign distributing companies not only complained but threatened boycotts throughout the province, arguing that this law, if enforced, could severely threaten the exhibition of imported feature films in the Québéc theatres. Yet, while faced with a heavy loss of revenues, the American distributors ultimately relented, although complaints continued to be forwarded to the Québéc government. According to cinema archivist and historian Pierre Véronneau, the persistence of the Catholic Church in forbidding attendance at the cinema on Sundays, and its general disapproval of film lasted "until 1939 after which the Church will adopt a more conciliatory attitude." (8)
What little film production took place in Québéc from 1912 to 1936 is incidental to this study. However it is appropriate to acknowledge that the first successful creative attempts in independent filmmaking began, ironically, with the individual efforts of two Catholic priests. First, Father Albert Tessier, utilizing his own funds and 16mm equipment, traveled Québéc from 1927 to 1960, and produced some seventy short films, which recorded a rural, traditional people, and the beauty of the landscapes Father Maurice ProuIx, in the period 1934 to 1961, produced thirty-seven 16mm films that also reflected the life and people of the Province. Most significant is the fact that his first two films were of feature-length, and that the first, En Pays neufs/A New Country, begun in 1934 and finished in 1937, is recognized as the first feature film made in Québéc. (10)
Like Father Tessier, Father Prouix traveled Québéc Province utilizing his own funds and equipment until his efforts were at length rewarded with government grants. Beginning in 1941, with the founding of Le Service de Cinéphotographie by the provincial government, Father ProuIx was sponsored officially in his filmmaking endeavors. Commenting on the importance of these early independent film-makers, cinema scholar David Clanfield wrote.
The films of both Tessier and Proulx bear witness to an era in the life of the province quite different from that of the NFB French team of the late fifties and early sixties. They might best be characterized as a "cinéma de la fidelité," committed to the preservation of the traditional rural way of life, based on the two intertwined institutions of the Catholic Church and a conservative government. They celebrate ... the preservation of language, rural crafts, family ... community and the Catholic religion. Nevertheless, by their overtly nationalistic concern with the definition of a cultural identity and their desire to project this image ... they anticipate the aims, intentions and methods of a [future] generation of Québéc filmmakers.... (11)
Un Pays sans bon sens!
En Pays neuts, the first full-length film made in Québéc, set forth the advantages of colonizing the wilderness of the Northern Abitibi regions of Québéc, clearly a form of propaganda sanctioned by the Church. The second, by Father Jean-Marie Poitevin, was entitled A La Croisge des chemins/At the Crossroads and was made in 1943, with actor Paul Geuvremont, and frankly advocated a missionary vocation theme. This film was also approved by the Church. Among these and other filmmakers of the period, Father Albert Tessier stands out as the most prolific and the best. His production of more than seventy 16mm documentary-style films, all silent and many in colour, singly and collectively, captured the wilderness beauty and vast spaces of Québéc. As such, they could be considered as early travelogue or nature films. (12)
These films, although moderately successful in Québéc, did not receive widespread distribution and were not considered popular entertainment. Nevertheless, although limited in subject and style, they must be considered landmark symbols of the beginning of serious filmmaking in Québéc. It is important to note that, however limited, the influence I these films was sufficient to prod the government, in 1941, to consolidate its sprawling cinematic resources into one central coordinatIng department, Le Service de Ciné-photographie de la Province de Québec. Coincidentally, 1941 also saw the founding of the Odeon Theatre chain by showman N.L. Nathanson. (13)
As stated before, the cultural life in Québéc during the first sixty years of this century was dominated by the Catholic Church. As a result, most story-telling films made in Québéc during the twenty years of cinematic activity from 1930 to 1960 reflected this influence. The plots always stressed the importance of two major themes: (1) the major role of the Church in the everyday lives of the people, and (2) a priest or nun central character who provides solace and guidance to the people who depend on this leadership. Commenting on the inevitability of the Church's role in the cinema, critic Michel Houle provides some eye-opening statistics on the period:
It is easy to explain why this theme [the Church as depicted in these films] in the forties and fifties was so powerful and permanent. It reflects the real influence of the Church in the social and cultural life of the Québec people.... In 1940 the Church in Québec numbered at least 25,000 clergymen, monks and nuns, and it supplied fifty-percent of the teachers to ... colleges. It had almost complete and exclusive jurisdiction in the fields of social affairs.... (14)
To cope with a growing popular demand for francophone films in Québéc, two film production companies were established in 1944 and 1946. The first, Renaissance Films, was founded by Charles Philipp, and J. A. DeSève of France-Film. The company's first film, Le Père Chopin, was also Québéc's first 35mm feature film with sound. Director Fedor Ozep was imported from Hollywood to provide cinematic sophistication, and the film was released in Montreal on April 19, 1945, to packed houses during a four-week run. The film was an immediate success, because, for the first time, the public was able to watch Québécois characters in Québéc, and to identify with them. With the success of this film, J. A. DeSève established Renaissance Films Distribution (RFD) in 1945, which in turn absorbed Renaissance Films. He soon built a studio cornparable in size and sophistication to those of major foreign companies, and in 1949, renamed the company Les Productions renaissance. In order to achieve his objectives, DeSève traveled to France where, with Catholic Church support, he conferred with Abbé Vachet, Executive Head of the Fiat-Film Studios, which produced films stressing Catholic values. Upon his return, he announced his intention to produce feature films of Catholic "ideological persuasion": Catholic cinema extolling, through its dramatic characters, the precepts of the Church.
La Petite Aurore l’enfant martyre
In describing his intent, DeSève stated: "Our aim is to create great artistic cinema which will call good-good, and evil-evil." (15) He also affirmed his desire to support an International Catholic Film Office in Montreal, as part of an international distribution company to ensure exhibition of his and Abb6 Vachet's films in Canada and France. To this end, he solicited local Church leaders, through Abbé Vachét and others, to support the enterprise. With a studio under construction in Montréal, the company underwent corporate changes and began film production with Le Gros Bill/Big Bill and Docteur Louise, both of which were completed in 1949. In 1950, the fourth and last film, Les Lumigres de ma ville, advertised as "entirely French Canadian," was released. Soon after, the company closed its doors and went bankrupt. The Catholic francophone film had not done well in Québéc. (16)
The second major company, Québéc Productions Corporation, formed in 1946, avoided the mistake of the Renaissance philosophy and attempted a more sophisticated thematic approach in its francophone films. Founded by producers Paul L'Anglais and René Germain, the company built studios in the Montreal suburb of Saint Hyacinthe. The new company's first film in 1946 was an ambitious feature, shot simultaneously in both French and English language versions. Titled respectively La Fortresse and Whispering City, both versions were directed by Hollywood director Fedor Ozep arid starred three Hollywood actors: Paul Lukas, Mary Anderson, and Helmut Dantine. It did poorly at the box office, and so the company's production philosophy was modified to stress more local personalities and themes. As a result, tile second feature film, Un Homme et sont péché/A Man and His Sin, released in 1948, was a box office hit. A third film, Le Curé de village (1949), was also well received. Both films were adaptations of a well-known radio series in Québéc, and that in part accounted for their popularity. The dialect and the themes were, moreover, Québécois and audiences readily identified with them. (17)
Flushed with success, the company in 1949 produced Séraphin, a sequel to Le Curé de village, which was also well received. The formula of these films mixed religion and ettinic values in an entertaining manner. Le Cure de village was awarded First Prize at thle 1949 Canadian Filin Awards. But, with tee fifth film, Le Rossignol et les cloches/The Nightingale and the Bells (1951), Québec Productions Corporation suffered a resounding box office failure. Without adequate financial resources to rebound, this company was also forced out of business. (18)
Shortly after the demise of these two Québéc "majors," smaller cornpanies, some with moderate success records, also folded. Among them were an English-language film company, Selkirk Productions, established by Richard Jarvis arid Cecil Maiden. Others included Frontier Films, Excelsior, Carillon Pictures, and Alliance Films. All of these had achieved some small degree of success prior to encountering financial failure. (19) Collectively, in spite of their demise, they moved the film community closer to the realization that it was possible for a filim industry to develop and survive in Québéc. (20)
From 1944 to 1953, film production had flourished somewhat sporadically but with only moderate success in Québéc. During this period a total of nineteen feature films were released throughout the province. This modest output was nonetheless in stark contrast to the mere two feature films completed and distributed during the thirty years prior to 1944: En Pays neufs (1937), arid A La Croisée des chemins (1943). It is striking that with only nineteen films to its credit, francophone Québéc became the leading production center in Canada of feature-length films during this period.
Sadly, in 1953, a new medium called television began to contend with films for audience interest. The impact of television at first almost totally negated the small gains achieved in local film production, so that one by one the few remaining small studios in Québéc and Canada closed their doors. The triumph of the "small screen" of television over the "large Silver Screen" of movies temporarily ended Québéc's first effort to establish a viable commercial film industry. Ironically, at the eleventh hour, in 1953, the industry produced one of the very best of the "early" feature films. Tit Coq/The Cock, a film based on the play by Gratien Gélinas and directed by René Delacroix, won the Grand Prize at the Canadian Film Awards. Unlike many others, this film, in French with English titles, received wide distribution not only in Québéc but throughout Canada. Moved to comment upon seeing it, René Lévesque, journalist, and later Prime Minister of Québéc, wrote: "with Tit Coq the Canadian [Québec] cinema emerges from the caverns."(21) Still, until the move of the National Film Board from Ottawa to Montreal in 1956, and the establishment of the French Production Unit shortly thereafter, no attempt at a revival of Québéc cinema would take place. (22) But when it did, a force of creative expression was released, which quickly elevated francophone Québéc cinema to world-class sophistication.
From this point until the decade of the 1960s and the Quiet Revolution, film production virtually exploded in the Belle Province. The next twenty years would mark the end of "French Canadian Film" and the transition from contemporary "Québec Film" to "Québécois Film." Some of the advocates of innovation working at the National Film Board were Fernand Dansereau, Louis Portugais, Bernard Develin, Léonard Forest, Clément Perron, Gilles Carle, Arthur Lamothe, Pierre Patry, Jacques Bobet, and Claude Jutra. They began to bring a new and dynamic creativity to francophone films in the areas of animation, documentary, and later, feature films. Others would follow and many independent companies would be started.
During the postwar expansion of the NFB into television, beginning in 1955, a successful attempt to initiate French-language production was achieved with two series. The first of these, Passe-Partout (1955-1957), a thirty-minute program, stressed the visual and cultural authenticity of traditional French life in Québéc, and, in so doing, sketched parameters for emerging Québécois cinematic expression. Passe-Partout also utilized a combination of dramatic narrative and visual documentary to illustrate its themes. Panorarnique (1957-1959), the second francophone format, presented a series of dramas not limited to the half-hour time limit. These television productions are significant, not only as cultural breakthroughs in a society dominated by English language and tradition, but also as legitimate vehicles that would permit emerging filmmakers, like (3aude Jutra, Georges Dufaux, Gilles GrouIx, Michel Brault, and Bernard Devlin, to hone their skills while exploring the nature of their francophone culture. (23)
In 1956, the NFB moved its studio to Montreal and, during the ensuing decade, further consolidated and refined the activities of its French Production Unit. Through the creative efforts of Fernand Dansereau, Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, Jacques Godbout, Gilles Groulx, Gilles Carle, Pierre Patry, Claude Fournier, Michel Brault, Claude Jutra, and other Québéc filmmakers, the late 1950s and 1960s saw a surge of cinematic productions emanating not only from the NFB but also from independent sources. All of this activity, observes historian David Clanfield, provided "a vital nucleus for the [emerging] cinéma d'auteur which developed in Qudbec in the mid to late sixties. . . ."(24) The output of feature-length films that followed displayed the need for the contemporary québécois cineats to explore, in longer film format, the emerging social and political milieu of the changing francophone population. Typical of this period was Claude Jutra's A Tout Prendre/The Way It Goes (1963). Produced independently for $60,000, this film won national and international notoriety and illustrated that dramatic French language feature films, independent of government support, could be produced successfully in Québéc. Other film-makers soon followed Jutra's lead and a new contemporary francophone Québéc cinema evolved, independent of Catholic Church and governmental rigidity, and contemporary in theme and techniques. The cinema of the Québécois was at last emerging. (25)
In 1960 and 1961, Michel Brault, working in France with cinematographers; Jean Rouch and Mario Ruspole, produced films utilizing the technique of "cinéma direct", an intimate visual and sound style, usually associated with--but not limited to--documentary films. Cinéma direct was in part, developed by Canadian filmmakers during the early NFB period from the 1940s through 1950s. As such, it became a vital elent in the development of Québéc cinema and will be further discussed elsewhere in th is essay. (26) Both Michel Brault and Pierre Perrault artfully displayed this technique in Pour la suite du monde/Moontrap (1963). This film placed visual and thematic documentary emphasis on the importance of "Tradition as an expression of the collective life and will of a people." (27) The film won many awards and critical acclaim for its frank and intimate perception of the complexities of ethnic life. As film critic Peter Morris writes: "It represented a major development in direct cinema away from simple observation to more immediate participation and a greater emphasis on the words of the people portrayed...." (28)
According to film scholar Denyse Therrien, the period from 1960 to 1976, when the Parti Québécois was voted into power, was one of changes. French Canadians became Québécois, with an identity and a language: "Joual ... the language of ... the street." During these years the new québécois cinema became "increasingly virile, misogynous and violent," exploring themes and events heretofore ignored or avoided by francophone filmmakers. (29)
It must also be noted that during the 1950s Le Bureau de film du Québéc was established. Also, the Québéc film-makers founded the Connaissance du Film in 1963, which would become La Cinémathéque Québécoise in 1971. (30) In 1964, the year-old Association Professionnelle des Cinéastes du Québéc presented a report to the governments of Québéc and Canada that detailed the necessity for allowing the Canadian and Québéc cinema, apart from the NFB, to develop without fear of censorship or interference. It also requested support from the government to aid in developing regional efforts in filmmaking. This report began the tradition of political lobbying by various cinema groups that continues to the present within Québéc Province. (31) Throughout the 1960s, a period known as "The Quiet Revolution," francophone Québéc began to demand ethnic recognition and political, if not ideological self-determination, from the dominant AngloCanadian national majority. Acting in a more militant independent fashion, and less as a people defeated by Empire and separated from their European French roots, the Québéc Francophones, intellectuals, artists, and political elite began a new critical examination of all that had occurred heretofore. Leading this retrospective of the FrenchCanadian concerns was Québéc cinema. In the films produced during the years of The Quiet Revolution, no aspect, however minute or trivial, of traditional values, attitudes, and struggles was ignored. Individual discontent, group conflict, urban versus rural values, the changing roles of the Church, the economy, sex and love, and, in the midst of it all, the new dramatis personae, i.e., the francophone Canadians emerging at last as Québécois. The inevitable result of this collective looking inward was the eventual demand for political separatism and self-determination for Québéc. (32)
The period from 1960 through the 1980s saw the evolution and expansion of the Québéc cinema from a provincial expression of ethnic frustration into an articulate, cinematically cogent industry producing films of world-class stature. Accompanying these films were the highly individualistic statements made by a growing number of "auteurs" attempting to define their aesthetic parameters in dealing with the lives and environmental considerations of the Québécois in Canada.
In any discussion of Québéc cinema, both the concept of the auteur principle and the technique of cinema direct are important, since so much of the basic identity of the industry was shaped and structured by these two elements. During the 1950s, there appeared in France a group of determined young film critics and directors who declared them selves anti-traditional. Their articles clamoring for a "new cinéma" first appeared in that country's leading film journal Cahiers du Cinéma founded by eminent critics André Bazin and Jacques D. Valcroze. Led by Frangois Truffaut, Jean Luc-Godard, and Eric Rohmer, among others, the "New Wave" group advocated an end to impersonal cinematic styles and supported the auteur philosophy, which stressed artistic control, expressive freedom, and personal style in direction, "independent of established industry practices." (33)
Although the movement gained great initial popularity and was responsible for some of the finest films made in France, by the mid-1960s it had peaked and begun to lose focus as many of its most ardent supporters explored different avenues of cinematic expression. Nevertheless, the impact of the New Wave Movement upon the international film industry was considerable. Especially among the emerging and evolving Québéc francophone filmmakers, the auteur philosophy was instantly accepted as one of the key principles of contemporary filmmaking.
The compatibility of the auteur principle allowed the emerging Québéc filmmakers to continue developing their own individual styles and forms of expression. Initially, for many this meant serving their apprenticeships at the National Film Board during the 1940s and 1950s, and later with the French Language Unit, where a wide degree of artistic freedom was encouraged. As such, they formed the essential cadre of cinéastes who would shape the emerging Québéc cinema and influence a new generation of filmmakers.
While development of cinéma diréct has its roots in the traditional documentary image, born in the late nineteenth century, film historians locate its development is the late 50s:
….when attempts shatter the traditional framework of the documentary film were accompanied by work on the tools of filmmaking-the [portable] camera and [direct recording] sound equipment.... In addition, the craftsmen of what would turn into the "direct" met, showed their films to each other, exchanged ideas, gimmicks, experiences; in particular at the [Robert] Flaherty Seminar held in Santa Margarita [California] in 1959, where Michel Brault met Jean Rouch and Claude Fournier met Richard Leacock.... (34)
In Canada, the documentary, firmly established by John Grierson at the National Film Board in 1939, continues in the present to be a major element of the production schedule. During the 1940s and 1950s, under the guidance of executive producer Tom Daly of Unit Roberge, first francophone director of the NFB (1957-1965), the use of new portable equipment was encouraged, along with experimental techniques that ultimately led to the successful development and adoption of cinéma diréct as one of the major cinematic techniques for both anglophone and francophone filmmakers. As such, it quickly became the primary tool by which Québéc filmmakers, such as Michel Brault, Pierre Perrault, Gilles GrouIx, and Marcel Carriére, would project the reality of contemporary Québéc and its francophone culture to the world. (35)
The sound-oriented cinéma diréct has been characterized by film scholar Paul Warren, as the perfect "tool for cinematic probing into the changing cultural milieu of francophone society.. . [since] Québec Cinema is ... real language in search of its images. . . ." (36) Prior to 1960 in Québéc, of course, the Catholic Church utilized both Latin and French to extol and reinforce traditional values centered in family and religion. During the 1960s, however, these values were displaced by the growing cultural discontent spreading through the province, known as the "Quiet Revolution."
Les Raquetteurs
It was during this time of discontent that Québéc francophone cinema became québéccois and, while searching for cultural reality, began to exercise greater influence as a central icon in the search for ethnic identification. Using Joual, the contemporary francophone films reinforced the fact that tile bonding of realistic images to an authentic common language was central to their society's cultural identity. Both the images presented, and the language spoken, confirmed this cultural reality and gave substance to it. In this way, the use of cinéma diréct in Québéc films not only served as a reflection, but also as a stimulus to an emerging Québécois society.
This self-searching quality, together with the growing artistic sophistication of the Québéc filmmakers, is evident in the films listed below, which represent a diversity of styles and themes. They range from short to feature-length documentary films utilizing the techniques of cinéma en diréct, to the eclectic docu-drama, and the feature-length fiction film. All are considered important examples of the maturing Québéc cinema and have been exhibited within Canada. Only a very few have had any significant distribution outside of the country.
In the short documentary category are: Gilles GrouIx's Les Raquetteurs/The Showshoers (1958), and Golden Gloves (1961); Michel Brault's La Lutte/Wrestling (1961); Jacques Godbout and Georges Dufaux's A Saint Henri le cinq septembre/Saint-Henri September 5 (1962); Clémont Perron's Jour après jour/Day after Day (1962); Arthur Lamothe's Bacherons de la Manouane/Manouane River Lumberjacks (1962); Michel Brault's Québec USA/Visit to Québéc (1962); Jean Claude Labrecque's La Visite du Général De Gaulle au Québec/lThe Visit of General De Gaulle to Québéc (1967). Collectively and individually, these short films utilize the intimate style of cinema direct to explore various conditions of Québécois life. They usually, but not always, center upon the work and leisuretime activities of the average francophone citizens in the province. (37) The longer and feature-length documentary allowed for a more detailed exposition of these themes. Some of the films in this group are:
La Visite du Général De Gaulle
Denys Arcand's On est au coton/We Are in Cotton (1970); Michel Brault and Pierre Perrault's L’Acadie L’Acadie/Acadia, Acadia (1971); Fernand Dansereau's Faut Aller Parmi L'Monde pour le savoir/It is Necessary to be among the Peoples of the World to Know Them (1971); Denys Arcand's Québéc: Duplessis et Après/Québéc: Duplessis and After (1972), and Le Confort et l’indifferénce/Comfort and Indifference (1981).
A third cinematic style popular with Québéc filmmakers was the documentary-drama, an eclectic combination of realism of image and dramatic exposition of character. In both short and longer, films, this style juxtaposes factual events with fictional or re-enacted dramatic segments. Some of the notable films are: Pierre Perrault's Pour la suite du monde/Moon Trap (1963); Gilles Grouix's Le Chat dans le sac/The Cat in the Bag (1964); Fernand Dansereau's Le Festin des morts/Mission of Fear (1965); Jean Claude Lord's Bingo (1974); and Michel Brault's Les Ordres/The Orders (1974).
The fourth and final category is the feature-langth fiction film. These films may differ in theme and personal style, but all tell a story usually derived from an aspect of francophone literature. Some are original works, and some are adaptations, but all listed here are considered examples of the artful Québéc francophone feature film. They include: Claude Jutra's À Tout Prendre/The Way It Goes (1963); Gilles Carie's
Le Chat dans le sac
La Vie heureuse de Leopold Z/The Happy World of Leopold Z (1965); Michel Brault's Entre la mer et l’eau douce/Dritting Upstream (1966); Jean Pierre LeFebvre's Il ne faut pas mourir pour Va/Don't Let It Kill You (1968); Paul Almond's Isabel (1968), and L’Acte du coeur/Act of the Heart (1970); Jacques Leduc's On est loin du soleil/We Are Far from the Sun (1970); Claude Jutra's Mon Oncle Antoine/My Uncle Antoine (1971); Mirelle Dansereau's La Vie rêvée/Dream Life (1972)--this film has the distinction of being the first fiction feature directed by a woman in Québéc. Other feature-length films are Gilles Carie's La Vraie Nature de Bernadette/The True Nature of Bernadette (1972); Claude Jutra's Kamouraska (1973); Denys Arcand's Réjeanne Padovani (1973); Jean Pierre LeFebvre's Les Dernières fiançailles/The Last Betrothal (1973); Jean Claude Labrecque's Les Vautours/The Vultures (1975); Denys Arcand's Gina (1975); Jean Beaudin's J. A. Martin Photographe/J. A. Martin Photographer (1977); Jean Pierre Lefebvre's Le Vieux Pays où Rimbaud est mort/The Old Country where Rimbaud Died (1977); Gilles Carie's L’Ange et la femme/The Angel and the Woman (1977), and Les Plouffe/The Plouffe Family (1981); Francis Mankiewicz's Les Bons Débarras/Good Riddance (1980); Léa Poole's La Femme de l’hôtel/Woman of the Hotel (1984); Francois Bouvier and Jean Beaudry's Jacques et novembre/Jacques and November (1984); Jean Beaudin's Mario (1984); Jean Claude Labrecque's Les Années de rêve/Years of Dreams and Revolt (1984); Micheline Lanctôt's Sonatine (1984); Justine Heroux's Le Mantou/The Tom Cat (1986); Jean Claude Lauzon's Un Zoo la nuit/Night Zoo (1988); Denys Arcand's Le Déclin de l‘empire americain/The Decline of the American Empire (1986); and Jésus de Montréal/Jesus of Montreal (1990).
Commenting on the vitality, volume, and creativity of Québéc cinema, historian Ian Lockerbie wrote: "What first astonishes the observer about Québéc Cinema is its sheer quantity. In proportion to population, its volume of production averaged out over the last twenty years [1967-1987] must be the highest in the world." (38)
Notwithstanding increased recognition and financial support, the distribution problem of Canadian films in Canada has not appreciably changed since 1987. The major problem is that the U.S.-controlled major theatre chains in Canada still account for about 92 percent of the total English language film revenues and 80 percent of the French box office. As a result, over the years, only a small percentage of Canadian audiences have had access to the domestic cinema product. However, this appears to be changing. (39)
Cordélia
In 1980, the Cineplex Odeon Corporation, a Canadian-owned theatre chain under the leadership of Garth Drabinsky, began a policy of expansion that has placed it in a position of international importance in the film exhibition industry. In 1986, the corporation purchased the Montreal-based France-Film Theatre chain and acquired twenty-six screens at fourteen Québéc locations, bringing the number of its theatres to ninety-five, in forty Québéc locations. In Montreal alone, Cineplex Odeon boasts forty-two screens in ten area theatres. (40) More significant is the fact that the Cineplex Odeon Corporation, through its aggressive expansion policy, had achieved, as of 1988, the status of the largest movie theatre chain in North America, with 1,320 screens in 450 locations, within six Canadian provinces and nineteen states in the United States. (41) The company's first international release was Le Déclin de l’empire americain, which enjoyed lucrative worldwide distribution. Distributed in the United States, the Déclin not only earned a strong box office but was critically well received: an unprecedented success, not only for Director Denys Arcand, but for the Québéc film industry as well. In no small measure was this success attributable to the Cineplex Odeon Corporation's ability to market and distribute films not only in Canada. but on an international scale never before possible in Canadian or Québéc cinema history. (42) On the immediate political horizon, Canada, in the context of the Free Trade Agreement, has sought a larger share of the American market for the Canadian film industry. Failure to achieve this result may lead to restrictive legislation designed to eliminate American domination of film distribution in Canada. (43) The proposed law, The National Film and Video Products Act, now tabled, proposed in part that:
The Govt. of Canada will regulate importation of film products into Canada in order to assure that Canada is accorded the status of a National Market for purposes of film distribution, and to encourage the development of a Canadian Distribution sector which is essential to a healthy Canadian Film Industry. (44)
Les Bons Débarras
More immediately significant for cinema in Québéc is the passage of the Québéc Cinema Act in 1988. Sections 104-105 of the Act specifically "prohibit independent foreign and Canadian Distributors from doing business in Québéc if they are not based in the Province or fail to meet specific qualifications criteria ." (41) The original intent of the Québéc Cinema Act was, of course, to encourage and protect the indigenous industry. In his support of this legislation, André Link, president of both L’Association Québécoise des distributeurs et exportateurs de films et de vidéo and the Institut Québécois du cinéma, stated:
Québéc is doing what must be done in order to protect its distribution industry... If you cannot control your own market then you cannot have your own industry.... Québéc has acted within its own jurisdiction. It is now up to the rest of Canada to act.... If the other provinces were to imitate Québéc you would have reciprocity across the country and Canada would be protected and unified once again. (46)
The growing popularity of Canadian and Québéc films, not only in Canada but also internationally, is succinctly reflected by the 1984 edition of the Toronto-based International Film Festival of Festivals program. On September 6 through 15, the Festival showcased the "largest retrospective of Canadian films ever assembled." (47) According to Director of Programming, S. Wayne Clarkson, the Northern Lights Program consisted of "more than 200 films covering the past 80 years of production in this country ranging from silent classics. . . the new Québéc cinema of the 60's and 70's, right up to the achievements of today." (45)
Also featured was the list of films voted Canada's Ten Best resulting from "...votes cast by ... leading journalists, lecturers and industry representatives for the ten films deemed best in our history." (49) In the Festival of Festivals Program, the following statement by Piers Handling Supervising Editor of Publications, explained, in part, the background and reasons for this international survey:
The occasion for the largest retrospective of Canadian films ever assembled seemed the right time to conduct this survey. It afforded us [the occasion] to take stock of what was the very best in Canadian cinema. We polled hundreds of critics ... film professors and academics; a large number of our most eminent film makers; and a lot of people integral to the Canadian film scene. Most were Canadian but we also decided to...include the opinions of some ofthe best-known international critics who would regularly see and review Canadian films. The response was illuminating. There were no restrictions placed on the kinds of films ... features, documentaries, experimental films, animation, short films were all eligible. When all the votes were tabulated the final list was established. We have decided to print the list of the top twenty-five films, which gives a broader picture of what was considered excellent. (50)
In a remarkable testament to the achievements of francophone cinema since-1960, thirteen of twenty-seven nonminations went to québécois films. Of those, six placed within the top ten, including a first and a third place, with another seven films in the eleven to twenty-five designations. In the field of twenty-seven nominated films, Québéc cinéastes had accounted for an astounding 50 percent of the number of total winners. (51) In the four years since the survey and the subsequent successful tour of Canada's Ten Best Films in the United States, filmmakers throughout Canada, and especially in Québéc, continue to produce films at an astounding rate. It is possible that the newly implemented Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States may result in a more favorable redistribution of cinema screentime for Canadian and Québéc films in both Canada and the United States.
Les Ordres
However, the future is still uncertain, as anglophone Canada and francophone Québéc continue to maintain an increasingly problematic association. Cultural values are at the heart of Québéc's differences with anglophone Canada, and Québéc filmmakers, in the search for cultural truth over the years, have been major contributors to this growing movement towards self-determination. The future will decide the ultimate outcome, but it is certain that the cinéma québécois continues to flourish in these uncertain and unsettling times. No doubt, now as in the past, it will continue to stimulate and to reflect the changing concerns of the people, whose vitality has given it life and substance.
SUNY College, Plattsburg
NOTES
1. Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own (New York: Doubleday Publishing Co., 1989), 1-7.
2. Gerald Pratley, Torn Sprockets (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1987). 13-22.
3. Pratley, Torn Sprockets, 13; and Yves Lever, Histoire Ggndrale du cinema au Québéc (Montr6al: Les editions du Bor6al, 1988), 27. Mr. Lever states that "On June 27, 1896, the first public projection [of motion pictures] on Canadian soil took place in Montreal at the Café-Concert Palace at 78 Rue Saint Laurent. . ..",This occurred six months after the Lumière Brothers premiere showing in Paris on December 28, 1895.
4. Pratley, Torn Sprockets, 14-16. Two ninety-minute NFB documentary films, Dream Land (1975), and Has Anyone Here Seen Canada (1978), examine in detail the early cinema history in Canada from 1896 through to 1939 and the founding of the NFB. Both films were made by historians Peter Morris and Kirwin Cox.
5. Pierre Véronneau, "The First Wave of Québéc Feature Films," in Self Portrait, ed. Pierre Véronneau and Piers Handling, (Ottawa: Canadian Film Institute, 1980), 54-63.
6. David Clandfield, "From the Picturesque to the Familiar: Films of the French Unit at the NFB (1958-1964)," in Take Two: A Tribute to Film in Canada, ed. Seth Feldman (Toronto: Irwin Publishing Co., 1984), 114.
7. Pierre Véronneau, "Chronology of Canadian and Québéc Cinema: 1896-1979," in Self Portrait, ed. Pierre Véronneau and Piers Handling, (Ottawa: Canadian Film Institute, 1980), 184-186.
8. Ibid., 183-84.
9. Peter Morris, The Film Companion (Toronto: Irwin Publishing Co., 1984), 292-93.
10. Ibid., 245.
11. Clanfield, "From the Picturesque to the Familiar," 114.
12. Morris, The Film Companion, 292; and Pratley, Torn Sprockets, 81.
13. Véronneau, "Chronology of Canadian and Québéc Cinema," 186; and Pratley, Torn Sprockets, 20-22.
14. Michel Houle, "Some Ideological and Thematic Aspects of the Québéc Cinema," in Self Portrait, ed. Pierre Véronneau and Piers Handling, (Ottawa: Canadian Film Institute, 1980), 162-63.
15. Véronneau, "The First Wave of Québéc Feature Films," 54-56.
16. Ibid., 54-63; and Pratley, Tom Sprockets, 81-95.
17. Pratley, Torn Sprockets, 81-82.
18. Ibid., 82-83; and Véronneau, "Chronology of Canadian and Québéc Cinema," 187-88.
19. Pratley, Torn Sprockets, 86.
20. Ibid., 86-96; and Véronneau, "The First Wave of Québéc Feature Films," 62-63.
21. Véronneau, "The First Wave of Québéc Feature Films," 63.
22. Michel Euvrard and Pierre Véronneau, "Direct Cinema," in Self Portrait, ed. Pierre Véronneau and Piers Handling, (Ottawa: Canadian Film Institute, 1980), 78.
23. Morris, The Film Companion, 228, 232.
24. Clanfield, "From the Picturesque to the Familiar," 113.
25. Houle, "Some Ideological and Thematic Aspects," 161-181.
26. Robert Daudelin, "The Encounter between Fiction and the Direct Cinema," in SeIfPortrait, ed. Pierre Vironneau and Piers Handling, (Ottawa: Canadian Film Institute, 1980), 95-106; and Euvrard and Véronneau, "Direct Cinema," 76-93. Both essays discuss the various aspects of the Direct Cinema movement and its founders.
27. Morris, The Film Companion, 243-244; and Daudefin, "The Encounter between Fiction and the Direct Cinema," 99-100.
28. Morris, The Film Companion, 243.
29. Denyse Therrien, "Evolution du langage dans le cinéma Québécois des années 60 à 80," in Words and Moving Images, ed. William C. Wees and Micheal Dorland (Montr6al: Mediatexte Publications, Inc., 1984), 192.
30. Véronneau, "Chronology of Canadian and Québéc Cinema," 190. In 1961, the Service de Cinéphotographie de la province de Québéc founded in 1941 changed its title to Le Bureau de Film du Québéc.
31. Ibid., 190-91.
32. Clanfield, "From the Picturesque to the Familiar, 122-23; and Houle, "Some Ideological and Thematic Aspects," 159-81.
33. James Monaco, The New Wave (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 3-12; see also Roy Armes, French Cinema (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 169-93.
34. Euvrard and Véronneau, "Direct Cinema," 79; and Armes, French Cinema, 186-87. At the 1959 Flaherty Seminar, the film Les Raquetteurs was shown by Michel Brault. The film's subsequent successful world-wide distribution provided encouragement to the francophone Québéc filmmakers.
35. Morris, The Film Companion, 78-81, 257.
36. Paul Warren, "Québéc Cinéma and the Cultural Matrix," Keynote Address, The Modern Québéc Film: A Symposium (East Lansing, Michigan State University, 7 April 1989).
37. D. J. Turner, Canadian Feature Film Index 1913-1985 (Ottawa: Moving Images and Sound Archives Division, 1985); and Connie Tadros, ed.. Cinema Canada (Montr6al: Cinema Canada Magazine Foundation, 1973 through 1990), Canada's foremost cinema periodical containing articles and critical reviews and interviews concerning all aspects of Canadian and Québéc film. Published monthly since 1973.
38. Ian Lockerbie, ed., Image and Identity. Theatre and Cinema in Scotland and Québéc (Sterling: The John Grierson Archives, University of Sterling, 1988), 79. Ian Lockerbie is a professor at the University of Sterling and author of Studies on French Literature and Cinema.
39.Cinema Canada 146 (November 1987):31. "Films made in Québéc occupied 10 percent of the screen-time in the province . . . for the first time since 1974. As a result seven Québéc ... distributors of Québéc films have shared a total of $150,000 from the Société générale du Québéc as a result of its automatic aid' program.'
40. Cinema Canada 134 (October 1986): 51.
41. Ibid.
42. Cinema Canada 159 (January 1989): 33. During 1988, Chairman Drabinsky has been forced to not only curtail expansion of Cineplex Odeon but to sell off a substantial part of the company's holdings in order to remain financially solvent. The financial problems seem to have been a result of too rapid an expansion.
43. Cinema Canada 152 (May 1988): 19-21.
44. Cinema Canada 157 (November 1988): 36. On October 3, 1987, the National Film and Video Products Act was tabled.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Piers Handling, Rena Polley, and Geoff Pevere, eds., Festival of Festivals. Toronto International Film Festival Programme Guide (Toronto: World Film Festival, Inc., 1984), 123. Presented from September 6-15, the program consisted of twelve film sections, galas, tributes, presentations, and a trade forum. Established in 1976, the Festival is an annual event.
48. S. Wayne Clarkson, "Festival Introduction," in Festival of Festidals: Toronto International film Festival Programme Guide, ed. Piers Handling, Rena Polley, and Geoff Pevere (Toronto: World Film Festival, Inc., 1984), 17.
49. Ibid.
50. Piers Handling, 'Canada's Ten Best," in Festival of Festivals. Toronto International Film Festival Programme Guide ed. Piers Handling, Rena Polley, and Geoff Pevere (Toronto: World Film Festival, Inc., 1984), 123-27.
51. The complete list of winning films in order of place is as follows. In undisputed first place, Mon Oncle Antoine (1971). In second place was Don Shebibs Goin’ Down the Road (1970). Les Bons Débarras (1979), placed third. Fourth place was won by Ted Kotcheff's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974). Philip Borsos's The Grey Fox (1982) and Les Ordres tied for fifth place, leaving the six place vacant. Two films, J. A. Martin Photographe (1974) and Pour la suite du monde (1963), tied for seventh place, leaving eighth place vacant. Two films tied for ninth place: Don Owen's Nobody Waved Goodbye (1964), and La Vraie Nature de Bernadette (1972), leaving tenth place vacant. Les Plouffe (1981), and Réjeanne Padovani(1973), were tied for eleventh place, leaving twelfth place vacant. Michael Snow's Wave Length (1967), and Le Vieux Pays òu Rimbaud est mort (1977), tied for thirteenth place, leaving fourteenth place vacant. Five films tied for fifteenth place: Le Chat dons le sac(1964), Don Shebib's Between Friends (1973), David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1982), Alan King's Warrendale (1966), and WilliamFruet'sWedding in White(1972). As a result, the sixteenth through nineteenth places were vacant. Four films tied for twentieth place: Les Dernière Mançailles (1973), Wolf Koenig's Lonely Boy (1961), and Norman McLaren's two films Neighbors (1952), and Pas de deux (1967). Because of this tie, the next three places remained vacant. In twenty-fourth place, four films also tied, leaving the twenty-fifth and last place vacant: Kamouraska (1973), André Forcier's Bar Salon (1973), Richard Benner's Outrageous! (1974) and R.L. Thomas's Ticket to Heaven (1981).