The Director's Fear of the Blank Screen

~cir The director's fear of the blank screen by Michael Dorland photos: LoisSiegel "On est toujours son seul Being proud, Forcier felt full of discri et propre referent" - Forcier mination. Journalists were neither proud nor discriminating, so you could tell them anything. That was what made Andre Forcier, 35 and a filmmaker, stared dealing with them such a mixture of morosely at the bottle of Brador before pleasure and revulsion - pleasure at the him. That morning he'd woken up feeling enormity of one's lies, followed by revul down. Now the down sat perched upon sion before one's own connerie. his shoulder like a pet monkey, nibbling Forcier sipped his beer and rehearsed. at his mind. Forcier would have liked to "These days I'm studied in colleges. drink himself into the comfortable Marc-Andre Forcier, born in '47 of a stupor where existential concerns no policeman father and a mother who longer obtrude. Instead, he had to do an was an operator for Bell Telephone. It interview, yet another interview, and was a Saturday during a heat-wave. force himself to answer all those stupid Baptised the next day at St-Edouard questions, that cannot be answered, like Church. At the age of one I fell in my f-. "'Why do you make films ?" and ""How do walker down two flights of stairs. The you situate yourself vis-a-vis Quebecois next day I was taken to the doctor for an filmmaking ?" examination. They found nothing wrong "Que/ con!"' Forcier muttered, in apparently. cluding himself in the expletive as well "It was just after the war. I have mem as the interviewer who would assail ories of myself at six months, at eight him with impossible questions. months, at a year-and-a-half Nobody Journalists, a collection of cons : not believes me. I can remember parades only impertinent but ignorant to boot. - in Montreal after the war there were a One, on television, after a long expose slew of marching bands. I remember on laxatives, had called Forcier "Mr. the Queens visit in 1952, on St-Denis Fortier," then had referred to Frank, one Street. I remember... getting plastered in of the central characters in Forcier"s Plattsburgh. I was born con, I" II die fourth feature Au c/air de la lune, as con." "Franck." Forcier impatiently brushed the hair Another, in print this time, had gone out of his eyes, and looked at the time. on about Forciers "instability"' or some "Theres no interview here," he such off-the-rack psychoanalytic key as thought, "because the basis of it all is the explanation of Forcier and his films whimsy. Why does one make films? To How can you explain life '" Forcier he loved? Because we hate ourselves? wondered. "Short of being con. you All that is just stupidity. There is nothing dont sit down before a blank piece of fundamental in the development of a paper or an empty screen and announce work of art. There is nothing that is that you wish to demonstrate some being shown. AU these pretentions at thing. Me, I don't want to explain any explanation are just things that are said thing. It's all just bullshit." afterwards." April 1983 - Cinema Canada/19 CLOStMrZ Forcier stared out the window. What were all kinds of rumors going around : from the film I wanted to make. what kind of bargaining power does was he doing sitting by a window, with that we were too young, and it was time "I wanted to make a film that escaped that give me? You English say, "You're the sun streaming in ? Forcier hated the we were taught a lesson. There were time. I didn't want to situate the film in only as good as your last film." This light. He'd always preferred the gloom "rumors that we'd run up debts, that it 'Quebecitude' or Canadianity - it was as morning I don't want to continue, and the rain. When he was four, he'd lie was a bad production, that we weren't if I'd intuited the worst blows. I wanted ""I didn"t want any of this. I wanted the to his mother just to be able to stay serious people. thefilm not tobeframedbyreality.I wanted film to come out in a small theatre ; they longer outside in the rain walking alone "Bar Salon was shot for $58,000 - the costumes to be beyond time, beyond said it could take a large theatre. They around the block, around and around. under budget; Nightcap ~ under budget, fashion. And Montreal not to be that of'69 put me before a fait accompli. So now I That was why he invented the character the only one of that NFB series ; L'eau any more than that of'80. I-wanted the give interviews, I go on TV. of Frank, an Albino, a person with a chaude l'eau frette. budgelted at $373,000 film outside of time - to protect it from "As for where it leaves me, it leaves horror of light. Was that really why ? Or came in at $368,000 - under budget; Le something I feared, as though 1 was ex me in the middle-income bracket of was it because he'd liked what Cioran the retour de Timmaculee Conception and pecting a catastrophe. Film Board directors, earning just under philosopher had written about the fear Chroniques labradoriennes I paid for "So I wanted a film shot entirely in $36,000 a year. Roughly whatafirst-class of light in his Precis de decomposition? out of my own pocket ; Au clair de la artificial decors, in which each natural police officer gets after four years. But Forcier didn't know: he didn't know tune - $912,000 : under budget. element of the decor would be trans that's importaht. Before, I didn't have anything, didn't know why he was here, "The wait lasted three years - three formed into artifice ; that's why I used credit cards. Now I've got a whole hand didn"l know why he'd agreed to this years during which it was impossible to colored lighting, that's why the fake ful and Mastercardhas called wantinglo interview. do anything. I was able to assemble the snowstorm, that's why the roman can boost my credit limit." '"It"s all whim. ,A11 that interests me, film but it was unfinished - there were dles in the wheel-rims, that's why the Forcier ordered another beer, slyly everything I live, are emotions. I wanted none of the special effects. In the mean aurora borealis. But these aren't effects', pleased with himself to start from scratch on a blank screen. time I got hired on as a director at the they're integral." "There is in Au clair de la lune a Yeah, that's it: I tell myself I'm mentally National Film Board. Tm very proud to Forcier laughed bitterly. certain lightness of tone that is taken for ill. I'm not normal. I was six years old be with the National Film Board of "So we played the lighting card, and the film's thesis when it isn't. There is and they were telling me I wasn't normal. Canada - it's a haven of freedom. we played the color card, we played all the tone of the film and there is its I'm sick. And I want to express myself "I've tried to forget all that; I've for the cards. Out of whimsy. It's all vanity. content; and the tone irritates because And I say there's nothing to say." gotten the time it took : I haven't count Why make films? For nothing. 1 don't , it is contradictory to the content. It's a Obsessions. Forcier obsessively ed the days. I suffered. Au clair de la know why I make films. light film ; you laugh a lot. The laughter emptied his beer and obsessively order lune is a film that I vomit forth. It was a "Yes, I know. I learned to make films is light, or rather it lightens, but is not ed another and continued to remember. nightmare. at school. I was good at it. At the itself light. It's a hypocritical film because I was fascinated by the idea of some "I didn't want to go back to it. I didn't Longueuil classical college, there was the tone does not fit with the content. one allergic to the light. And I had want to know anything about that film, an experimental course on filmmaking. II"s a snide film ; but then being is snide. another character who kept going Bernard Lalonde, one of my producers, Me, I was always last in my class in "There is cynicism in the special through my mind - someone with ar was tremendously supportive. When I method and I wasn't intelligent enough effects; that I admit. I don't know if thritis, with fingers so swollen they did get back to it, I'd almost lost all to learn Greek. Just as stupid as always. you"d call it a wink, I hope so. But I think could no longer fit into a bowling-ball. I contact with the film. I saw it as a They stuck me in a plastic arts and cine the courage of the characters surpasses wanted to do something in the tone of challenge : after all that had happened, ma major, and I showed talent at it ; all that.

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