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American Review of Canadian Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rarc20 Special Issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies on Québec Cinema Miléna Santoro a , Denis Bachand b , Vincent Desroches c & André Loiselle d a Associate Professor of French, and core faculty of the Film and Media Studies Program , Georgetown University b Professor with the Department of Communication, and Vice- Dean of Governance and Secretary of the Faculty of Arts , University of Ottawa c Associate Professor of French and coordinator for the Canadian Studies program at Western Michigan University d Professor of Film Studies and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies , Carleton University , Ottawa Published online: 14 Jun 2013.

To cite this article: Miléna Santoro , Denis Bachand , Vincent Desroches & André Loiselle (2013) Special Issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies on Québec Cinema, American Review of Canadian Studies, 43:2, 157-162, DOI: 10.1080/02722011.2013.795026 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02722011.2013.795026

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INTRODUCTION Special Issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies on Québec Cinema Guest Editors: Miléna Santoro, Denis Bachand, Vincent Desroches, and André Loiselle

Québec cinema has arrived. In a way reminiscent of the emergence of Québec literature in the 1960s, it has crossed a threshold. Québec’s literary history during this period can be illustrated by a list of important indicators, spurred by what was perceived as a national cultural emergency: small publishing houses started to grow and became more ambitious; the educational curriculum and literary canons were established; academic and journalistic criticism became institutionalized; literary prizes were endowed; and international recogni- tion of a few particularly successful novels and plays followed. Somewhat later, new forms and genres, such as science-fiction novels, mysteries, and children’s literature, began to appear. AsimilarprocesshasnowtakenplaceforQuébeccinema.Forbetterorforworse, the period of initial effervescence and experimentation, often artisanal and idealistic if not ideological, is past. There was once mostly goodwill and imagination (and very little money), but the industry has consolidated throughout the last decade. Cultural models of development borrowed from Europe include state funding and agency screening processes; those borrowed from United States include a growing awareness of market imperatives and investment value. Producers and distributors alike are thinking ahead about digital platforms. New genres, such as action thrillers and horror films, are reaching larger audi- ences. The public recognizes its favorite actors and follows them from film to film. Québec films often figure on the list of winners at prestigious festivals. Indeed, a Québec film has been a finalist in the Oscar category for Best Foreign-language Film for three consecutive years ( in 2011; in 2012; Rebelle in 2013). Perhaps the most glamorous sign of Québec cinema’s emergence on the interna- tional scene was ’s winning the 2003 Best Foreign-language Oscar for Les Invasions barbares.Aftertwounsuccessfulnominationsinthe1980s—Le Déclin de l’empire américain (1986) and Jésus de Montréal (1989)—Arcand’s Academy Award win in the early 2000s signaled that the Québec film industry had finally arrived. With a 22-minute standing ovation at Cannes and two of its most prestigious awards (best actress Downloaded by [Washington State University Libraries ] at 10:33 27 July 2015 and best screenplay), rave reviews at home and abroad, more than $35 million at the box office worldwide (a record for a Québec film), a César for best French film (Les Invasions is a Canada–France co-production), and of course the Oscar, Arcand’s sequel to Le Déclin de l’empire américain can safely be hailed as the greatest success of Québec cinema. This isn’t to say that Les Invasions barbares is considered the supreme artistic accomplishment in French–Canadian film history. Generally, the classics of Québec cinema—’s (1971), ’s (1974), and ’s Les bons débarras (1980)—rank higher on lists of “best Québec films ever made” than Les Invasions barbares.NorisitthemostpopulardomesticfilmamongtheQuébécois

©2013ACSUS 158 Introduction

themselves. Charles Binamé’s Séraphin, un homme et son péché (2002), Jean-François Pouliot’s La grande séduction (2003), Éric Canuel’s Bon Cop, Bad Cop (2006). and Émile Gaudreault’s De père en flic (2009), all surpassed Les Invasions barbares at the box office. However, considering its overall critical and commercial achievements, its cultural reso- nance in Québec and Canada, as well as its unprecedented succès d’estime in international film circuits, Arcand’s bittersweet look at generational reconciliation in the face of death represents the culmination of Québec cinema’s evolution over the last 50 years and stands as undeniable evidence of its maturity. To be fair, Hollywood and the world did not discover Québec cinema just 10 years ago. Montrealer Arthur Lipsett is one of the very rare 1960s avant-garde filmmakers who could claim to have influenced both George Lucas and Stanley Kubrick. Since 1963, when Michel Brault and ’s landmark feature-length documentary became the first Canadian entry in the official competition at Cannes, Québec films have regularly won prizes at international festivals and enjoyed some commercial success abroad. Mon Oncle Antoine won the top prize at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1971. Denis Héroux’s soft-core melodrama Va l é r i e (1968) traveled far and wide as a “blue movie” and made Danielle Ouimet an international star for a brief period of time in the early 1970s, appearing most memorably in Harry Kümel’s masterpiece of vampire erotica, Daughters of Darkness (1971). ’s Les Plouffe (1981) became a hit in France in the early 1980s. Michel Poulette’s clever critique of reality television, Louis 19, le roi des ondes (1994) was remade by Hollywood A-list director Ron Howard as EDtv (1999). And, more recently, the international success of Starbuck (2011) led Dreamworks studio to hire director to do an English version of his original film, which he co-wrote with Martin Petit. In spite of significant achievements preceding this most recent generation’s success, it is only since the turn of the millennium that Québec cinema has managed to produce a sustained flow of both critical and commercial successes that consistently earn more than 10 percent of the box office receipts in the province. By contrast, a comparable film industry such as Australia’s has earned on average only 4.2 percent of domestic film revenue over the first decade of the twenty-first century. The Québec film industry’s share of domestic revenue even reached over 20 percent in 2005, when an unprecedented five home-grown films grossed more than $3 million in the province. Jean-Marc Vallée’s coming-of-age “dramedy” C.R.A.Z.Y. led the way that year, grossing more than $5.2 million.1 Given the extraordinary vitality that Québec cinema has demonstrated since 2000, it seemed both timely and important to attempt to trace its growth and understand and identify the varied voices and visions that have come to inhabit and contribute to this exciting new cinematic landscape.

Downloaded by [Washington State University Libraries ] at 10:33 27 July 2015 This special issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies brings together eight critical perspectives on Québec cinema from leading Canadian and American scholars, as well as two fascinating interviews with the directors of the key governmental funding agencies for the film industry, Telefilm and SODEC, on the federal and provincial levels, respectively. As these interviews show, leaders of funding agencies are acutely aware of market forces and are searching for ways to maximize commercial success and distribution even while affording opportunities for new talent to emerge. Despite a stringent fiscal envi- ronment, agencies such as Telefilm and SODEC are responding to the new digital media revolution, or what some have called convergence culture, by developing new initiatives and fundraising efforts to assist in leveraging their own budgets and those of film producers in Québec and Canada, more generally. It is important to understand the shifting parame- ters and expectations within the funding milieu in order to grasp why certain kinds of films American Review of Canadian Studies 159

are easier to fund than others, a situation that has a direct impact on the tendencies and diversity of contemporary film production in Québec. The first critical article presented here deals directly with one such tendency: deterrito- rialization. Amy Ransom examines three films by three noteworthy auteurs—Post Mortem (Louis Bélanger, 1999), Maelström (, 2000) and Un crabe dans la tête (André Turpin, 2001)—in pursuit of this motif that distances some of Québec’s more recent productions from the nationalist identity politics of earlier times. Indeed, Ransom sees these films as participating in a post-national discourse where cosmopolitanism and multicultural urban life are no longer seen as threats to the identity of the Québécois pro- tagonists whose crises are portrayed as more individual than collective. They no longer seem implicated in a broader struggle for cultural or linguistic survival. Gina Freitag and André Loiselle similarly argue that contemporary cinema has moved away from traditional Québécois identity politics. But rather than focusing on auteur films, they investigate the recent rise of the popular horror film genre as a striking instance of diversification in the provincial film industry. Citing the success of movies such as -Podz’s Les 7 jours du talion (2010) and Éric Tessier’s Sur le seuil (2003), both adaptations of bestselling novels by Patrick Senécal, Freitag and Loiselle suggest that the advent of the French-language horror film over the past decade manifests a multi- plicity of important transformations that position the tale of terror as one of the most informative objects of analysis in contemporary mainstream Québec cinema. Central to their argument is that the current increase of genre films parallels the sense of cultural fragmentation that now characterizes the province. Narratives of brutal death and spec- tacles of bloody laceration can be seen as a creative response to this paradigmatic social shift marked by internal conflicts and a latent distrust of conventional social identification. Of course, there are always films and filmmakers that defy categorization or contain- ment within the mainstream tendencies of any culture. Jerry White’s article on director Bernard Émond reveals a trajectory and a focus that run counter to the prevailing currents, for Émond’s recent films offer both a critique of, and a return to, certain fundamental char- acteristics of Québec’s cultural history and identity. With a particular focus on Émond’s “Christian virtues” trilogy (La Neuvaine, Contre tout espérance, and La Donation ), White demonstrates how the director’s radical vision expresses his desire to “recover a Québec culture that he sees as endangered by a homogenising form of modernity.” By contrast, Denis Bachand’s study of immigrant films reveals the extent to which Québec cinema is in fact reflecting a society evolving away from homogeneity given the presence and influence of those from elsewhere or from minority backgrounds. As Bachand notes, since the turn of the millennium, more and more Québec films depict protagonists of

Downloaded by [Washington State University Libraries ] at 10:33 27 July 2015 Arab origins in particular. This is the case for L’ange de goudron [Tar Angel](2001)by Denis Chouinard, which exposes an intergenerational conflict that demonstrates the dif- ficulty of reconciling one’s heritage and one’s newly adopted culture in an era marked by massive population displacement, hybridization, and plural identities. This landmark work points to an increasing tendency to recognize and portray ’s cosmopolitan complexion in contemporary films. Québec’s perceptions of the United States are highlighted in Robert Morin’s film Que Dieu Bénisse l’Amérique [God Bless America](2006)setonSeptember11,2001.Vincent Desroches’ article aims to show the political and cultural implications of this allegorical narrative. Morin’s original cinematic treatment of suburbia and of the 9/11 attacks points to a critique of Americanization and a renegotiation of Américanité —a term used by the- orists in Québec to describe a common imaginary or sense of continental belonging that is 160 Introduction

not exclusively US-identified. Morin’s surprising finale rejects the cycle of violence inau- gurated by the 9/11 attacks (amplified since by two retaliatory wars), thus establishing a distance between Québec’s deep-seated values and the recent reiterations of the manifest destiny of the United States. By contrast with Deroches’ look at Morin’s idiosyncratic and often socially acer- bic films, Alessandra Pires analyzes Benoît Pilon’s equally remarkable penchant for restrained and respectful portraits of individuals and communities in his 20-year career as a filmmaker. Pilon’s filmography, which includes award-winning documentaries, has been marked by the successful feature Ce qu’il faut pour vivre [] (2008) and his most recent film Décharge [Trash](2011),whichrevealsboththedarker side of urban life and the potential for redemption, as figured by the concept of katabasis— adescentintoandemergencefromthedepthsofhumandegradation.Pires’sanalysisand overview of Pilon’s career offers overdue recognition of both the coherence and originality of his maturing oeuvre. Of course, Québec auteurs such as Pilon and Morin, even more so than more com- mercially minded filmmakers, have been able to launch and sustain a career primarily because of the resources offered by federal and provincial funding institutions. At the time of printing, massive cuts in the Canadian federal government budget have already affected and will continue to affect cultural institutions dramatically. The National Film Board, an iconic institution that for decades played a crucial role in cultural cohesion and awareness, has been especially hard hit. The CinéRobothèque in Montreal and the Mediatheque in , as well as the Montreal office on Saint-Denis, permanently closed as of September 2012. Grants to festivals have been eliminated. Cuts also affect production budgets and will assuredly result in personnel reductions if they have not already done so. These federally mandated cuts, which will sound familiar to Canadianists in the United States, triggered numerous protests in Montreal during the tumultuous spring of 2012, but have nonetheless been implemented, ultimately with little in the way of sustained media attention or reaction. In this issue, Marion Froger writes about the likely effects of such cuts on public access to Canada’s and Québec’s cinematic heritage, even as she traces the shifting policies of the NFB in response to the new media landscape with its increased if not exclusive emphasis on digital platforms for both archival materials and future productions. As illustrations of the importance of “filiation,” or the ability to return to or draw inspiration from the NFB’s tradition and archives, Froger considers two recent films, Wow 2 (Jean-Philippe Duval, 2001) and ÀSaintHenri,le26août(Shannon Walsh, 2011), both of which revisit film concepts of the 1960s and reveal a desire for a social bond in ways that recall the founding Griersonian notion of the NFB as an institution where film can become a tool for constructing community and fostering societal cohesion.

Downloaded by [Washington State University Libraries ] at 10:33 27 July 2015 Although the recent climate is not as promising as it once was, particularly for the development of new talent, the past two decades have seen the emergence of indigenous filmmaking on an unprecedented scale with productions involving First Nations creative talent both in front of and, increasingly, behind the camera. Miléna Santoro’s article on indigenous directors Shelley Niro (Mohawk), Jeff Barnaby (Mi’gmaq), and Yves Sioui Durand (Huron-Wendat) highlights the ways in which each filmmaker negotiates the past and present plight of their people, and the conventions of a medium in which Natives have long been objects of an imaginary that was not their own. That there are now increasing opportunities for First Nations directors to fashion their own images was made clear this spring when Jeff Barnaby’s script for Rhymes for Young Ghouls won the Tribeca All Access Creative Promise award.2 Encouraged in large part by government funding, including the NFB’s resources and programs, as well as by the deployment of the traveling studio and American Review of Canadian Studies 161

mentors of the Wapikoni Mobile, an initiative launched by Manon Barbeau, many young Native artists are now able to envisage filmmaking careers. It seems fitting, then, to round out this issue with Karine Bertrand’s profile of the Wapikoni Mobile and her interview with Barbeau. The works and opportunities created thanks to the Wapikoni Mobile initiative, along with the pioneering examples of directors such as Barnaby, Durand, and Niro, suggest that Native feature films will almost certainly be one of the trends to watch for in the next decade of Québec cinema. As the articles gathered here demonstrate, Québec cinema is indeed a rich and increas- ingly diversified art form, and has taken its place on the world stage in the last decade alongside some of Québec’s other renowned cultural exports. While clearly not command- ing the earning power of (whose 2012 Metropolitan Opera production of Wagner’s Ring cycle reputedly had a $16 million budget3), of Céline Dion (whose first show in Las Vegas grossed $400 million during its five-year run ending in 20074), or of the Cirque du Soleil’s many shows that are estimated to attract some 15 million spectators in 20125 (founder Guy Laliberté claimed more than $800 million in annual revenue in a 2009 New York Times article6), Québec cinema in the last decade has attained an unprecedented level of critical and box-office success. Indeed, while the number of Québec feature films or co-productions averages between 25 and 35 annually,7 it is worth noting that 75 per- cent of the top 20 box-office successes made in Québec since 1985 have been released since 2000.8 Given that the province’s population is not quite eight million, it is clear that Québec is punching above its weight in its ability to sustain this level of production and productivity. Indeed, no other single Canadian province comes even close to the kind of international cachet that Québec’s cinema and its other cultural exports enjoy. In this sense, then, Québec cinema is indeed but the most recent example of the Québécois’ ability to translate their cultural specificity into an enduring and increasingly appreciated source of cultural and economic vitality.

Miléna Santoro, Associate Professor of French, and core faculty of the Film and Media Studies Program, Georgetown University Denis Bachand, Professor with the Department of Communication, and Vice-Dean of Governance and Secretary of the Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa Vincent Desroches, Associate Professor of French and coordinator for the Canadian Studies program at Western Michigan University Downloaded by [Washington State University Libraries ] at 10:33 27 July 2015 André Loiselle, Professor of Film Studies and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa

Notes 1. For up-to-date statistics on the film industry see “Films du Québec” at filmsquebec.over- blog.com. For statistics on the Australian film industry see “Screen Australia” at http://www. screenaustralia.gov.au. 2. At the time of writing, the film is in development as Barnaby’s first feature. 3. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/arts/music/robert-lepages-first-complete-ring-concludes- at-met.html?ref robertlepage&_r 0(accessedSeptember21,2012). = = 162 Introduction

4. See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,316993,00.html (accessed September 21, 2012). 5. http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/home.aspx#/en/home/about/details/cirque-du-soleil-at-a- glance.aspx (accessed September 21, 2012). 6. http://theater.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/theater/29circ.html?pagewanted 1&_r 2&hp& adxnnl 1&adxnnlx 1348248487-ikyDQHXLvCDXsAGSM66hWg (accessed= = September 21, 2012). = = 7. http://www.stat.gouv.qc.ca/donstat/societe/culture_comnc/film/produc_cinema/prod_cine_t_ 15_2010_an.htm (accessed September 21, 2012). 8. Benoit Allaire et Martin Tétu, dirs., Statistiques sur l’industrie du film et de la production télévi- suelle indépendante, Edition 2011, tome I, (Gouvernement du Québec, Institut de la statistique du Québec) 53. Downloaded by [Washington State University Libraries ] at 10:33 27 July 2015