THE MIRROR OF SIMULATION IN DENYS
By
Robert J. Roy
Submitted to the
Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences
of American University
in Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
In
Literature
Chair:
/ Jeffpey MjddenfsSs^
David L. Pike
Dean 6f the College
Date 0
2006
American University
Washington, D.C. 20016 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
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Copyright 2006 by Roy, Robert J.
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ARC AND ’ S JESUS OF MONTREAL
BY
Robert J. Roy
ABSTRACT
This paper will argue that in the filmJesus of Montreal, Denys Arcand
foregrounds the ways in which the Catholic Church and commercial culture exert control
over their respective signs (the traditional retelling of the Jesus’ Passion and the
actors/actresses who comprise the commercial sign, respectively), with emphasis on how
this creates a mirroring effect within the text. I will argue that in doing this, Arcand
offers a critique of the cultural landscape after the Quiet Revolution: that Montreal may
be moving towards a kind of media-controlled culture and in effect trading one corrupt
regime (Catholicism) for another (commercialism).
ii
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT...... ii
Chapter
THE MIRROR OF SIMULATION IN DENYS ARCAND’S JESUS OF MONTREAL...... 1
FILM SUMMARY...... 2
BAUDRILLARD AND SYMBOLIC EXCHANGE...... 4
THE CHURCH’S CONTROL OF THE SIGN...... 7
THE QUIET REVOLUTION AND THE DYING CHURCH...... 16
THE MODERN ARTIST VERSUS THE COMMERCIAL CITY...... 20
THE COMMERCIAL CITY AND THE LOGIC OF THE CODE...... 26
HYPERREAL COMMERCIALISM IN JESUS OF MONTREAL...... 29
THE COMMERCIAL CITY VERSUS ART AS ARTIFICIAL/REAL DIALECTIC...... 31
THE MIRROR OF SIMULATION: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE COMMERCIAL CITY...... 35
BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 40
iii
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A R CA N D ’S JESUS OF MONTREAL
Commentators on Denys Arcand’s film Jesus of Montreal (1989) have
noted that the central conflicts that take place in the film primarily involve three distinct
entities: the protagonist Daniel Coulombe (Lothar Bluteau) and his troupe, the church
authorities, and the advertising or commercial industry.1 The analysis of this conflict
typically unfolds along the following lines: on the one hand, you have Daniel versus the
Catholic Church authorities, and on the other, there is Daniel verses commercialism or
commercial culture in general. Simplifying critical arguments in this way does not do
these analyses justice, of course. But generalizing the conflict of the film in this way
does offer a strategic advantage in that it serves to abstract the (often slippery) forces that
surround Daniel into generalizations - structures - so that the logic by which these
structures operate can be made apparent. This paper, then, will foreground the
relationship between these three players within the film, focusing on how they interact
and (as I will argue) mirror each other in their attempts to keep and/or gain control of
their characteristic signs: those signs being the Catholic Church’s control of the Jesus
story and commercial culture’s control over the actors and actresses that appear in media
generated objects. In highlighting these similarities, Arcand is offering a subversive
1 1 See Stone (59), Marshall (294), and Testa (107) for examples.
1
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critique of Quebecois culture by reversing a key political doctrine. In moving away from
a church controlled political landscape after the Quiet Revolution - lauded by many on
the left in Quebec as being a step in the right direction - Montreal may be moving
towards a kind of media-controlled culture and in effect simply be trading one corrupted
regime for another.
FILM SUMMARY
Jesus o f Montreal begins with a stage adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s The
Brothers Karamazov. After the play ends one of the actors, Pascal Berger greets his
friend, Daniel Coulombe, who says that in his next acting role, he will play the part of
Jesus. We soon learn that Daniel has been contracted by a priest, Father Leclerc, to
modernize the very dated and poorly attended Passion play at a local Catholic shrine in
Montreal. Daniel begins to gather a troupe of four actors from various professions
around Montreal. First he draws Constance, an unemployed actress working in a soup
kitchen, then Martin who has been dubbing foreign pornographic films into French. The
third actor that Daniel draws is Mireille, a television commercial model, and finally
Rene, who has been doing the voiceover for a documentary about the origins of the
universe.
Daniel begins going to the library in order to research the historical Jesus
and later meets a “Deepthroat-esque” seminary professor who informs him of some of
the modem scholarship being conducted on Jesus, yet warns Daniel of the church’s
unaccepting stance towards such new discoveries. The troupe has a successful opening
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night, but the clerics in charge of the play disapprove of the unorthodox production and
demand revisions. Daniel then accompanies Mireille to a beer commercial audition and,
reacting against the abuse of Mireille during the auditions, he destroys some expensive
television equipment. At the end of the troupe’s second performance, Daniel is arrested
and put on trial. He refuses the help of a lawyer, Richard Cardinal (Yves Jacques), who
offers him a lucrative career in the media spotlight.
Soon after, the authorities at the shrine demand heavy revisions on
Daniel’s new script and Leclerc finally orders the show to be canceled. The members of
the troupe, however, perform the original play regardless of the consequences. During
the play, a scuffle occurs during the crucifixion sequence and the cross is toppled,
seriously injuring Daniel in the process. Daniel is then taken to the emergency room of a
French hospital, but due to overcrowding he cannot be seen immediately. Because his
injuries do not seem as serious as was thought, he and two of the women from the troupe
leave the hospital and Daniel collapses in the metro station. He is rushed to a local
Jewish hospital and soon afterwards is declared brain-dead. A doctor asks if he may use
Daniel’s organs for transplants and the film follows two of the patients - a man whose
life is saved by Daniel’s heart and a woman whose vision is restored with his
transplanted eyes. The lawyer, Richard Cardinal asks the troupe if they would like to
begin a commercial theater in Daniel’s memory and all say that they would, except
Mireille who is upset by the proposal.
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BAUDRILLARD AND SYMBOLIC EXCHANGE
Jesus of Montreal depicts a city in which simulacra - or, reproductions of
objects or events - have come to dominate everyday life. The Catholic Church offers
reproductions such as statues, the Stations of the Cross, and the traditional retelling of
Christ’s death, which is dramatized in the Passion Play. There is the production of The
Brothers Karamazov that prefaces the fdm and later the theater troupe offers their own
reproduction of the Passion play. But perhaps the most pervasive of the simulacra that
are represented in Jesus of Montreal can be seen in the media-generated reproductions
(images, advertisements) that dominate the landscape of Montreal, such as Pascal’s
headshot, a perfume and beer commercial, radio and televised commentary/interviews,
etc.
Theory regarding the omnipresence of simulacra in society are taken up
explicitly by French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard - especially in the bookSymbolic
Exchange and Death (1976)2 - and will be especially useful because Baudrillard presents
a theory of how simulacra have come to dominate social life, phenomenologically and
historically speaking. According to Baudrillard, “orders of simulacra” form identifiable
stages or “orders of appearance” in the relationship between simulacra and “the real.”
Baudrillard’s theoretical framework will be especially useful in highlighting the shifts
that occur when a society (such as Quebec) transitions from a feudal society to a modem,
product-based market economy (industrialization), and later to a more advanced stage of
capitalism characterized by an image/sign-based economy (commercialization).
2 Hereafter Symbolic Exchange.
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According to Baudrillard, what we consume - from a structural
perspective - are signs (messages, images) rather than commodities. In a summary of
Baudrillard’s theory of the commodification of the sign, Ritzer notes that
Commodities are no longer defined by their use, but rather by what they signify. And what they signify is defined not by what they do, but by their relationship to the entire system of commodities and signs. There is an infinite range of difference available in this system and people therefore are never able to satisfy their need for commodities, for difference. It is this that in Baudrillard’s view helps account for the seeming insatiability and -5 continual dissatisfaction of consumers.
Baudrillard supplements structuralism with a series of other theoretical ideas derived
from Durkheim, Veblen, and especially Marx. Baudrillard’sSymbolic Exchange and
Death is an attempt to overcome the limitations of Marxist theory - a tradition that has
been criticized by many, including Baudrillard, for privileging the economic sphere
above all others - by developing a new perspective that takes into account what he terms
“symbolic exchange.” In his writings, particularly those of the 1970s, “symbolic
exchange” comes to stand for a variety of heterogeneous activities, which do not
contribute to capitalist production and accumulation, and by extension constitute the
“radical negation” of productivist society. Influenced by the cultural theories of Georges
Bataille, Marcel Mauss, and Alfred Jarry, “symbolic exchange” emerges as Baudrillard’s
alternative to the practices and values of capitalist society in general. InSymbolic
Exchange, Baudrillard extends this analysis by claiming that pre-capitalist societies were
governed by laws of symbolic exchange rather than production and utility.4
3 Ritzer’s introduction to Baudrillard’s The Consumer Society p.7 4 The above analysis of “symbolic exchange” is adapted from Kellner, p. 44.
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Baudrillard takes as his examples of objects that engage in “symbolic
exchange,” those that engage in a meditation on the real, through their transparency:
There once existed a specific class of objects that were allegorical, and even a bit diabolical, such as mirrors, images, works of art (and concepts?); of course, these too were simulacra, but they were transparent and manifest.. .they had their own style and characteristic savoir faire. (1988:146)
The theater of course fits under the category of objects that Baudrillard labels “works of
art,” and the transparency of the theater in Jesus of Montreal is evident in many
instances. One of the most significant of these is Arcand’s refusal to use backdrops
during the Passion Play performances, which allows for the lights of the city or the
church in the background to shine through. Also significant is his tendency to show the
audience watching the performance, who stand in the background and also receive their
own exclusive shots throughout the play. On Mont Royal, something is nearly always
present to break the mimetic effect of art during these performances. This can be directly
contrasted with the two advertisement productions that we see in the film - perfume and
beer - where in both we immediately see the commercial spectacle and no hint of the
production that surrounds it until a few moments pass and Arcand allows us to see this
production taking place (lights, cameras, choreography, etc). This allows Arcand to
show the encapsulated nature of the commercial sign: without hint of production, the
mimetic effect is able to take place, bringing us under the control of the commercial sign.
This is only one of the ways in which Arcand distinguishes the artistic production from
commercial production.
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THE CHURCH’S CONTROL OF THE SIGN
But we are getting ahead of ourselves: we have already moved into the
second order of simulation without having described what an “order of simulation” is. In
Symbolic Exchange, Baudrillard sketched a fundamental dividing line in history between
symbolic societies (i.e., societies fundamentally organized around pre-modem or
symbolic exchange) and productivist societies (i.e., societies organized around
production and commodity exchange).
The initial outline of this new social situation contains a historical sketch
of the different orders of simulacra that begins before the Renaissance where, according
to Baudrillard’s analysis, signs were much more fixed and obligatory then they are today.
Baudrillard uses fashion as a way of understanding the social organization of societies of
caste and rank, arguing that there is no need for fashion in such societies because class
mobility is non-existent. For example, a peasant cannot dress as someone of a higher
social standing and expect to be taken for someone of higher social standing. Baudrillard
points out that “In these societies, signs are shielded by a prohibition that assures their
absolute clarity: each sign refers unequivocally to a (particular) situation and a level of
status” (1988:136). No counterfeit is possible in such societies, unless as black magic
and sacrilege, thus any confusion of signs is punished, “as grave infraction of the order
of things.”
In Jesus of Montreal, the Catholic Church is depicted as such an “archaic
society.” In the film, one example of this can be seen in the representations of the
Stations of the Cross, a tradition that the Catholic Church has practiced since the middle
ages. We see the first depiction of the stations at the beginning of the film when Father
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Leclerc shows Daniel a video recording of “The Way of the Cross,” a dramatized version
of the Passion play that the church puts on every year. The actors in the video are
dressed in white tunics and in overly dramatic fashion, they act out an orthodox version
of Christ’s sentencing:
Actor I: First station: Jesus is sentenced to die. Actor II: The just man must die. Actress: Why? Actor I: Because He is just and we are not. Actress: He will bear our murders. [...] He falters under the weight of our sins.
An orthodox representation such as this would fall under Baudrillard’s formulation of an
archaic or pre-Renaissance culture in that it adheres closely to the biblical story of
Christ’s death. The stations are viewed as being merely a “reflection of the basic reality”
that are believed to exist beneath the biblical text itself (1988:170).
According to Baudrillard, after the middle ages, Western societies
underwent a series of changes in the relationship between simulacra and “the real” - a
“precession of simulacra” occurred - each corresponding to three distinct orders of 1 simulation:
Three orders of simulation.. .have succeeded one another since the Renaissance:
- The counterfeit is the dominant scheme of the “classical” epoch, from the Renaissance to the industrial revolution.
- Production is the dominant scheme of the industrial era.
- Simulation is the dominant scheme of the present phase of history, governed by the code.
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Simulacra of the first order play on the natural law of value; those of the second order play on the commodity law of value; and those of the third order play on the structural law of value (1988:135)
According to Baudrillard, modernity broke with the fixed feudal-medieval hierarchy of
signs and social positions by introducing an artificial world of signs (stucco, theater,
fashion, baroque art, political democracy) which exploded fixed medieval hierarchies
and order (Kellner 78). Baudrillard points out that with the Renaissance also comes the
birth of the theater and with it the reign of the “emancipated sign,” which inaugurates the
first order of simulation: that of the counterfeit. As it is opposed to the signs of
feudal/archaic/caste societies - which prohibit “free production” - the “classical” period
is characterized by a “proliferation of signs according to demand” (1988:136). The
clarity of the signs in the previous era relied on the control and restrictions that were
placed on the obliged sign. But it is the multiplication of signs during the renaissance
that brings the obligatory sign - that is, the transparent sign that religious rule relies upon
- into question, through the proliferation of counterfeit signs.
No longer discriminating (but only competitive), relieved of all barriers, universally available, the modem sign nevertheless simulates necessity by offering itself as a determinate link to the world. The modem sign dreams of the sign anterior to it and fervently desires, in its reference to the real, to rediscover some binding obligation. But it finds only a reason: a referential reason, the real - the “natural” on which it will feed. (1988:136)
The modem sign, according to Baudrillard, always seeks such a natural referent and in
the case of Jesus of Montreal, this drive at seeking the “truth behind the appearance” is
embodied by Daniel and can especially be seen in his production of the Passion play.
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Throughout the film, Daniel repeatedly attempts to destabilize a one-to-
one relationship between the biblical Jesus and the historical Jesus or the signifier and
the signified, the obligatory pre-Renaissance sign. At the beginning of the film,
immediately after the opening credits, Father Leclerc asks Daniel to “modernize” the
Church’s Passion play that is now somewhat dated after forty years of being performed.
Daniel then ventures out into the city of Montreal to gather a troupe that can perform the
Passion and begins doing research for his character, Jesus.
Early in the film, Daniel is approached by a theologian from the seminary
in Montreal, who informs Daniel that because the faculty is funded directly by the
archdiocese, they are not able to say whatever they want (at least not publicly). He
informs Daniel of some recent developments in the academic study on Jesus’ life and
times. For example, he points to archeological discoveries that have occurred since
Israel annexed its new territories, as well as new computer analyses of the texts, and new
translations of the Talmud. “We’re beginning to understand who he really was,” says the
theologian.
In this scene, sacred texts such as the Bible are no longer taken as simple
historical referents. According to the theologian, rather, it is modem scholarship that is
capable of answering the question of who Jesus “really was,” maintaining that there is in
fact an underlying truth beneath the story of Christ, but that this truth must be unearthed
by modern historians and archeologists. We next see Daniel in a library researching
crucifixion. Open on the desk in front of him is a book that shows Jesus in a very
different position than that which is seen on traditional iconography. His legs are
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brought up towards his chest and turned to the side, rather than straight up and down as
is seen in so much Christian artwork.
Daniel’s Passion Play is an amalgamation of these new pieces of
evidence, weaving together much of the information Daniel gained from the theologian,
plus some evidence he gained in the library. During the first performance of the Passion
Play, the troupe breaks momentarily with the dramatized historical narrative and we see
Mireille and Constance (dressed as archeologists) approach the recreation of an
archeological site on the side of Mount Royal. In this scene, the archeologists question
whether Jesus - who is said to have been called Jesu Ben Pantera (son of Pantera) by the
Jews - might actually have been the illegitimate child of a Roman soldier. This is
depicted in the play when Constance reads from an order that documents the transfer of a
Roman soldier from Capernaum in 6 A.D. whose name was Pantera. The archeologists
go on to suggest that Jesus might have been the illegitimate son of this Roman soldier.
Later in the play, we see Daniel hanging from the cross in the same position as was seen
in the library book: legs together and brought up towards the chest in a sitting position,
his torso turned to the left, rather than straight down.
This questioning then of the artistic iconography and the traditional story
of Jesus through the addition of historiographical elements is a quintessentially
modernist move according to Baudrillard’s framework because the elements (or signs)
that Daniel uses to destabilize the Jesus story are still very much tied to the world,
through history, archeology, etc. That is, these “new findings” present themselves as
being the “natural” or objective truth of the matter. Daniel’s modem sign still “dreams
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of the signs of the past” and attempts to seek a “binding obligation” as Baudrillard terms
it: that is, an objective retelling of the Jesus story that explains how things really
happened. But what it finds is only a “referential reason” a new “natural” upon which it
will now depend.
For Daniel’s attempts to destabilize the Catholic sign, the Church attempts
to reassert its control over the sign in two ways: through the direct censorship of the
troupe’s play and by exerting force that is, in the end, indirectly responsible for killing
Daniel. The censoring takes place on the steps outside of the sanctuary, in front of the
first station of the cross. At first Leclerc tells the troupe that the Sanctuary authorities
have demanded significant revisions, but a close reading of the scene calls Leclerc’s
words into question. He tells the troupe, “Naturally I defended your case as
courageously as possible,” but his matter-of-fact tone is not what one might expect from
someone who sympathizes with the plight of the actors. Rather, he appears as one who
is merely playing the part of one who is being sympathetic: or simulating sympathy.
Rather than helping the troupe revise their own script, Leclerc hands them each a copy of
the original script, which he himself wrote: the same script that he hired Daniel to
improve upon in the first place. The ambiguity of this scene is significant because it
calls into question whether the “authorities” that Leclerc has been warning the troupe
about are in fact the ones demanding these revisions, or if it is Leclerc himself who is
imposing this censorship upon the them.
This is not the first time the issue of church censorship is raised with
regard to history either. In the scene immediately after the one above, when Daniel and
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Constance follow leclerc into the sanctuary and confront him, we leam that Leclerc
himself was involved in theater while in seminary where he attempted to stage Brecht’s
The Life o f Galileo. “Imagine the scandal?” he asks rhetorically. This line alludes to a
long history of censorship on the part of the Catholic Church by referencing it’s attempts
at suppressing unfavorable aspects of its own history, and thus maintain control over its
own historical sign.
As an agent of the church, there is the temptation to view Leclerc as
simply a symbol of church authority (though this is undoubtedly part of his role in the
film). In many ways, Arcand goes out of his way to highlight the complexities of
Leclerc’s character, making him much more than an authority figure. Earlier in the film,
we are made aware that Leclerc pursued theater at an early age. He says that his family
was “very poor and very religious” and that he loved theatre; that “it seemed like a
solution. A way out.” He tells Daniel of the plays he’s been to and even acts out a scene
from Richard III. Later in the conversation, Constance implies that it is difficult for her
and Leclerc to have a relationship, and hints at the fact that Leclerc should “let go” and
leave the priesthood. Leclerc responds saying, “If I sent my letter of resignation to Rome
now, I would have the right to receive a pair of pants, a shirt, a nylon jacket, and fifty
dollars in cash. That’s all. Bye bye.” Leclerc is not merely the symbolic stand-in for the
authority of the Catholic Church. He embodies the conflict of being stuck between two
eras5 - between tradition (Catholicism) and modernity (actor/artist) - yet in the end, he is
unwilling to support the artist’s production at the end of the film. We learn the reason
5 in Quebec, but also eras representing the transitions from one order of simulation to the next.
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for this betrayl (of one artist to another) soon after. Before the final performance, when
Constance asks him what he is afraid of, he responds, “Of being named chaplain of an
old-folks home in Winnipeg. I couldn’t stand winters there.” Leclerc’s concerns are for
the material comforts that the priesthood affords him than for supporting the troupe’s
artistic endeavor.
The second way in which the church attempts to reassert its control over
the traditional understanding of the gospel story is by exerting force that is indirectly
responsible for killing Daniel. While Father Leclerc can be viewed as an authority figure
in the symbolic sense, his literal function in the film positions him as more of an
intermediary between the “church authorities” and the actors. The authority of the
church then is more abstract than it first appears. Leclerc continually warns the troupe
that the church authorities are not happy with their script, yet we only see the physical
manifestation of these authority figures once in the film. During the second performance
of the play, Daniel walks towards Father Leclerc and two men dressed in grey suits (we
are led to believe they are higher authorities than Leclerc), and Daniel delivers lines that
are almost identical to those found in Mark 12:38-40, where Jesus tells of the
condemnation that the scribes will receive. In this rousing piece of acting - a tear
actually falls down his face as he delivers the last line - Daniel condemns the priests
rather than the scribes, saying, “Beware of priests who desire to walk in long robes and
love greetings in the markets, the highest seats in temples, the best rooms at feasts, who
devour widows’ houses pretending prayer. They shall receive a greater damnation.”
After the last line the camera cuts away to Mireille who says, “Near the end, many and
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powerful were those seeking to crucify him,” foreshadowing Daniel’s immanent death at
the hands of the Catholic authorities. The camera then immediately cuts to Daniel
hanging on the cross: a symbolic death.
Daniel’s physical death in the film is instigated by a different set of
circumstances, though again, these circumstances originate with the authorities at the
church. Towards the end of the film, Chalifoux, a security guard who works as an usher
during the play (whom we know is an observant Catholic as we see him do the sign of
the cross after taking the Lord’s name in vain), confronts the group before the
performance and attempts to stop them as they make their way through the church and
towards the audience. Unable to do so, Chalifoux makes a phone call and in the next
scene a police force of roughly a dozen officers cut through the crowd that is now
watching the production. The crowd grows steadily anxious and here Chalifoux
reaffirms the church’s singular understanding of who Jesus is. As he tells the crowd that
they must leave, a woman tells him that she wants to know the ending of the play, to
which Chalifoux responds: “everyone knows the ending: he dies on the cross and
afterwards he comes back to life! There you are! There’s no mystery about it! You’re
not too smart, are you.” For Chalifoux, the play is “the story everybody knows,” and
these lines seem to depart from his role as a security guard and align more with his
beliefs as an observant Catholic. Unknowingly, he is reinforcing the hegemonic position
of the Church, and with a police force to back him up the crowd stands little chance
against him.
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After these lines Mireille tries to push through two of the guards to get at
Chalifoux and is roughly subdued. A muscular man in the audience removes his glasses
and goes forward towards the guards and the crowd follows. A scuffle between the
crowd and police officers ensues and the cross is accidentally knocked over, crushing
and mortally wounding Daniel beneath. At the end of the film, the church authority is
indirectly responsible for Daniel’s death, and the irony here is hard to ignore. In its
attempt to control the Jesus story - to ensure that a singular understanding of the sign is
maintained - the very church that commissioned Daniel to resurrect the gospel story
from public indifference has become the instigator in Daniel/Jesus’ death.
THE QUIET REVOLUTION AND THE DYING CHURCH
This critique that Arcand levels against the way in which the Catholic
church maintains its power and influence is a relatively recent development in Quebec.
Looking to film history, Mary Galway notes that it is not until 1971, the year that
Quebec is bom as a self-defined political and cultural entity, that the Catholic Church is
directly attacked by Claude Jutra’sMon Oncle Antoine (121). So it is not until the church
has been weakened by the effects of the Quiet Revolution that a minority of sharply
dissident voices begin emerge within the medium of film. But to understand the
relationship between the Quiet Revolution and the decline in authority and power of the
Catholic Church in Quebec, it is perhaps beneficial to situateJesus of Montreal within
the immediate political context of Quebec in the 1970s and 80s. As Bill Marshall points
out in Quebec National Cinema'.
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Arcand is very much a child of the Quiet Revolution, a member of that generation which was in its twenties in 1968. All his fdms are informed by the need to take account of the socio-political possibilities and limitations of the decade and its protagonists, and this includes an engagement with those elements in Quebec society, which are of long duration, notably Catholicism. (148)
From the late 1930s to 1959, the political, educational, economic and
social spheres of Quebec were controlled by the conservative partyUnion Nationale,
headed by premier Maurice Duplessis. During this time (and long before) many aspects
of institutional life and public ideologies in Quebec were shaped by the Roman Catholic
Church, which dominated the fields of education, health care, and social services in
Quebec - Catholicism serving as the ‘civil religion’ of French Quebeckers, with the
government declaring Quebec a “Catholic province.” Scholars frequently point to
Duplessis’ death in 1959 as being the beginning of the Quiet Revolution. Within a year
of his death and during the 1960 provincial election, the Liberal party was elected with
Jean Lesage at its head and Quebec soon began an ambitious program of political
modernization that sought to reform Quebec’s social and political structure, revive
French language culture, and expand the capitalist market economy (Seljak 258).
Historians later termed this period between 1960 and 1966 the “Quiet Revolution.” In a
larger sense, historians now apply the term to the period extending from 1960 to 1980, an
era which they maintain was characterized by “the triumph of neo-liberalism and neo-
nationalism.”6 It is during this period that the Canadiens-frangais (French Canadians)
became Quebecois, thus marking a distinct evolution from passive nationalism to a more
active pursuit of political autonomy.
6 Qtd. in Gauvreau, pg. 3
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The Quiet Revolution also marks a fundamental shift in the values of a
now distinctive Quebecois culture, where secularism, pluralism, and transparency in
public affairs are drawn to the forefront of public discourse. Scholars have long been
fascinated by the extremely rapid disintegration of Catholicism as an institutional
presence and as a system of public and personal values in Quebec during the 1960s.
Indeed, the period of the Quiet Revolution has long been viewed as an era of intense
secularization - if not outright de-Christianization - of a society that even in the late
1950s vaunted its “Catholic identity” (Gauvreau 4). During this short period, Quebec
saw the rapid marginalization of Catholicism as a social and cultural force within Quebec
society. This remarkable shift, while having been subjected to much analysis and
scholarly debate, still remains an enigmatic occurrence in the history of Quebec. It is a
shift that Denys Arcand frequently returns to in his fdmmaking, referring to it directly in
The Barbarian Invasions and suggesting it much less directly inJesus of Montreal and
The Decline o f the American Empire.
Much like the character Daniel in Jesus of Montreal, the Catholic church
is itself moving towards (a kind of) death in the fdm. The first hint that we get at this
death takes place in the only two scenes in which we actually enter the inside of the
church. The first instance occurs at the beginning of the film where we cut from the
opening credits to a high angle establishing long shot of Daniel as he stands in the aisle
between many rows of empty church pews, looking up towards the choir on the balcony.
Here the composition hints at the sheer emptiness of the church, but it is not until the
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second (and final) time in which we return to the interior of the church that this point is
made especially clear.
Immediately after Leclerc informs the troupe that they must revert to the
original, more traditional script - in a series of comedic performances - the actors
improvise their own renditions of the scene in some unique, and culturally diverse ways.
They act out the scene in the style of comedie fran^aise, New York method acting, street
slang and Kabuki theater. Frustrated by their performance, Leclerc tells them they can
perform elsewhere and enters the church. There is a cut to the interior of the church and
the extremely long establishing shot shows Leclerc walking down a vast number of
empty pews, his small figure overwhelmed by the rows of wooden seats that surround
him. The framing of this shot is also canted, adding to a sense of Leclerc’s hightened
emotional state, but also emphasizing his being out of place within the chhurch (which I
will explain). Whereas in the first interior shot immediately after the credits we see
Daniel between the pews with strong horizontal lines crossing the frame from left to
right (emphasizing perhaps, the harmony of his presence in the shrine), here we see only
Leclerc and the strong diagonal lines created by the pews that rise from the lower left of
the frame to the upper right. This scene is certainly the more noticeable of the two - and
thus imbued with greater importance - given that it is the only extreme long shot (be it
establishing or otherwise) in the entire film. Filming these shots in this way not only
emphasizes the complete emptiness of the church in both instances, but also points to a
key problem within Leclerc’s character that is brought to light in this scene. At one point
in the scene Constance tells him to “forget all of this then and come with us,” but
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Leclerc’s responds by telling her, “All my friends have left.. .everyone from the
seminary. Their new lives are more pitiful than mine. Even a bad priest is still a priest.
If I’m not that, I’m nothing.” Just as the pews are empty, so Leclerc’s faith is empty
also.
The emptiness of both the church and Leclerc’s faith in these scenes
parallels an important historical event in Quebec - the emptying of the churches after the
Quiet Revolution - where Quebec quickly transitioned from being a religiously
observant society for the most part, to an exceedingly non-observant society. Social
services, hospitals, and schools were rigorously secularized, Mass attendance
plummeted, and priestly vocations evaporated. The accelerating decline of the Catholic
Church coincides directly with the rise of modernity (as if the two could not exist
peacefully together( and more importantly with the rise of mass media in Quebec. It is
here that Arcand will situate his comparison - through the mirroring that takes place
between Church and commercialism - critiquing the later even more severely than the
former.
THE MODERN ARTIST VERSUS THE COMMERCIAL CITY
According to Bill Marshall, Arcand’s The Decline o f the American
Empire (1986) and Jesus of Montreal both inaugurate a cinema at the end of the 1980s
that is “preoccupied less by national self-definition.. .than by the awareness of a Quebec
inserted in global flows of culture and communication” (285). The years following the
Quiet Revolution in Quebec (which began in the early 1960s) was a period of
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contradictory and contested time and space in Quebec, recasting future dilemmas and
bringing various problems from the past. Modernization brought great changes to the
face of Quebec society, transforming the physical face of Montreal and consolidating the
way of life for many Quebecois, especially with regard to the changes effected by mass
media and consumption (47).
According to Baudrillard, after the counterfeit (the modem sign) comes
the last two stages that simulacra have passed through:Production and Simulation. The
“second order” of simulacra appears during the industrial revolution, where production
becomes mechanized and becomes capable of turning out exact replicas, which are
produced and reproduced on assembly lines. Even art is taken over by mechanical
reproduction: there is a transition from the era of the theater to the era of photography
and film. With mechanical production, however, comes the problem of understanding
the uniqueness or the origin of an object, which according to Baudrillard is no longer a
matter of concern (4). Thus these objects come to conceal the absence of a basic reality:
The relation between [objects] is not that of the original to its counterfeit, or its analogue, or its reflection; it is a relationship of equivalence, of indifference. In the series, objects are transformed indefinitely into simulacra of one another and, with objects, so are the people who produce them. (1988:137)
During the transition from a mral to an industrial society in Quebec, the decisive
importance of the clergy within the power structure of the province did not decrease. On
the contrary, it was strengthened (Guindon 19). Since the power structure in Quebec did
not drastically change at this time, this might explain why one does not see the second
order of simulacra explicitly represented Jesusin o f Montreal. As Baudrillard explains:
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By comparison to the era of the counterfeit (the time of the double and the mirror, of theatre and the games of mask and appearance), the serial and technical era of reproduction is all in all a time of lesser scope (the era that follows - that of models of simulation and of third-order simulacra - is of more considerable dimension.)
From the 1970s to the early 1980s, Baudrillard spent years attempting to
disassociate himself from the shadow of Marx. Thus in Symbolic Exchange, Baudrillard
claims that in the present phase of capitalism, “Labor power is no longer violently
bought and sold; it is designed, it is marketed, it is merchandised. Production thus joins
n the consumerist system of signs.” It is no longer the Marxian mode of production that is
primary, but thecode o f production that becomes determinant. According to Baudrillard,
we now find ourselves in the third order of simulacra - that of simulation proper which -
is the reigning scheme of the current phase of the object and is controlled by the code:
“we are in the third-order simulacra; no longer that of the counterfeit of an original as in
the first-order, nor that of the pure series as in the second” (1983:100-1). We are now in
an era in which new technologies - computers, media, entertainment, knowledge
industries, information processing and so forth - replace political economy and industrial
production as the organizing principle of society.
In Jesus of Montreal, this new social order is presented in the film in the
form of the commercial city of Montreal, where there has been a virtual takeover by the
commercial industry. In the film, Montreal is represented as being saturated with images
and the mechanisms by which they are created, which are seen virtually everywhere in
the commercial city. For example, as Daniel collects his troupe from around the city in
7 Symbolic Exchange and Death, pp. 28-9 (quoted in Kellner, p.61)
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the first part of the movie it becomes apparent that all of the troupe members had jobs
that involved the media in some way. In almost all of these scenes, not only are the
actors in the process of being filmed or recorded, we also see the equipment and
mechanisms that render them as digitized video images and audio recordings.
The first troupe member we are introduced to is Constance, whom we see
in a video-taped version of the passion play at the beginning of the film. Though all we
know of Constance herself is that she works at a soup kitchen, her association with
media and technology is established immediately. The second member we see is Martin
who we are introduced to is Martin who we see dubbing a pornographic movie into
French. We see the film playing on the screen and the actors in front of their
microphones. Apart from this, the producer sits in a booth and works with various types
of computer equipment, monitors, microphones, etc.
After Daniel pulls Constance and Martin from their jobs in the city, we
cut to Rene’s first scene where we immediately see an enormous console and a
technician pushing buttons. The size of the objects within this composition is revealing
here. The technician and console are huge, both taking up the entire bottom quarter of
the frame, whereas Rene, standing at the microphone is considerably smaller by
comparison. The emphasis then at the beginning of this scene is on the production of
what is taking place: on the mechanized forces that create yet simultaneously hide behind
the spectacle. At the end of the production, Rene approaches the console where the
director sits and asks him if he wrote the script that he had been reading. “No. That was
a collage, a simplification.” This issue of simplification will be dealt with later in the
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paper, but what is significant here is the narrative that Remy’s scripted dialogue creates
as the video is playing. Remy’s first line is that, “It is impossible to talk about the origin
of the universe,” but of course it is entirely possible, and he proves this possibility in the
monologue that follows, constructing as he does a metanarrative that tells the story of the
beginning and end of the universe. He mentions “the big bang” - finalizing and
totalizing scientific metanarrative that it is - as the beginning of the universe. Yet after
Rene finishes reading the script and the video comes to an end, he approaches the
producer and comments that it “leaves a lot unanswered,” pointing to the inability of
metanarratives to provide an all-encompassing story of lived experience, and therefore
always already radically partial and abstract. In this scene, the metanarrative itself has
become a pure simulation. Arcand’s script here is also revealing, where it says, “Daniel,
Constance, and Martin are standing in front of the image. They see the film backwards.
Seen from behind, near the immense screen, they seem lost in space” (356). The point
that Arcand makes here of course is not that the actors are lost in a “real” space - as in
either “outer space” or physical space in general - but rather that they are lost within a
reproduction or simulation of “real” space: within mass-mediatized simulation itself.
The final actor that Daniel draws from the commercial city is Mireille.
When we first see her, Mireille is almost naked, wearing only a translucent scarf that is
blown around her body by a gentle breeze. The music is of a seduction and as the
camera tracks back we see a fountain around her. It becomes apparent that she is
walking on water, and the biblical allusion is difficult to miss here. This is a strange
allusion to see within the commercial apparatus, given the tendency towards
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“popularization” and “simplification” that we have already seen (as opposed to
complexity of form and content for example). It is as if the religious sign from the
Feudalistic/Catholic order of simulacra has somehow carried over into the commercial
object. Baudrillard’s theories on technology and culture do not contain a detailed
framework that accounts for the transition that takes place when a society passes from
one order of simulation to the next. But in Symbolic Exchange he writes:
Each configuration of value is resumed by the following in a higher order of simulation. And each phase of value integrates into its own apparatus the anterior apparatus as a phantom reference, a puppet or simulation reference. (1988:121)
Here the story of Jesus walking on the water is transposed on the character of Mireille -
herself a commercial object in this scene - who proceeds to walk by a man in a tuxedo as
she slowly blows him a kiss and walks off camera. He says, “The unsiezable
(insaisissable) lightness of being. Spirit number seven,” and holds up a bottle of
perfume. As the camera tracks backwards and the music fades, we then see the
production crew, artificial lights, and camera. We see the equipment that captures the
commercial sign so that it can be copied, digitized, and infinitely yet exactly reproduced.
It is important to note here that Daniel is the only actor in the film who is
not immediately associated with the commercialized city of Montreal at the beginning of
the film. His function - at least in the beginning - is solely to bring the troupe out of the
commercial city and into the theater production. This is a common juxtaposition that
Arcand returns to (and we will return to throughout the rest of this essay): the
juxtaposition between (real) art and (hyperreal) commercialism. I will argue that Arcand
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uses this juxtaposition in order to offer a critique of commercialism by demonstrating its
dangerous power.
THE COMMERCIAL CITY AND THE LOGIC OF THE CODE
According to Baudrillard, the long historical process of simulation that was outlined
above has ended at a place in which simulation models have come to structure various
forms of human activity: childcare books, sexual manuals, newspapers and broadcast
media all provide models that structure various activities in the everyday lives of
individuals. In this new stage of history sign control - commercial culture, the media,
and all forms of re-presentation - is almost complete and totalitarian.
The real is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, and memory banks, models of control—and it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times from these. It no longer needs to be rational, because it no longer measures itself against an ideal... (1994:2)
The code has become the primary social determinant and follows its own logica and
order of signification. It is this new logic of the code that will become significant with
regard to Jesus of Montreal.
The logic of the code is distinguishable from the mode of signification
that preceded it - that of the industrial object, or the series - in that the series maintained
a correspondence to the traditional status of the sign. That is to say that the signifier
refers back to the signified. An advertisement for a piece of clothing refers to the use
value that the sign offers: providing warmth, protection, etc (1975:126). With the code
on the other hand,
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.. .the signified and the referent are now abolished to the sole profit of the play of signifiers, of a generalized formulization in which the code no longer refers back to any subjective or objective “reality,” but to its own logic. The signifier becomes its own referent and the use value of the sign disappears to the benefit of its commutation and exchange value alone. (126-7)
According to this formulation, Montreal would no longer be in the industrialized mode
of signification because advertisements no longer display products according to their use
value: i.e. their material qualities and/or function. Instead, commercial objects in the
film are presented with a complex system of signifieds attached to them. According to
this new logic of the code,
The sign no longer designates anything at all. It approaches its true structural limit which is to refer back only to other signs. All reality then becomes the place of a semiurgical manipulation of a structural simulation. (127)
In the perfume commercial where we first meet Mireille, after the camera
has pulled back and Mireille has left the frame, we see the ad executive Denise Quintal
and her associate Jerzy Strelisky standing next to the camera having the following
conversation regarding the commercial:
Denise: No, if s not airy enough. It has to be airy. Jerzy: Airy how? Like maybe she should fly? Denise: It should be Kundera, that’s the concept. Guy: But how, Kundera? Her: Light. Extremely light. No technical details, I’m creative.
Nowhere in this scene do we see reference to the use value of the perfume: to its
fragrance, the feeling it creates, etc. Rather, the perfume is Kundera, it’s also The
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Unbearable Lightness of Being and therefore intelligent and sophisticated, but it is also
light and “airy.”
We see this same pattern of signification immediately before the beer
commercial sequence as well. Here a group of actors have gathered in the theater lobby
and are waiting for the audition for the commercial to begin. Before the auditions take
place, Jerzy gathers the group of actors together and tells them, “The beer’s called
Appalache. It’s young. It’s trendy(branchee)'' Immediately we see the signifier (beer)
progress from abstraction (Appalache) to disembodied referents (young, trendy). The
jumps between this progression defy the logic that gave the industrialized object its
meaning. We are dealing with the logic of the code, and this logic becomes infinitely
more complex once the audition begins. Here we see a man wearing only pants, no shirt,
and a woman in a bikini (she is the same contralto who sang Sabat Mater in the church
during the opening credits and we will return to her later in the essay). The two actors
lip sync to a rock-themed song, the refrain of which is, “The young crowd’s here. We
worship beer.” The male dancer continues, “Nothing’s sacred to you but a good glass of
brew.” Here we see the language of the church now reappropriated within on the
commercial object, a kind of phantom reference from the preceding order of simulacra
that is here disassociated from its original meaning, yet shows that the two institutions
(religious and commercial) have become paralleled: one has faded into the background
noise of the other: a ghost in the machine of commercial production.
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HYPERREAL COMMERCIALISM IN JESUS OF MONTREAL
In the 1980s and 90s, Baudrillard released a series of slim volumes of
philosophy bearing titles like Simulations or The Ecstasy of Communication. In these
short works, he wrote of the shifting relationship between what has previously been
called “the real,” and its many reproductions in mass media. According to Baudrillard,
the postmodern age was to a large extent characterized by the rise of what he terms the
“hyperreal,” which according to his well known formulation is “the generation by
models of the real without origin or reality” (1994:1). It is a mediated experience that is
in many ways more “real” than the original experience that generated it - a kind of
“reality by proxy” - which is in turn used as the model for the further production of such
“authentic” experiences. A definitive feature of simulation is that “Something has
disappeared: the sovereign difference between” the original and the copy (2).
According to Baudrillard, hyperreality tricks the consciousness into
detaching from any real emotional engagement and instead opting for artificial
simulation and endless reproductions of sublated appearances. The desire of individuals
shifts from “the things themselves” to models, the “more real than real”: they desire
hyperreality. An example of this Jesusin o f Montreal takes place in the beer commercial
scene which we have already begun to unpack. After the dancers have finished their
song the contralto approaches the stage - her arms across her chest, covering her bare-
skin beneath - and informs Quintal, the advertising executive, that she studied voice at
conservatory and could sing the song herself if Quintal so desired. Quintal responds by
demeaning the intelligence of the “average beer drinker” and tells the contralto that
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“Maria Callas won’t light his fire.. .bank on your bikini, not your voice.” According to
the executive’s logic, appearances (pre-recorded soundtrack, lip-syncing, bikinis) are
more desirable than the real voice of the contralto. Arcand hereby establishes an
important dynamic between art as a manifestation of the real (“bad” simulacra according
to the executive), andadvertising as simulation (good appearance).
Another scene that draws out and complicates the distinction between the
“real” and the “copy” occurs during Martin’s porn dubbing sequence that takes place
towards the beginning of the film. In this scene, three actors sit behind microphones and
record a French voiceover for a pornographic film. A fourth actor does not show up for
the dubbing so Martin must do both his own voice and the voice of the absent actor.
While traveling between the two microphones and attempting to simulate two distinct
voices, Martin gets the microphones mixed up and stops the production. The producer
then tells him that nobody will notice. This scene shows interchangeability between the
real and simulation. Martin’s voice is a copy that will be overlaid upon a copy - the
original will be entirely lost. Not only that, but he is also simulating the voice of
someone else - his own “original” voice therefore comes into question. This dynamic is
further complicated by the fact that this is a pornographic film, so the reason the
audience will not notice the change in voice is because of the “reality” of the sex that is
taking place: the dialogue is only secondary, as opposed to say, movies with simulated
sex where the dialogue is much more noticeable. This scene, then, also points to the
unnoticibility/unimportance of the work that is taking place. The actors are simulating
sex dialogue that will not be noticed by the consumer.
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THE COMMERCIAL CITY VERSUS ART AS ARTIFICIAL/REAL DIALECTIC
An important comparison can be made here between the media’s attempts
to conceal the real (discussed above) versus the real as it is presented in Daniel’s Passion
Play. We have already discussed how Daniel pulls the troupe away from the commercial
world and into the world of theater and art. The beer commercial is an important scene
in this regard because in it, Daniel shows his anger (in violent fashion) towards the
commercial apparatus. In a sequence that parallels Jesus’ driving of the money lenders
from the temple in Jerusalem, Daniel overturns a table of food and kicks over a video
camera and other video equipment. Arcand’s juxtaposition of Daniel against this
equipment enacts a kind of real/artificial dialectic by placing Daniel in opposition to the
commercial production (artificial, hidden real) and in support of theatrical production
(transparent real).
In the city of Montreal, commercialism is everywhere: virtually every
scene is dominated by its presence in some way, as can especially be seen in the scenes
where Daniel pulls his disciples away from their commercial positions, as has already
been discussed. In contrast to the commercial city Arcand places Daniel’s Passion Play,
which takes place on Mont Royal, a mountain immediately north of downtown Montreal.
The name Montreal is generally understood to derive from the French mont Real, an
orthographic variant of “Mont Royal” that was introduced either in French or by an
Italian map maker: “Mount Royal” ismonte Reale in Italian, the meaning of which can
be understood as either “real” or “royal” in English (Poirier 6). And indeed, throughout
their production of the Passion Play, the troupe makes no attempt to hide the city of
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Montreal, which frequently appears as the backdrop for the play. Because the
performances take place in the evenings, the lights of the city are frequently visible in the
background. Certain shooting locations - for example, the archeological dig sequence
which takes place on a rock face -are particularly noticeable in this regard because they
allow for the commercial city to dominate the background. In allowing the city to appear
in this way, not only does Arcand discourage the mimetic effect of art, but also that of
simulation in general due to the fact that we are constantly being reminded that what we
are seeing is always only a production. We are also reminded of this at various points
during the performances, as for example, when we see the actors changing their
costumes for the next scene, or when we are reminded by Mireille how “sketchy” our
knowledge of Jesus is. According to Baudrillard, to simulate is to pretend to have what
one has not, and during the Passion Play this is intentionally avoided at every turn.
Daniel never makes art in the commercial city: he is always removed
from it physically when directing and/or performing. To the commercialized city of
Montreal, Arcand juxtaposes scenes of he and his troupe, and these primarily take two
basic forms: interior shots that depict Daniel and his troupe in intimate situations,
significantly removed from the physical city of Quebec, along with the scenes from
Mont Royal as the troupe performs the Passion play, where Quebec is at some distance
away (though never completely absent). Arcand frequently alternates scenes of the city
itself (or that depict the influence of the city) with scenes of Daniel and his troupe
distinctively apart from the city. In doing this, Arcand enacts a series of oppositions -
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art/commercial, real/artificial, inside/outside - that help us better understand Daniel’s
function as “savior” within the film.
An extended example of this can be seen during the first performance
where the troupe is on Mount Royal and therefore at some remove from the commercial
city. The city, however, is not so easy to escape as can be seen when the camera
constantly foregrounds the commercial individuals that are in the crowd: the ad
executive Denise Quintal, the media agent/lawyer Richard Cardinal, the radio
personality, the talk show host and the critic. They have been taken out of the city - and
out of their active roles of production and control - and placed in the position of
spectators.
After the play, however, the commercial city approaches the actors and
engages them. The first to approach the actors are a man and a woman (a critic and host
of a television show, respectively). They approach Daniel, and the woman tells him that
the show was “awesome, stunning, pro found... so profound.” The man comments along
the same lines, calling the play “a breakthrough.” Then the woman: “You must do my
show.” In these instances not even Mount Royal can keep the commercial city from
encroaching on the artistic process, the artificial upon the real. John Lambert, a
television actor congratulates Constance, saying that he hopes they can work together.
Denise Quintal - the ad executive - is shown with Pascal, the Smerdiakov character from
the production of The Brothers Karamazov that prefaced the film. She wants Pascal, an
old friend of Daniel’s, to say hello to the troupe, but he is now outside of art: he no
longer belongs and therefore refuses to approach the other actors.
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From this scene we cut to the troupe as they are drinking wine and
walking along the Kondiaronk Belvedere overlooking downtown Montreal. We are once
again at a remove from the city, the lights of which can be seen in the background.
There is an extended montage of aerial images of the city, after which we are
immediately transported back into the commercial city where we see a group of
sequences in which the media personalities commenting on the show. The first of these
is of the radio personality who is sitting at a table and talking into a microphone. She is
shown in a medium long shot and the city of Quebec can be seen in the background: tall
buildings, a busy street, etc. Table situated exactly in front of the window so as to draw
the viewer’s attention to the city behind her. The next cut is to a talk show host and co
host on a television program. After the host’s closing remarks the camera lingers on her
as she smiles forcedly. After a moment the smile drops completely, she frowns for a
moment then says, “time ok?” Our attention is drawn to the fact that she is on camera, a
performer: the mimetic effect broken.
After these scenes of the media, the camera immediately cuts to one of the
most intimate scenes of the entire film: Daniel taking a bath while Mireille sits beside his
bath and washes him, now at a total remove from the commercial city. And again, this
scene is followed immediately by the beer commercial sequence, where Daniel shows his
animosity towards the commercial apparatus in dramatic fashion: through the destruction
of the television equipment. This pattern continues throughout much of the film. After
the beer commercial, we’re back on the mountain, at another performance of the play.
After the performance we’re in the city where Daniel stands on trial for destroying the
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production equipment. These juxtapositions between art and commercialism, or the real
versus the simulation, provide us with the means of determining where Arand places
value and therefore with an important key I nreading the film.
THE MIRROR OF SIMULATION: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE COMMERCIAL CITY
In The Mirror of Production (1973), Baudrillard carries out a systematic
attack on classical Marxism by claiming that Marxism is but a mirror of bourgeois
society (it places production at the center of life, thus naturalizing the capitalist
organization of society).8 Such a reversal, I would argue, is quite similar to the one that
Arcand uses in Jesus of Montreal, where Arcand takes two seemingly antithetical
institutions (the church and the mass media) and uses allegory as a mirror that
foregrounds their similarities, by having mass media dominate both the traditional
religious simulation and modem artistic representation as well. I have already argued
that Arcand foregrounds the way in which the Catholic Church attempts to control the
religious simulation (the traditional retelling of the story of Jesus). This section will
explore the parallel control that commercialism attempts to exert over those within its
sphere of influence in order to show the similarities and thus the mirroring effect that
occurs between them.
As has been stated, Jesus of Montreal begins with a stage performance of
The Brothers Karamazov. After the production, the camera cuts to a shot of the crowd
applauding. In the center of the frame is the anxiety and depression executive Denise
8 Douglas Kellner, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/baudrillard/ par.16.
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Quintal and the media agent/lawyer Richard Cardinal. They speak briefly, referring to
Pascal:
Executive: I want his head. Richard: His head? Executive: For myHomme sauvage campaign. Richard: He doesn’t do ads. Executive: Eve heard that before.
The reference here to Pascal/Smerdiakov as a “wild man” and the media executive’s
desire for his head(shot) makes Pascal an obvious antitype of John the Baptist, especially
when Pascal points Daniel out to his admirers in the following sequence, saying that
Daniel is one greater - in artistic integrity - than himself.9 On the surface, then, we have
the commercial agents that attempt to “kill” the artist in order to bring him into the
commercial world, and all of the violence that these lines imply. Allegorically, the
executive is the antitype for Herodias, the wife of Herod’s brother Philip, thus bringing
in the Gospels and the tradition they imply. So mass media also seeks to bring the
religious sign under the control of the commercial sign as well. On a more symbolic
level, in the same way that the church attempted to exert control over Daniel (for
attempting to expose the multifascetedness of the sign, which resulted in his death), so
commercialization must exert its control over that which enacts symbolic exchange (i.e.
the theater performer): that which threatens to uncover the real. Here the media
executive foreshadows the inevitable triumph of commercialization over art and thus
9 For John the Baptist’s various associations with the wild and wilderness see Luke 3:2 and Matthew 3:4. Historians Chrysostom and Jerome believed that John was brought up from his infancy in the wilderness.
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over symbolic exchange: the only thing that can call the commercial object into question
by uncovering the real beneath the simulation and thus disrupt its (totalitarian) authority.
The second scene in which this mirroring effect takes place is when
Richard Cardinal takes Daniel to the top of a skyscraper in downtown Montreal. Daniel
asks the lawyer what he does for a living, and he says that most of his clients “are in the
media, show business, publishing. I look after contracts, tax planning, investments.
Sometimes even career planning.” If someone is not sure how to “exploit his talent,”
Richard sits down with him/her and talks about goals and tries to define his/her dreams,
and then plans the steps to help that individual attain them. Richard tells Daniel that
Jesus is ‘in’ these days, but that he would have to do the weekend talk shows, saying
that:
Richard: There’s always more media space than people with things to say. Daniel: I don’t have much to say. Richard: Doesn’t matter. You’re a good actor. Daniel: An actor needs a script. Richard: We could draft up something. Some ways of saying nothing go over so well. [...] Actors are everywhere. On TV, radio, in magazines. All you see is actors.
When Daniel says that an actor needs a script, he immediately focuses on the artistic
aspect of the performance, whereas Richard tells him offhandedly that the script should
merely be a way of saying nothing. Leclerc’s emphasis is not on the artistic message,
but rather on filling up extra media space. There is a kind of censorship at play here, but
it is different than the censorship exerted by the church. Previously, we noted that
Leclerc had to suppress Daniel’s script because it called the singular religious sign into
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question. Here Daniel is once again facing the prospect of having his art censored, but
Richard’s motives are more hidden and less obvious than those of Leclerc and the
Catholic authorities. However, near the end of their conversation the following
exchange takes place:
Richard: Ever thought of publishing a book? Daniel: You mean a novel? Richard: Yea, or your memoirs, travels, your fight against drugs or alcohol. Anything. Daniel: I’m no writer. Richard: I said publish, not write. Publishers all have writers with talent, and no money.
Similar to the passage that preceded it, these lines again show Daniel negating a
particular skill, here it is writing. Leclerc once again focuses on the production of an
empty commercial object, and again enacts a censoring of Daniel’s ideas: “publish, not
write.” The difference here being that Richard’s motive is exposed: the pursuit of
money. As the two look out at Montreal, he tells Daniel that with his talent, the city is
his if he wants it. Like the devil he is meant to symbolize, Richard Cardinal goes on to
tempt Daniel with fame and fortune if he will cooperate with the lawyer’s plans to
market and commercialize Daniel’s career. He tries to lure Daniel through wider
exposure, bigger production costs, and publicity tours.
The final and most crucial example of this mirroring effect occurs at the
end of the film, after Daniel has died, when Richard Cardinal meets with the troupe and
proposes that they form a theater company in Daniel’s memory: the “Daniel-Coulombe
Theater. “Obviously,” he says, “a legal organization would need to be constituted, with
a president and so on.” He suggests that Martin could perhaps be the first president.
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Literally, this scene signifies the final domination of commercialization over artistic
production. During Leclerc’s conversation with Daniel (noted above), Leclerc
repeatedly stresses that Daniel would publish but not write, speak yet say nothing, and
we are left to assume that these principals will apply to the soon to be “legally
incorporated” theater group. Allegorically speaking, this scene echoes the Catholic
interpretation of early Christian history in that the church had to be “constituted” (a
hierarchy of power was set into motion) and a first president was chosen (Peter, the first
pope). So within this scene, we have the simultaneous takeover and death of both art and
religious tradition, both constituted and subsumed under the media/devil figure.
The resolution of Jesus of Montreal thus inevitably turns on the political,
providing a strong critique of the hierarchical church (the “devil” is now in charge), but
also showing the domination of commercialization over artistic production (and therefore
“symbolic exchange,” the only weapon against the commercial according to Baudrillard).
During the years after the Quiet Revolution, as people rejoiced while modernization lead
Quebec away from the church-controlled province it had been, a more powerful, more
corrupt regime arrived to take its place.
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Poirier, Jean. “Island of Montreal.” Canoma, Vol. 5(2), pp. 6-8. (1979)
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Seljak, David. “Catholicism’s ‘Quiet Revolution’:Maintenant and the New Public Catholicism in Quebec after 1960.” Religion and Public Life in Canada: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. Ed. Marguerite Van Die. Toronto: U of Toronto P, (2001).
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