AN AFTERNOON in OCTOBER 1970. I Was in a Montreal Street, Watching Armored Military Vehicles
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by Maurie Alioff "Bring on a revolution/I wanr Bring on a revolution/I wanr N AFTERNOON IN OCTOBER 1970. I was in a Montreal street, watching armored military vehicles rattling by while soldiers in helmets and battle fatigues clutched their rifles and sniffed at the threat of A anarchy in the air. Suddenly, I felt a finger jabbing at my shoulder. "Open it," said a cop with a potbelly and rumpled white hair. He meant my army surplus shoulder bag, which on this particular day happened to contain two or three Black Panther newspapers and other revolutionary tracts. Ah, hah! The cop thumbed through the subversion, lingering on images of leather-jacketed black men flaunting rifles. Then he tossed aside the papers and looked me over: hair puffed out long and frizzy, boots with Cuban heels, very Blonde on Blonde. I shrugged nonchalantly and told him I was a st t (true) researching an essay on American political extremists (false). Pierre Laporte, provincial minister of labour and immigration, and . Jiries Cross, a British trade official, had been kidnapped by members of the Front de Liberation du Quebec, • • t s ization which advocated PIERRE FALARDEAU directs DENIS TRUDEL (felquiste) in Octobre terrorist violence in the cause of Quebec's independence from Canada. In response to the kidnappings, numerous FLQ bombings, and a so-called "apprehended insurrection," the Canadian government had invoked the War (now Emergency) Measures Act and deployed the army in Ottawa and Montreal. The act gave Quebec police license to round up hundreds of men and women, often on flimsy pretexts, and throw them into jail incommunicado, without having to file charges. Then on the night of October 17th, the authorities found Pierre Laporte's bloodied corpse in the trunk of a green Chevrolet sedan. According to the coro- ner, he had likely been strangled to death with the gold chain of his religious medal. During that crazy time, who can say what was inducing more paranoia: the feeling of living under a state of siege (chillingly dramatized in Michel Brault's 1974 film Les ordres), or the ugly, pathetic death of a man who may not have been a model of virtue, but was far from being an agent of a murdering, totalitarian regime. I, and most people I knew, sympathized with the complaints of historically victimized French Canadians and ALL OCTOBRE PHOTOGRAPHS: JEAN F. LEBLANC author Pierre Vallieres' characterization mactic moment in Quebec's of them as the "white niggers" of Ameri- turbulent history. For him, ca (in his seminal 1967 book Negres Simard and his comrades blanc d'Amerique). But the FLQ's "assas- were not sadistic psy- sination" provoked disgust and dented chopaths or misguided fools. those sympathies. Rene Levesque, They were idealists repre- founder of the peacefully separatist Parti senting a widespread and Quebecois, was outraged. passionate indignation, who In June 1994, I'm sitting in a tiny risked damning themselves apartment in Montreal, talking to a man for what they believed they who has dramatized the abduction and had to do. Octobre begins murder of Laporte in a way that has with a quote from Albert never been done on film before — from Camus' Les justes: "Nices- the point of view of the killers (unlike saire mais injustifiable."Nec- previous movies like Les ordres, Jean- essary but unjustifiable. Claude Labrecque's Les annies de reves The producer who finally [1984], and Robin Spry's excellent doc- committed to this vision of umentary Action: The October Crisis of the event was Bernadette 1970 [1973]). Payeur of the Montreal Pierre Falardeau's Octobre, in post- company ACPAV (it made production as I write, began to take Falardeau's three Elvis Grat- shape in the early seventies when the ton shorts and his debut fea- director met Francis Simard, one of the ture Le party). Meanwhile, convicted men, and began visiting him C/FP agreed to distribute if regularly in prison. Falardeau recently the director came up with told the Quebec film magazine 24 another instalment in the Images that he .and Francis would get hit-in-Quebec Gratton se- together to discuss "politics, prison, ries, "a kind of an agreement pieces of ass," and the events of October. that I'm trying to forget," Simard and the other members of the Falardeau tells me during a FLQ's Chenier cell committed a bloody conversation. crime, but in Falardeau's view, there The one-and-a-half room were plenty of reasons for it. "It's not the apartment he uses for writing is located times, 'I could never justify killing a first time in history," he once said, "that on a tiny ruelle in the southeast of the man, but I did it.'" a bunch of poor people grab a rich guy city in a neighbourhood as far removed Falardeau acknowledges that like other to be done with it. And it won't be the from chic francophone Outremont as it rebel movements of the sixties, the FLQ last." is from Westmount, traditional symbol attracted its share of whackos with an In 1982, paroled after serving 11 years of English power. There is no computer, itch to play with guns and bombs. But of a life sentence, Simard offered or even a typewriter in sight. Falardeau he emphasizes that his movie is about Falardeau his co-operation in the mak- works in longhand on a battered old the Chenier cell, a particular group of ing of a movie about the crisis. The ex- desk. Tacked to the walls are black and men trapped in a situation where "you felquiste agreed to record hours of inter- white blowups and posters of his films, start something, and then it's bigger views with the director and longtime and in one corner an inevitable picture than what you started, and the whole collaborator Julien Poulin (Elvis Gratton, of Camus. society is pushing." Le parry). Falardeau has a lanky, wiry build. Like many journalists who covered the Since the early eighties, Falardeau has Wearing a sweatshirt, loose army-green crisis, not to mention politicians as been trying to get Octobre made. He pants and red deck shoes, he expresses diverse as the late Tommy Douglas and wrote and re-wrote numerous scripts, himself in raw, uncensored language Robert Stanfield, Falardeau sees the Lib- deals materialized and collapsed, he shot punctuated by shouts, wheezes, and dis- eral cabinet's imposition of the War other movies. From its earliest days, the dainful groans. He'll suddenly jump up, Measures Act as a move that was itself project was a tricky undertaking. eyes and mouth scrunched like a boxer hard to justify. Furthermore, he suspects According to the director, Jacques Bobet who's taking punches. cynical and Machiavellian strategizing of the NFB "trembled" when he read an I've just asked him why he has so on the part of the feds. early outline, even though the Board had much obvious respect and love for Fran- Instead of negotiating for Laporte's already purchased the rights to Simard's cis Simard. Jabbing out a Lucky Strike release, "I think that at one point, the book about his felquiste experiences, and lighting another, Falardeau talks feds said: 'If we push them, they're Pour en finir avec Octobre, for nine thou- about intelligence and down-to-earth fucked; if they stop, they'll look ridicu- sand dollars. humanity and then gets to the disturbing lous; if they kill him, they're lost.'" Falardeau persisted because for him, heart of the matter: "Francis took some- Backs against the wall, divided about the subject is not only important, it's one's life without hiding, without excus- their next move, the filquiste went — as virtually sacred. An unapologetic, old- ing himself by saying, 'I was young, I Falardeau puts it — au bout (to the limit) time separatist with few illusions about didn't know what I was doing.' Most of "of dreams, or an idea." Lucien Bouchard's designer nationalism, the others blame it on the errors of If this makes a group of men Rene Falardeau views October 1970 as a di- youth. In his book, Francis repeats 500 Levesque once called barbarians sound 10 TAKE ONE Falardeau has dramatized the abduction and murdet ei- __2 40 orate in ay the has never b ciDfiEJ or film fore m the point o Octobre (from left): DENIS TRUDEL (felquiste) and SERGE HOUDE (the Minister); PIERRE RIVARD (felquiste); LUC PICARD (felquiste) from left: Le steak; performer and audience from Le party; JULIEN POULIN as his alter-ego k ‘,4 Bob "Elvis" Gratton >` like heroes, he claims that No car crash, no blonde. Just a human both an anglo and a Jew. Denying that a.) ..a a0 simple-minded heroics are being about to die in two hours eating this character was written as Jewish, 73 the last thing on his mind. spaghetti. I said to the cameraman, Falardeau mutters impatiently: "It was a .0 1:3 Falardeau even draws an 'don't move, stay there, look at him.'" boss, an English boss. It was like that S. a) c analogy between his charac- Falardeau claims that he was so moved during the sixties." Expressing simple 0 '4'j ters and the pitiable murder- by actor Serge Houde's portrayal of realities, the director believes, is getting ..i)(' ca ers Truman Capote wrote Laporte, he worried that the audience tougher every day in a milieu intimidat- about in his non-fiction would have no emotional energy left for ed by a stifling combination of bureau- () p 0 novel, In Cold Blood.