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Pierre Hebert: Coming Into His Own

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Pierre Hebert: Coming Into His Own PIERRE HEBERT: COMING INTO HIS OWN MILA LUKA The animation style of Pierre Hébert somewhat parallels — the evolution of Quebec’s national identity through the Begone Dull Care (1949) Quiet Revolution, arguably impacting it. At the same Op Hop - Hop Op (1966) Au pays de Zom (1983) time, drawing from Norman McLaren and Len Lye, Chants et Danses du Monde Hebert employed the technique of drawing directly on Inanimé - Le métro (1985) La Plante Humaine (1996) film, creating abstract shapes moving to music. While he La statue de Giordano Bruno evolved from the foundations McLaren and Lye created, (2005) Hébert departs from his role models, for example, add- ing live performance to his creations. His development as an animator occurred while Quebec’s autonomy was being forged under the umbrella of federalist institu- tions. This paradox invites us to ask to what extent do his films reflect Quebec’s political environment, specifically Quebec urban life? Hébert’s use of live performance, his utilization of pastiche, and his wielding of unconven- tional film style indelibly situate him as a postmodern Quebecois filmmaker. A brief history of all three ani- mators provides the necessary context to contextualize Hébert’s influences and career trajectory. Norman McLaren was born in Scotland in 1914 and, after joining John Grierson at the General Post Office Film Unit (GPOFU) in 1937, where he made his first ani- mated film drawing directly on film. The technique of painting, drawing and scratching directly on film was made without a camera, and would thus become his sig- nature, distinguishing him as an auteur. McLaren artic- 3 ulated his priorities as: keeping the technology between conception and finished work to a minimum, personally Mila Luka is a 3rd year undergrad student handling the mechanisms, treating the limitations of minoring in Film Studies, Art History, and Writng technology as a growing point for ideas, and allowing & Rhetoric. Her partcular area of interest lies in contemporary art and flm. MILA LUKA 39 for improvisation at the time of shooting. Maximum freedom and autonomy is found Evolution links the sub-narratives of the storytellers within the film, who all speak through delimiting, questioning and suspending the exclusive character of the devices different languages, to include an African wanderer, a Rabbi, as well as a native Indian. that support cinema (Graça 2006). In other words, McLaren found it liberating to elim- Marina Estela Graça maintains that while language makes possible the communication inate the camera from film production. New Zealander Len Lye also joined the GPOFU and representation of concepts and objects, it also inhibits the experience of, and refer- around the same time and adopted the same technique of scratching directly on film ence to world states not foreseen in a semantic system (Graça 2004). Hébert overcomes (Horrocks, 58). These two individuals were both highly influential for Hébert. Norman this through the use of alternating syntagmas, where each of the storytellers recounts McLaren was a pioneer in his oeuvre, and spent his career refining and experimenting the tale of evolution and a great flood. The storytelling highlights the importance of within the boundaries he himself created, while achieving an auteur status. Hébert language; at the same time the stories the individuals recount are similar despite their built upon McLaren’s practice, pushing boundaries, constantly experimenting, while respective cultural distinctions. The similarities found across the fables challenge the using the ingenious techniques that McLaren pioneered. conception of unique identity among nations, an issue that often divides cultures, Some background on Pierre Hébert provides context for his later work, he was unifying the film’s fragments. Hébert overcame the challenge of language by linking born in Montreal in 1944. After studying anthropology and archaeology he joined the the similarity between distinct cultures. NFB in 1965 under the mentorship of Norman McLaren. One of his earliest films, Op This language challenge nevertheless raises a key issue experienced by Quebec Hop - Hop Op (1966) replicated McLaren’s visual style by directly drawing on film. filmmakers, namely funding and marketing. Co-producing with France offers one However, it didn’t match McLaren’s synesthesia of sight and sound in films such as solution to these is issues. However, with additional funding comes the responsibility Begone Dull Care (1949). In Op Hop images are paired with the music of Oscar Peterson, to ensure the final product is marketable in both nations. Bill Marshall contends that creating a playful, joyous experience. While his drawings are reminiscent of McLaren, if the postmodern marks the triumph of flow in which places no longer have bound- Hébert’s use of tribal music has more in common with Len Lye. This type of music aries, but are imagined as articulated movements in networks of social relations. This impacts the viewer differently then McLaren’s work, evoking agitation, tension, and means public space is now marked by its non-coincidence. This has implications for nervousness. We could surmise that this effect reflects the minor and unstable status Quebec’s cultural identity and cinematic representation of Montreal. The city of Mon- afforded Quebec at this time. While Hébert incorporates lessons learned from McLaren treal is masqueraded as locations outside of Quebec, such as New York, Paris,Vienna, and Lye, he still succeeds in distinguishing his own work from theirs. or even as a futuristic no-place (Marshall 299-300). La Plante Humaine was funded by While McLaren focused on muscle memory to control formal differences between both Canada and France. The setting is urban, as evidenced by the library and bag lady, successive movements, and Lye embraced the consciousness of movement, Hébert’s as well as the gangs and requisite shootings. While purported to be generic through material was concerned with the collision of languages and technologies (Graça 2006). lack of signage and distinguishing features, an important factor in the coproduction Nowhere is the divergence from McLaren more evident than in Hébert’s stress on agreement, the city is easily identifiable as Montreal with its tenement stairs and park language. Language is absent in McLaren’s films, whereas it figures prominently in spaces. That said, it could easily be Paris or New York. Some may argue that the dys- Hébert’s. This prominence is emblematic of how language is key to Quebec’s national topic, melancholic feel ascribed to the city gives more of a modernist sense than the identity, indeed the characteristic that most distinguishes Quebec them from the rest utopic postmodernism of what Marshall describes as a typically urban, vibrant, con- of Canada. In this way Hébert’s emphasis on language parallels Quebecois concerns sumerist city (Marshall 302). during the Quiet Revolution. In addition to the urban setting, Hébert focuses on the quotidian moments of his Indeed, Hébert’s La Plante Humaine (1996) is exemplary in this regard. Words and protagonist Mr. Michel. Through the television, which itself is a character, we learn language are foregrounded as a distinguishing feature of the protagonist, Mr. Michel, that during the Gulf War the media used stock footage that not only failed to repre- as well as a storytelling device to highlight the constructed nature of communication sent current events, but also left viewers without a true picture of the human aspect, through media. Mr. Michel is a librarian by profession and books figure prominently namely the killing and death experienced by human beings. It emphasizes how we in the film. He refers to a book by Da Vinci to interpret the evolution of world events. were provided with the communication that the media chose to depict. Similarly, a 40 CAMÉRA STYLO ALEXANDRA MCCALLA 41 dual message regarding the role of language in forging national identity is offered. consciousness that the author has a body” (Graça 2004). Similar to the self-reflexivity While Hébert highlights the importance of language in distinguishing a nation, he in le direct, Hébert crosses the mimetic divide when he inserts his hands. By defini- also demonstrates the similarities between cultures. Furthermore, Hébert disrupts the tion, crossing the mimetic divide occurs whenever the spectator crosses “the fourth premise that animation equals fantasy and live action film equals realism in La Plante wall” of the performance stage. Marina Estela Graça describes it as appearing between Humaine . This is achieved by positioning the life of Mr. Michel in animated form and “an exterior space which is internalized and an internal space which is externalized” juxtaposing the live action filmic sub-narratives of Mr. Michel’s dream life, the Afri- (Graça 2004). can storyteller, and the Gulf War footage on television. In reversing the typical order, After 1986 Hébert took a further step ‘into the frame’ with live scratched anima- Hébert suggests then subverts common beliefs of what is reality and what is fantasy. tion, a technique in which computers are used to create animated images and sound The lines become sufficiently blurred to question the relevance of the term animation with live musicians in front of an audience (Graça 2006). His experimentation with live (Hébert 185). Hébert maintains the premise that in order for all arts to maintain their animation, whereby he performs on stage or among spectators and in dialogue with autonomy, cinema has to loosen its structure. He posits: other artists, causes us to question the nature of cinema (Graça, 2004). In La statue de Giordano Bruno (2005) Hébert challenges the claim that the multimedia disciplines of How can the interaction of different arts within the complex of cinema, photography, cinema, video, and computer must remain separate and autonomous. through critical analysis, be useful to the current interweaving of arts and Hébert contends that with digital technology distinctions between the arts no longer media? [...] Multi-disciplinary practices tend to set themselves in real time apply in the same ways.
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