Réjeanne Padovani on BRD!

 

Very excited to announce in these pages Canadian International Pictures’s ( https://www.canadian-international.com ) upcoming release of Réjeanne Padovani!

Denys Arcand’s 1973 film is a masterpiece of political cinema and I had the pleasure (and the honour) to contribute an audio commentary for the 50th anniversary region-free BRD.

Fantastic cover art for the limited-edition slipcover version, too.

That image of Gabriel Arcand as Carlo “Lucky” Ferrara is priceless.

Pre-orders are now available from Vinegar Syndrome: https://vinegarsyndrome.com/products/rejeanne-padovani

Bon cinéma!

aj

Chut... (1971)

A film about the Bibliothèque nationale de Québec (now the Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec) produced by l’Office du film du Québec. An homage to Alain Resnais’s extraordinary Toute la mémoire du monde (1955). An artifact of 1970s Québécois cultural nationalism. Behold Jacques Gagné’s Chut… (1971).

A long-haired Man With a Movie Camera. Nerds (“On a plus peur d’être des intellectuals,” the narrator tells us. “We’re no longer afraid to be intellectuals” [read: nerds]). Big Hair. Big Sunglasses. Hippies. Reservoir Dogs. This film has got it all. Plus, it’s got a great title and a great conceit: “chut!” In other words, “shhh! Be quiet!” This is a library, after all.

If you’d like to check out this fascinating film for yourself in the original French version, of course, you can find it in the digital collection of the Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec HERE.

aj

p.s. Many thanks to my dear friend Caro for drawing my attention to this gem.

[libraries; silence; hippies; nerds; businessmen; aspiring filmmakers; big hair; big sunglasses; ice-cold eyes]

Griffintown (1972)

 

Keywords: COLD!; godforsaken.

Griffintown is Part 2 of Michel Régnier’s monumental Urbanose series from 1972, examining the state of the modern city in the early 1970s, and its possible futures, with a particular focus on Montreal.

Despite its proximity to Downtown, Griffintown was an abandoned district at the time—abandoned by the city, abandoned by the greater population of Montreal, as the architect Joseph Baker puts it in the film—consisting primarily of dilapidated housing, empty lots, and small industry.

Its bleak conditions were all the more bleaker when Régnier shot the outdoor interviews for his film, on a bitterly cold winter day, not unlike today.

If Régnier found a glimmer of hope in the districts citizen’s committee and the architects and grad students who had dedicated themselves to lobbying for consultative urban renewal and quality affordable housing, he also found it in the spirit and the antics of its grade school children.

Baker, one of the film’s featured architects, died in 2016. His work in Griffintown was part of an illustrious career dedicated to community-centred architecture in Montreal and beyond.

You can watch the film in its original French version here.

aj

Réjeanne Padovani (1973)

 

Réjeanne Padovani (1973), dir. Arcand

As our upcoming mayoral election gets closer and closer, we’d like to take a moment to express the following:

  • No more Drapeau impersonators

  • No more Drapeau wannabes

  • No more urbanism at the mercy of the development industrial complex

  • No more urbanism in the service of the automobile

  • NON!

Thank you.

aj

[politics; corruption; development; radical redevelopment; megaprojects]

l'Initiation (1970)

 

Back to school special 1.

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From the lakehouse to the university. From the Laurentians to l’Université de Montréal.

Denis Héroux’s scandalous l’Initiation is a tale of the country and the city, at least in its early stages, when the film plays upon tensions between leisure and labour, the Laurentians and the modern spaces of late sixties Montreal (lUniversité de Montréal, Hotel Bonaventure, Place Ville-Marie, the Metro, etc.), anticipating key aspects of Denys Arcand’s The Decline of the American Empire (1986) by roughly 15 years. But mostly it’s a bittersweet tale of sexual awakening, one that stars Chantal Renaud (whose life is a snapshot of the Quiet Revolution: yé-yé singer, actress, script writer, and, eventually, the wife of former politician and Parti Québécois leader Bernard Landry) and Jacques Riberolles (Les Demoiselles de Rochefort, among many titles) and co-stars the legendary Danielle Ouimet (Valérie, also by Héroux).

L’Initiation (1970), dir. Héroux—prod. Cinépix

[late summer; early fall; waterskiing; motor-boating; sunbathing; the Laurentians; Université de Montréal; bookstores; post-secondary education; Maple Syrup Porn; Danielle Ouimet]

aj

Ty-Peupe (1971)

 
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Ty-Peupe (1971), dir. Bélanger—prod. ONF

WARNING: This film contains hippies.

[hippies; hippie uprising; hippie convergence; Mount Royal Park; Olmsted Trail; Park Avenue; Pine-Park Overpass; Sainte-Catherine Street; Place des Arts; rock & roll; psychedelic rock; Royal Canadian Mounted Hippies; take back the streets]

Interested? Want to get turned on, man? Check out this film here in the original French.

Rock-A-Bye (1974)

 
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Rock-A-Bye (1974), dir. Jacques Bensimon—prod. NFB

[rock & roll; Montreal Forum; The Rolling Stones; 1972; Mick Jagger; Mick Taylor; Bill Wyman; hippies; hashheads; acid freaks; dirtbags; marijuana; cops; riot police; CHOM-FM; AOR radio; The Esquire Show Bar; Muddy Waters; rhythm & blues; blues; show business; Alice Cooper; Dorval International Airport; The Gay Power]

Watch this film in three parts: here (pt. 1—including The Rolling Stones 1972 Tour), here (pt. 2—including Muddy Waters)), and here (pt. 3—incl. Alice Cooper).

Part rockumentary, part anti-rock & roll/youth culture screed (mostly the latter), Rock-A-Bye is chock full of memorable early ‘70s rock culture moments of the kind you might expect, as well as numerous unexpected elements, and much of it was shot in Montreal.

Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, but unavailable via its otherwise very generous website (for obvious reasons [namely, The Rolling Stones and their legal team]), Rock-A-Bye is presently available in a poor quality version on YouTube. Somehow the washed-out colours and terrible resolution befit much of the made-for-TV movie’s down & dirty content and its attempts to denigrate the culture.

aj

My Name is Susan Yee (1975)

 
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My Name is Susan Yee (1975), dir. Shaffer—prod. NFB (for Children of Canada series)

[childhood; Chinese-Canadian community; school; Milton-Parc; Chinatown; Mount Royal Park; winter; snow; summer; shorts]

Watch this film here. It’s only 12 minutes long.

#stopasianhate

#racistviolenceagainsttheasiancommunityisdomesticterrorism

aj

Les Filles du roy (1974)

 
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Les Filles du roy (1974), dir. Anne Claire Poirier—prod. ONF

[office workers; garment workers; wait staff; bar staff; doctors; information society; computing; Montreal General Hospital; St-Hubert BBQ; labour; gender]

Watch this film with English subtitles here.

Watch this film in the original version, without subtitles, here.

Happy International Women’s Day!

aj