Caroline (1964)

 

Keywords: Montreal; boulevard Décarie; ennuie; motherhood; domestic drudgery; workplace drudgery; modern living; anomie.

Nothing says “Mother’s Day” like a disenchanted young mother living in a Décarie boulevard high-rise, caught in a double bind of domestic drudgery and the banality of the modern workplace.

Clément Perron and Georges Dufaux’s Caroline is an example of Quebec’s New Wave cinema at its cool, mod best. Emphasis on the cool.

Don’t worry. It’s got a happy ending. Kind of.

You can find this classic in the original French here.

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C'est pas la faute à Jacques Cartier (1967)

 

C'est pas la faute à Jacques Cartier (1967), dir. Dufaux & Perron—prod. ONF



There’s been some question as to the practicalities of the CAQ’s proposed Bill 96. Apparently, part of the campaign to solidify and strengthen the French language in the province of Quebec will involve a technology first unveiled on the streets of Montreal in 1967 (pictured above). Of course, they may have to update the text on the technology itself, or at least couple it with the words “français instantané” in a more prominent position and in a larger font, but, otherwise, the concept here is both generous and democratic. It’s also been proven effective in overcoming the resistance of anti-French, Franco-hesitant, and Franco-skeptical Anglos.

What’s the state of French, “the official and common language of Québec” at the moment? Is the French language imperilled?

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Why is this man frowning?

Well, whatever the case, just remember, it ain’t Jacques Cartier’s fault. That OS* did his part for France, New France, and the French language.

If there is a problem, it may have something to do with our neighbour to the south, though.

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It’s possible.

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[Ste-Catherine Street; Décarie Boulevard; Dorchester Boulevard; language politics; centre-ville; Denys Arcand; Americanization; Bill 96; motorpsychos; Gibeau Orange Julep]





Watch this film here.





aj





*Original Settla

Manger (1961)

 
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Remember, Easter is almost upon us!

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Manger [Eat] (1961), dir. Gilles Carle & Louis Portugais—prod. ONF

[food; food culture; restaurants; diners; supermarkets; charcuterie platters; corned beef; French fries; Dunn’s; rue Sainte Catherine; electrical signage; business lunches; consumer society; consumption; sexism]

Watch this film here (en français).

aj

Labyrinth (1967)

 
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Labyrinth (1967), dir. Roman Kroitor, Colin Low, et al.—prod. NFB

Labyrinth/Labyrinthe was an audacious multimedia and multi-sensory pavilion designed, executed, and hosted by the National Film Board of Canada for Montreal’s 1967 International and Universal Exposition, a.k.a. Expo 67. Its Brutalist form contained a number of multi-screen cinema chambers. One of them projected a series of moving images in a 5-screen cruciform arrangement. Though Labyrinth’s humanist perspective was also explicitly internationalist (hence the shots of the Sahara Desert that surround the first image), many of the featured images were of Montreal, where many of the filmmakers involved in this project lived and worked.

[snow; winter; commuters; gravedigger; traffic; public transportation; Dorchester Boulevard; Mary Queen of the World Cathedral; the Queen Elizabeth Hotel; camels; Sahara Desert]

Watch this film here.

And to learn much more about multi-screen experimentation at Expo 67, check out Reimagining Cinema: Film at Expo 67 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014), edited by Janine Marchessault and Monika Kin Gagnon. Featuring essays by Seth Feldman, Gary Mediema, Aimée Mitchell, Johanne Sloan, Monika Kin Gagnon, Janine Marchessault, and Yours Truly.

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