Since the first film and more and more, we have the same taste for Quebec speech. Of a species of men at the height of men. And the desire to offer all Quebecers their own destiny… Or a beer. Not a fiction. But themselves, in flesh and blood. A decolonization company. Out of friendship for man first. Out of friendship with the man from Quebec, therefore. Together or separately, we have that taste.
Use lightweight cameras and portable recorders. Capture the unexpected as soon as it arises. Getting closer to reality. Film the real thing, as faithfully as possible. Show a town to finally tell it. Today, it seems almost commonplace. But without the contribution of the filmmakers who shaped direct cinema in Quebec, perhaps it would be more event-oriented.
Direct cinema, or how the masterpieces of our cinema are born
We date the starting signal of this documentary cinema stuck to reality and freed from the ties of heavier productions in the short film snow rackets, by Gilles Groulx and Michel Brault. Other classics will follow, still born in the revolutionary ranks at the time of the National Film Board: At Saint-Henri, September 5by Hubert Aquin golden glovesby Gilles Groulx Manouane Lumberjacksby Arthur Lamothe…
But for the rest of the worldby Pierre Perreault and Michel Brault, the first feature film resulting from this movement and the first Quebec film selected at the Cannes Film Festival, is the highlight.
Because by offering the inhabitants of Île aux Coudres the opportunity to recreate the porpoise fishing that was practiced there until 1924, the filmmakers – who live on the island sharing the daily life of those they film – show a heritage, a tradition.
They show rediscovered gestures, as if inscribed in a collective memory, coming back to life under the gaze of an accomplice camera. Better still, they make a people exist on the screen, and in the same gesture they show francophones to francophones. In 1968, this was not common.
for the rest of the world It is not an ethnographic or historical document, it is the best thing that can happen when cinema and reality meet.
for the rest of the worldat ICI Tele, 1Ahem maybe 23:32