The Films of Denys Arcand
The Films of Denys Arcand

Author: Jim Leach

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2020-07-17

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 0813598885

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Denys Arcand is best known outside Canada for three films that were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Foreign-Language Film: The Decline of the American Empire (1986), Jesus of Montreal (1989), and The Barbarian Invasions (2003), the last of which won the Award. Yet Arcand has been making films since the early 1960s. When he started making films, Quebec was rapidly transforming from a relatively homogeneous community, united by its Catholic faith and French language and culture, into a more fragmented modern society. The Films of Denys Arcand sheds light on how Arcand addressed the impact of these changes from the 1960s, when the long-drawn-out debate on Quebec's possible separation from the rest of Canada began, to the present, in which the traditional cultural heritage has been further fragmented by the increasing presence of diasporic communities. His career and films offer an ideal case study for exploring the contradictions and tensions that have shaped Quebec cinema and culture in a period of increasing globalization and technological change.

Denys Arcand
Denys Arcand

Author: Réal La Rochelle

Publisher: McArthur Publishing

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13:

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Oscar Award winner Denys Arcand’s films such as The Barbarian Invasions and The Decline of the American Empire have garnered both praise and criticism over the years. In this critically acclaimed biography, which appeared first in French, Réal La Rochelle traces the portrait of an artist-intellectual, revealing the passion of a creator for his craft, as well as the setbacks Arcand has encountered. In the background is the history of Quebec, the birthplace of Arcand’s filmic oeuvre, and of course Montreal—the city where all his films have been shot.

Auteur/provocateur
Auteur/provocateur

Author: André Loiselle

Publisher: Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13:

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"With the international critical and commercial successes of Le Declin de l'empire americain (The Decline of the American Empire, 1986) and Jesus de Montreal (Jesus of Montreal, 1989) Denys Arcand has risen to the forefront of Canadian filmmaking. These films brought wider recognition to a director whose career spans 30 years and who has played a pivotal role in the development of our perception of French-Canadian cinema ... The book provides a series of insightful critical essays on Arcand's films, together with an interview, filmography and bibliography. The contributions explore aspects of the director's work, including his position within the history of Quebec cinema, his use of sound and music, the critical reception of his films in the United States, and an extensive analysis of his two major features."--Page 4 of cover.

The Cinema of Canada
The Cinema of Canada

Author: Jerry White

Publisher: Wallflower Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9781904764601

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Containing 24 essays, each on a different film, this work provides a fascinating historical account of the development of film and documentary traditions across the diverse national and regional communities in Canada.

Immanent Frames
Immanent Frames

Author: John Caruana

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2018-05-31

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1438470185

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For some time now, thinkers across the humanities and social sciences have increasingly called into question the once-dominant view of the relationship between modernity and secularism, prompting some to speak of a "postsecular turn." Until now, film studies has largely been silent about this development, even though cinema itself has been a major vehicle for such reflection. This fact became inescapable in 2011 when Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and Lars von Trier's Melancholia were released within days of each other. While these two audacious and controversial films present seemingly opposite perspectives—the former a thoughtful meditation on faith, the latter a portrayal of nontriumphalist atheism—together they raise critical questions about transcendence and immanence in modern life. These films are, however, only the most conspicuous of a growing body of works that call forth similar and related questions—what this collection aptly calls "postsecular cinema." Taking the nearly simultaneous release of The Tree of Life and Melancholia as its starting point and framing device, this pioneering collection sets out to establish the idea of postsecular cinema as a distinct body of films and a viable critical category. Adopting a film-philosophy approach, one group of essays examines Malick's and von Trier's films, while another looks at works by Chantal Akerman, Denys Arcand, the Dardenne brothers, and John Michael McDonagh, among others. The volume closes with two important interviews with Luc Dardenne and Jean-Luc Nancy that invite us to reflect more deeply on some of the central concerns of postsecular cinema.

Film and the City
Film and the City

Author: George Melnyk

Publisher: Athabasca University Press

Published: 2014-05-01

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 1927356598

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Most Canadians are city dwellers, a fact often unacknowledged by twentieth-century Canadian films, with their preference for themes of wilderness survival or rural life. Modernist Canadian films tend to support what film scholar Jim Leach calls “the nationalist-realist project,” a documentary style that emphasizes the exoticism and mythos of the land. Over the past several decades, however, the hegemony of Anglo-centrism has been challenged by francophone and First Nations perspectives and the character of cities altered by a continued influx of immigrants and the development of cities as economic and technological centers. No longer primarily defined through the lens of rural nostalgia, Canadian urban identity is instead polyphonic, diverse, constructed through multiple discourses and mediums, an exchange rather than a strict orientation. Taking on the urban as setting and subject, filmmakers are ideally poised to create and reflect multiple versions of a single city. Examining fourteen Canadian films produced from 1989 to 2007, including Denys Arcand’s Jésus de Montréal (1989), Jean-Claude Lauzon’s Léolo (1992), Mina Shum’s Double Happiness (1994), Clément Virgo’s Rude (1995), and Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg (2007), Film and the City is the first comprehensive study of Canadian film and “urbanity”—the totality of urban culture and life. Drawing on film and urban studies and building upon issues of identity formation in Canadian studies, Melnyk considers how filmmakers, films, and urban audiences experience, represent, and interpret urban spatiality, visuality, and orality. In this way, Film and the City argues that Canadian narrative film of the postmodern period has aided in articulating a new national identity.

Denys Arcand's Le Declin de l'empire americain and Les Invasions barbares
Denys Arcand's Le Declin de l'empire americain and Les Invasions barbares

Author: Andrê Loiselle

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2008-11-01

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1442693320

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The release of Denys Arcand's Le Déclin de l'empire américain (The Decline of the American Empire) in 1986 marked a major turning point in Quebec cinema. It was the first Québécois film that enjoyed huge critical and commercial success at home and abroad. Arcand's tragicomedy about eight intellectuals gathered around a dinner table relating sexy anecdotes became the top-grossing film of all time in Quebec and was the first Canadian feature to be nominated for an Oscar in the foreign-language category. Seventeen years later, Arcand won an Academy Award for the sequel, Les Invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions), where the amusing insouciance of the thirty-somethings talking dirty in Le Déclin is replaced by a sense of moral responsibility and serene resignation. In this engrossing study, André Loiselle presents the first in-depth analysis of both films within the context of Quebec culture. Through close readings and concise cultural analysis of two of the most important films in the history of Quebec cinema, Loiselle demonstrates the ways in which Arcand's work represents a snapshot of the evolution of the French Canadian film industry since 1980. The companion films trace the decline of Quebec's national dream and the Québécois' attempts to cling to their identity against the forces of barbaric globalization. The second title in the new Canadian Cinema series, Denys Arcand's "Le Déclin de l'empire américain" and "Les Invasions barbares" is essential reading for cinephiles, film critics, and anyone with an interest in cultural studies and Canadian and Quebec history.

Stage-Bound
Stage-Bound

Author: André Loiselle

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780773526105

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Annotation "Although feature film adaptations of Canadian plays have become increasingly common in the past decade, the practice of turning drama into film began in Canada in 1942 when Hilda Hooke Smith's Here Will I Nest was brought to the screen. Over the years some adaptations have enjoyed a fair measure of success while others have fallen into oblivion, but virtually all of them have engaged with their theatrical origins, often leading to criticism that they remain too rigidly anchored to the stage. Stage-Bound, the first extensive study of Canadian and Quebecois drama, challenges this reductive interpretation. Andre Loiselle demonstrates that theatricality is central to the meaning of these films, and in the process reclaims them."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Questions for the Movie Answer Man
Questions for the Movie Answer Man

Author: Roger Ebert

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing

Published: 1997-06

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 9780836228946

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What was in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction? Why don't movie actors wear seat belts? Was Fargo really based on a true story? Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert answers these and hundreds more. Using wit, insight, and dozens of other experts, he resolves some of the most common questions about the moviesand some of the most bizarre.