The Movie Orders Turns 50 | Still Relevant

Four years after the October Crisis of 1970, the film The orders by Michel Brault, whose screenplay focuses on people arrested and imprisoned following the adoption of the War Measures Actis released in theaters. Fifty years later, it remains a flagship work of Quebec cinematography. Here’s why.

There was a huge crowd on this Thursday, September 26, 1974 at the Rivoli and Place Ville Marie cinemas in Montreal to attend the premiere of the film The orders.

Screenwriter and director Michel Brault welcomes René Lévesque, Pauline Julien, Gérald Godin, Jean Duceppe, Michelle Rossignol, Pierre Bourgault, Marc Laurendeau and many others. Three of the five main actors, Jean Lapointe, Louise Forestier and Claude Gauthier, are present.

Tous découvrent un film atypique à plusieurs points de vue. Brault, mort en 2013, n’évoque pas la crise de front, mais plutôt la rafle policière qui a mené à l’arrestation et à l’incarcération de 497 personnes dépouillées de leurs droits en raison de la Loi sur les mesures de guerre adoptée le 16 octobre 1970. Le film suit l’histoire de cinq d’entre elles.

Dans les jours suivants, les médias saluent en grande majorité un film percutant. En compétition au Festival de Cannes de mai 1975, Les ordres remporte le prix de la mise en scène, ex æquo avec Section spéciale de Costa-Gavras.

« Dangers de l’arbitraire »

Cinquante ans plus tard, le film suscite toujours l’admiration. « Il conserve toute sa pertinence sur le plan du discours, explique en entrevue Marcel Jean, directeur général de la Cinémathèque québécoise.

Son of Paul Rose and himself a director, Félix Rose recalls that two of his aunts and his grandmother were arrested under the War Measures Act“What they experienced is very faithful to what we see in the film,” he said.

“I was expecting a bit more political play, fights between Trudeau and Lévesque, police officers, underhanded blows. But, after reflection, I told myself that the film was deeper than it seemed, because we saw the real victims of the October Crisis,” recalls Marc Laurendeau.

The other particularity of the film lies in the alternating use of black and white and color. If Michel Brault chose to shoot partially in black and white, it was for economic reasons. He took advantage of this by using, against all logic, black and white in the exterior scenes.

Present at Cannes, actor and singer Claude Gauthier, who played Richard Lavoie in the film, remembers that Brault had explained his idea to Claude Lelouch. “Michel told him that in real life, we know color, but in prison, we don’t know color. In prison, there are no colors. It’s gray, greenish, that’s all. Lelouch thought this idea was brilliant,” explains Mr. Gauthier.

Lelouch will also distribute the film in France, with very modest results. In total, there were 27,763 admissions, says Sylvain Garel, historian, professor and specialist in Quebec cinema who recently released the book The FLQ in Quebec cinematography.

As Special sectionand as Chronicle of the years of embers by Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina (Palme d’Or), The orders has a strong political content. “But Brault’s film, without calling for revolt, has no resolution at the end,” says Marcel Jean. “We couldn’t come out of it saying: thank goodness the police are watching over us. On the contrary, it’s a disturbing film.”

50 testimonials

Former journalist and author of the book History of the FLQLouis Fournier salutes, like many others, the documentary approach of Michel Brault since he constructed his scenario from the testimonies of around fifty people arrested.

“Michel Brault met me to talk about the event and I gave him some names,” he said. “On a human level, it’s a very beautiful film. People who experienced the October Crisis up close found that it was well rendered.” Let’s remember that Louis Fournier, like Claude Gauthier, was visited by police officers during the October Crisis. Their apartments were searched, but they were not imprisoned.

“I made a film about humiliation. The humiliation of people,” Brault summed up to screenwriter and director Gilles Noël (Jack Paradise, Wrong person) In Conversation on the visiblea book of interviews published in France.

Scenario rejected

As early as August 1971, Michel Brault had submitted a draft film script to the National Film Board (NFB). The organization’s “program committee” had recommended that management accept the project. But management said no, considering that “the script is questionable” and “has political implications which, despite the universality of the theme, could recall the ‘October events’.”

Brault therefore turned to the private sector and did his work with modest means. But he knew where he was going, remembers Louise Forestier, who plays Claudette Dusseault, a social worker, in the work. “Michel was very humble,” she says. “He didn’t play the director. He didn’t make his own movies. [rires]. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. He was focused. He had his film within him. And we listened to him.”

Why review? The orders today? “For the record,” Louis Fournier replies. “It was the moment in Canadian history when we came closest to totalitarianism and fascism. In terms of civil liberties and rights, it was the darkest thing we have ever experienced.”

We find The orders on several online streaming platforms, such as Apple TV, Prime Video and Éléphant, mémoire du cinéma québécois. The film will be presented on November 3 at the Cinéma du Musée as part of 50 years of cinema at Concordia University.