My uncle Antoine… Where Silent Night ?
Before calling each other My uncle Antoine, Claude Jutra’s film has long been called Silent Night. Since the action takes place on Christmas Eve, there is a direct reference to the song. Holy night. But it is also a reference to “the long dark night during which the Quebec people remained silent on their fate as a people”, writes Yves Lever in his biography of Jutra. “The people in the cast were not thrilled with this English-language title which stayed that way until zero copy,” says Marc St-Pierre, of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). But when a member of the production, Alain Dostie, allegedly said that the character played by Jean Duceppe reminded him of his uncle Antoine, the case was concluded.
Who is Clément Perron?
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE NFB
Clément Perron, in 1973, on the set of the film Taurus
Who is the one behind the scenario of My uncle Antoine ? Writer, director and producer, Clément Perron (1929-1999) is originally from East Broughton, in the Thetford Mines region. After his studies, he joined the ONF. He goes through the documentary before touching on fiction. The scenario of My uncle Antoine has won two awards, at the Canadian Film Awards and at the Chicago International Film Festival. In an interview published on December 31, 1971 in The gallery, Perron affirms: “For me, My uncle Antoine is a true film because it tells something important with simplicity. The truth in this film is ours, which does not prevent it from being universal. »Among his other films, we can cite Day after day, on the repetitive work of the employees of a paper mill, the fictional drama Taurus, with André Melançon, and Gone for glory, fiction inspired by the Beaucerons revolt against conscription during World War II.
Behind the rosary scene
A medical graduate, Claude Jutra was not afraid of being in the presence of corpses. The scene of the rosary in the hands of a deceased that we see in the film is an example. This was shot under questionable conditions. In his book, Yves Lever tells us that, for the sake of realism, Jutra wanted to shoot the scene in close-up with a real corpse to show its rigidity. With the help of the Montreal coroner, Brault will shoot the close-ups, at night, in the Montreal morgue. But as the body of the deceased was really very stiff, Jutra broke his bones to insert the rosary between his fingers and then remove it. In the shot of the film, the hands of Jean Duceppe who remove the rosary are in fact those of Jutra.
PHOTO ARCHIVES THE PRESS
One of the Cinema notebook Press February 10, 2007
Press : no criticism, but …
What was the verdict of Press in the concert of reviews published at the exit of My uncle Antoine in Quebec ? None. Because the employees of Press were then locked out. From July 1971 to February 1972, a labor dispute paralyzed the daily activities of the rue Saint-Jacques. The newspaper was not published from October 28, 1971 to February 9, 1972. On Saturday February 10, 2007, 35 years after this story, the Cinema of Press conducted a survey of 50 people in the film industry to ask them to draw up a list of the 10 best Quebec films in history. My uncle Antoine comes first, ahead Good riddance, by Francis Mankiewicz, Orders, by Michel Brault, Leolo, by Jean-Claude Lauzon, and The decline of the American empire, by Denys Arcand.