Newspaper film critic The duty during the 1970s and 1980s, Richard Gay died on February 21 at the age of 76, surrounded by his loved ones. Teacher, columnist, he hosted many press conferences during the great years of the World Film Festival.
“A fervent fan of tennis, American football and jazz, it’s the 7e art that has always been his greatest passion,” his family recalled.
Born in Montreal in 1946, Richard Gay discovered cinema through Walt Disney cartoons.
” I think about Snow White. Especially at Fantasia. The latter was such a beautiful memory that the first film I showed my young daughter was Fantasiabecause I wanted him to experience what I had experienced when I was very young, ”he confided to the cinema review Sequencein 1985.
His passion for the cinema began to emerge in adolescence, before becoming more devouring during the classical course, during the 1960s. Between two “sessions” in Montreal cinemas, Richard Gay assiduously frequented film clubs organized on the sidelines classes. As he explained in the same interview:
“I started to read a lot about cinema, while continuing to see a multitude of films. My training was that of an autodidact who literally stuffed himself and continues to stuff himself with films. There are directors who have learned their job as a director by regularly going to the cinema. I am thinking of Truffaut, who died recently. Godard is part of this generation. Chabrol and co. The filmmakers of the New Wave in France are filmmakers who learned their craft by seeing a lot of films. I would say, all things considered, that I learned my job as a film critic by faithfully frequenting cinemas and films. »
During his studies, he contributed to the student newspaper of the Collège Sainte-Marie, to the newspaper of the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district… Master’s degree in French literature from McGill University and diploma from the École Normale Supérieure of the University of Montreal in his pocket, Richard Gay began to teach French literature at Notre-Dame College before he was asked to give a film course there.
At Radio-Canada, he took part in the program Cinemagazine before entering the newspaper The dutyin 1978. In the 1980s, he also became a columnist there.
Also in the portrait devoted to him SequenceRichard Gay went there with this revealing anecdote:
” I am open to everything. I remember that in Ticket we had done a survey of critics to find out if they preferred American cinema to European cinema. And I replied, as silly as it may seem, that I preferred good cinema. »