We thought we knew everything about L’Osstidcho, an emblematic show of the Quebec cultural revolution. Until L’Osstidquoi? L’Osstidchoa documentary that embraces the complexity and depth of the work while emphasizing its social significance.
The impact of L’Osstidcho has been dissected many times over the decades, to the point where we no longer thought we could learn much new about this legendary show that broke taboos and helped bring Quebec culture into modernity. We talked about the influence of Californian rock on Charlebois, the need to kick the clams, the thirst for freedom of young baby boomers who aspired to free themselves from the education of their parents.
L’Osstidquoi? L’Osstidcho, a documentary directed by Louis-Philippe Eno on a screenplay by Francis Legault, nevertheless manages to take a more complete look, not new, at the happening enthusiastically staged by Louise Forestier, Mouffe, Yvon Deschamps and Robert Charlebois in the month of May 1968 at the Quat’Sous with the collaboration of the Quatuor de jazz libre du Québec. The reason ? His creation is eloquently put into context here.
IMAGE FROM THE FILM THE OSSTIDWHAT? OSSTIDCHO
It’s in L’Osstidcho that Yvon Deschamps created his monologue Unions, which ossa gives.
What emerges, first of all, is that even if L’Osstidcho remains of course linked to Charlebois – its songs are the most easily accessible legacy – it was the work of four creators and performers.
That there was not only a community of spirit between them, but also an equity: two women, two men, whose ideas were put to contribution.
That this show not only marked the birth of Yvon Deschamps as a monologist, but also of Louise Forestier as a songwriter (when you’re not here), as noted by journalist Marie-Christine Blais, one of the many people invited to shed light on this culture shock and its legacy.
Make a clean sweep
At the heart of the film, there are first its four main craftsmen, all dressed in white (as in the show) and all quick-witted, who look back without nostalgia on their young years and the desire they had for everything. fuck up. Yes, there was the fragmented form of the show, the desire to get out of the straightjacket of chansonniere (even Charlebois was wise at the start), embodied in particular by free jazz and improvisation.
The white of the costumes did not only refer to the host swallowed at mass, but also to this strong desire to start on new bases, on a blank page.
What makes Francis Legault and Louis-Philippe Eno’s documentary so captivating, however, is the care it takes to dissect the social significance of L’Osstidcho. To take the measure of it, we must understand the Quebec in which its creators had grown up: the great darkness of Duplessis, a society where workers worked all their lives without earning enough to ensure their old age, a world where the arrival of the pill is not just a symbol of olé olé freedom, but downright of survival when we have known women who have had abortions with knitting needles…
IMAGE FROM THE FILM THE OSSTIDWHAT? OSSTIDCHO
The free spirit of Louise Forestier, as lively and lively as ever, nourished L’Osstidchoa show in which she also performed a song of her own for the first time, When you’re not there.
L’Osstidcho was not just a show of artists eager to break with a establishment cultural, it was that of young women and young men breaking with the vision of the world inherited from their parents. Unions, which ossa gives takes on an almost tragic depth when Yvon Deschamps recounts how his grandfather was sent home at 65 with a simple watch as a gift after working his whole life in a factory. Deprived of a salary, he could no longer pay rent for his wife and himself, and they had to resolve to go and live with their children. Separately…
It was this Quebec that the youth of the time, represented by the artisans of the show, rejected. A youth of course large enough to be heard – we are talking about the baby-boom generation, after all – and educated and enlightened enough to see what was happening elsewhere.
L’Osstidcho was not “self-generated”, underlines the film, it was part of a global movement: May 68 in France, the fight against the Vietnam War and for the civil rights of African-Americans in the United States …
It’s not just “French Canada that no longer wants to be subjugated,” as historian Éric Bédard points out, it’s Quebec that feels close to Martin Luther King’s dream. His death was quite a shock, confirms Yvon Deschamps on the screen. “That someone is killed because he wants to advance things and obtain rights for the black community, that touched us deeply,” he said. As if he had been our brother. »
L’Osstidcho is described in this film as a tremendous momentum, without ever falling into “it was better before”. Louise Forestier, whose legacy is often underestimated, on the contrary looks at today’s society with generous empathy. “Perhaps our job for us, the elders, is not to transport despair, she says by way of conclusion, but to incite courage. »
Sunday, 8 p.m., on Télé-Québec