Have you ever seen Émile Proulx-Cloutier with a hat? Which was it? Actor, director, editor, screenwriter, directorlast supper, singer-songwriter, father and lover, in particular, he is not unemployed. Curious, insatiable and talented, these days he adds a new experience to his arc: the publication of a book. In the wake of the publication of the illustrated album The cricket and the firefly, The duty met him in a bookstore on avenue du Mont-Royal.
That day, he wore a simple cap. The sun radiated its light—or was it that of the books? -, and while November returned to summer, the almost forty-year-old offered himself a return to childhood. Through this children’s book, first, but also by accessing the desires buried in it since always: “It’s true that through my various projects, it’s as if there were several children in me who have desires, not contradictory, but cumulative, and which I did not want to neglect. Émile Proulx-Cloutier is certainly busy, but he is also resolutely available. And engaged.
Back to basics
The idea to illustrate his popular song The cricket and the firefly came from the publisher (Planète rebelle), but taking it up for its narrative qualities was, for the author, absolutely natural: “It was because the ball was sent to me that I jumped at it , but actually it took me back to the original origin of the song. It’s not a spin off of the song, but a return to the seed of the text, which was to make a written tale, for children. And it’s probably because my original idea tinted the writing, making the song visual and narrative, that we hear Tinker Bell turning the page between each quatrain. Because it was written like that. »
It must be said that, in general, he constructs his songs like stories: “My songs are worked on like that: in the manner of what we call storyboards At the movie theater. That is to say, to place the angles, the images, to think about where we are, where the characters are, and to move the song forward with pivots. »
Thus, whether from his first performance on stage, at the Festival en chanson de Petite-Vallée, in 2011, or in the hundreds of iterations since, Émile Proulx-Cloutier sings The cricket and the firefly imagining a film: “I always have the film of the song playing in my head when I’m performing, and the choice of illustrations for the album refreshed that film. »
A song unveiled
In addition to the fertile happiness of seeing his words illustrated by the imagination of Élise Kasztelan, the author underlines the little shock born of reading the text, once stripped of its music: “It’s special to have to do the exercise of a song that I’ve worn for over ten years, that I’ve sung hundreds of times, and suddenly take an element out of it. »
To the withdrawal of the music — which distilled an inherent joy in its catchy rhythm — is added the awareness of the target audience, thus throwing a new light on the text: “The melancholy of the text appeared more strongly. I’m not afraid of melancholy, but there, I imagined myself as a parent, lying with my child in the evening with the book, and I saw the exchange it could arouse. »
It was then that he suggested adding a prelude and a finale to the song, “not to put a stop to the cruel nature of this story, but to open doors, if only for your child have the taste to follow the world when you wish it good night”.
Children are capable of considering the complexity of the world, the vertigo, the great imperfections of what makes up our lives.
Having grown up with these traditional tales whose cruelty has been erased, it was important to him to let the children go their own way: “Often, in certain traditional tales, we are told what is the good and the bad outcome, and I I think it may have polluted some imaginations. »
Émile Proulx-Cloutier holds children in high esteem, and he intends to address them while respecting their sensitivity and their intelligence: “Children are capable of envisaging the complexity of the world, the dizziness, the great imperfections of what make our lives. It doesn’t mean to be depressing with them, but to let them access their own depth and not be afraid of it. »
Good children
Fable of a withering love, distracted by the lure of novelty, The cricket and the firefly usually reaches an adult audience. Because in children’s literature, romantic separations are most often approached through the prism of the consequences they engender in children, the proposal here induces a refreshing novelty. However, for the artist, the subject is in no way reserved for adulthood.
“Me, I have the memory, child, to be in love as early as in the kindergarten, he remembers. It wasn’t necessarily a couple thing, but the idea of being attracted to others, coupled with the fear of rejection. So to be able to embrace this part of oneself, this impetus for the other, which materializes or not, for good or bad reasons… There is a part inside the child which is capable to have a broad view of human feelings, even if the words are not there yet. »
The father of three returns to the importance of feeding the youngest with what makes life vibrant, paradoxical and imperfect, to prevent them from turning their backs on the obstacles that await them forever: “For me, the worst disappointment , it’s wanting something that’s no longer dangerous, that’s no longer fragile, so that it doesn’t hurt anymore. »
Émile Proulx-Cloutier, once again, invites us to life, to its disappointments as well as its opportunities, embracing its perpetual metamorphoses. Because even what seems inalienable is ultimately fragile: “Even the most traditional patterns of our lives are not cemented. It remains alive, it remains fragile, and it requires as much maintenance as a garden. If we have to maintain it every day, it’s because it’s fragile. It is correct that it is. That’s why it’s beautiful. »