Filmmaker Érik Canuel, the man worth 12 million, has passed away

Director of Good Cop, Bad Cop, one of the greatest successes of Quebec cinema, Érik Canuel died on Saturday June 15, in Montreal, of secondary plasma cell leukemia, at the age of 63. The filmmaker had suffered from multiple myeloma for seven years.

“Until the end, Érik showed unfailing courage, strength and resilience. He gave us a great lesson in life,” reports his brother, actor Nicolas Canuel, reached by telephone. “I accompanied him and his girlfriend when the disease became more virulent. Until his last days, he had a passion for cinema, he was happy and wanted to make us laugh. He would have liked to end his days in the countryside, but when he decided to go to palliative care, it lasted two days. »

Born in Montreal in 1961, son of actors Yvan Canuel (1935-1999) and Lucille Papineau, Érik Canuel did not take long to discover his vocation, as his younger brother recounts: “We shared a passion for the profession since childhood since we worked in the theater with our father, then together in the cinema. Very, very young, he was doing comics, he already had his eye on the frame. Very early on, his cinematic language developed. He knew how to make the camera talk. He was always reading books about filmmaking techniques and directors. He had a pretty incredible memory of craftsmen. »

After studying film production at Concordia and directing several music videos, episodes of the British-Canadian series The Hunger (1997-1998) and the Quebec series Fortier (1999), as well as the American television film Blackheart: Monster Masher (2000) and the short documentary Hemingway: A Portrait (1999), for which he won a Genie Award, the director made a notable entry into the Quebec cinematic landscape with his first feature film, Pig’s Law (2001), on a screenplay by Joanne Arseneau.

« Ça défrisait, ce film-là ! », se souvient Patrick Roy, à l’époque vice-président d’Alliance Vivafilm. « C’était du jamais vu au Québec, un thriller très américain, très moderne, avec de l’humour noir, un petit miracle fait avec peu de moyens. J’ai adoré travailler avec Érik. Sous ses dehors rock’n’roll, c’était quelqu’un d’attachant, de sympathique, d’agréable, un bon gars assez direct, un grand sensible et quelqu’un avec qui c’était facile de travailler. Avec Érik, on était toujours en confiance. »

« Une machine de guerre »

Tandis qu’il poursuit une prolifique carrière du côté du Canada anglais et des États-Unis, Érik Canuel s’impose au Québec et démontre sa polyvalence avec la comédie sentimentale Nez rouge (2003), le thriller Le dernier tunnel (2004), où il dirige deux géants, Michel Côté et Jean Lapointe, et Le Survenant (2005), d’après le roman de Germaine Guèvremont.

« Érik Canuel était une machine de guerre à l’énergie hors du commun. Il m’a fait confiance pour deux projets déterminants de ma carrière, La loi du cochon et Le Survenant. […] It was impossible not to embark on his trips, he galvanized the team so much with his delirious enthusiasm. Erik, you were a larger than life character. A bad boy with a huge heart. You gave me a great deal! », Shared Catherine Trudeau on her social networks.

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“ The Surprising, it was perhaps not natural for Érik, but having seen it again two or three years ago on TV, it remains a magnificent film which has aged well. Erik showed all his sensitivity and proved all his versatility. He could do anything, he was an excellent technician,” says Patrick Roy.

In 2006, with the police comedy Good Cop, Bad Cop, where Patrick Huard and Colm Feore form a shock duo, Érik Canuel smashes the box office with receipts of more than 12 million. If the Jutra for directing escaped him in 2007, he won the one for the most successful film outside of Quebec the following year.

“There were financing issues,” says Patrick Roy. With Patrick Huard, who was also one of the screenwriters, he had to make significant changes. He proved his great professionalism and that he was capable of turning around on a 10 cent in conditions that were not always easy. Erik had a very unique style, which has not been imitated; he was one of the first to make genre cinema. He took our cinematography where it had never gone. »

A great cinema enthusiast

“Erik Canuel was not only a director of genre films, he was the director of all genres,” Marc Lamothe, director of partnerships at Fantasia, wrote on Facebook. Like Jean-Claude Lord, Yves Simoneau, André Melançon and Roger Cantin, he is an artist who knew how to break down doors to allow generations to give in the genre in Quebec. Starting last winter, I spoke regularly with Érik, because the festival wanted to award him the Denis-Héroux prize this summer, a career prize recognizing an exceptional contribution to the development and dissemination of genre cinema and independent Quebec cinema. . »

The prize will be awarded posthumously during a screening of a 35mm print of Pig’s Law, July 22. Since 2019, where he signed four episodes of the series TransplantÉrik Canuel, to whom we also owe Corpses (2009) and Mystery Lake (2012), had no longer been filmed.

“My brother was the biggest movie fan I knew. He still wanted to make films, he had two or three projects in mind. He still received offers, but it was no longer possible due to illness. Our last production together was 9 – the movie, written by Stéphane E. Roy; I played in the segment he directed, “Road Rest” », confides Nicolas Canuel.

“Erik had so many projects, he had this madness of wanting to shoot everything. He had a blast telling stories with such energy, such generosity. For seven or eight years, he made one film per year. Few directors have navigated across genres with such intelligence; he knew how to make cinema commercial, accessible and unifying. It’s a big loss for cinema,” concludes Nathalie Brunet, who was the filmmaker’s agent for 28 years.