Born a hundred years ago, on April 8, Frédéric Back (1924-2013) remains a master of Quebec cinema and a world master of animated cinema. A multi-talented artist, he excelled at this art, which requires mastery of illustration as much as of its movements. Duty to remember, especially since even today, Crack! And The man who planted treesboth Oscar winners, remain all about relevance and beauty.
We must remember Frédéric Back, believes Marco de Blois, of the Cinémathèque québécoise, because his “work is immense”, underlines the programmer and curator of animated cinema.
“So immense that we tend to forget the impact that Crack! And The man who planted trees. » Crack! (1982), follows a rocking chair from the tree that constitutes it to the museum where it ends and at the same time summarizes the history of Quebec while linking it to artistic modernity.
The man who planted trees (1987), inspired by a text by Jean Giono, carried by the voice of Philippe Noiret, reports the quest of a man who plants trees, day after day, until he makes a forest out of a quasi-desert.
It is Frédéric Back’s masterpiece, made up of 20,000 drawings. Which will encourage small groups, all over the world, to plant trees.
“There is an undeniable dramatic power to this film,” continues Mr. de Blois. “All of Frédéric’s work is propelled by this challenge: how to convey the beauty of nature in a convincing way? »
“It’s at the peak in The man who planted the trees, which emanates from this emotion that we feel in front of the beauty of the world. » These two films received worldwide recognition, explains Mr. de Blois: screenings everywhere, festivals, prestigious awards.
“They also had an impact on moviegoers, through their very high quality. And they provoked vocations. » Hayao Miyazaki, for example, claims Frédéric Back among his influences. Just like the young Scot Iain Gardner, who, for A Bear Named Wojtek (2024), Normand Roger, the composer behind Mr. Back’s last six opuses, joined the music.
Frédéric Back’s ecological activism, before the climate emergency, pushed him to want to make films “which carry a message”, in his own words, “on the defense of absolutely vital values. » Taratata (1977), for example, strongly criticizes the industrialization of Quebec. Everything nothing (1980) focuses on overconsumption and destruction of resources.
From the Fine Arts to the Place-des-Arts metro station
Born in Germany, Frédéric Back arrived in Quebec in 1948. Trained at the Rennes School of Fine Arts, it was he who replaced Paul-Émile Borduas when he was dismissed from the Furniture School. Mr. Back will also teach in Fine Arts.
Joining Radio-Canada at the birth of television in 1952, he was a model maker, illustrator, decorator, caricaturist and skilled technician. “There was then a joy of creating,” Mr. Back recalled to Ciné-Magazine in 1977.
“We could try anything. There were no rigid frameworks. We made animated films from time to time, between models and sets. »
In 1967, Frédéric Back signed the mural which still adorns the Place-des-Arts metro station, The history of music in Montreal. In 1968, an animation studio, founded by producer Hubert Tison, Frédéric Back’s lifelong accomplice, opened on Radio-Canada. Mr. Back made his first short film there, Abracadabrain 1970. Eight others will follow.
20,000 drawings in Prismacolor
“In cinema, there is often a divide between live action and animation. But Frédéric, thanks to his technique, managed to make a bridge there,” continues Mr. de Blois.
Frédéric Back did animation on cellulose, where “each image is drawn, at a rate of 24 images per second,” explains Mr. de Blois.
This technique was associated with American industrial cinema, that of cartoons television series like THE Flintstonessummarizes Mr. de Blois.
“In industrial animation, the work was distributed, sometimes among 1000 employees. We usually used gouache. For Crack, Frédéric used Prismacolor; For The man who planted trees, wax crayons. He also worked with a very small team. »
One of these close friends is the composer and musician Normand Roger, who met Mr. Back on Illusion (1975), and followed him for the rest of his filmography.
“He knew music very well; his father was a musician. In those years, we didn’t have a computer, we couldn’t make demos like today,” recalled Mr. Roger. “I talked to him: he understood the musical language, also when I told him my ideas and what I thought about the instrumentation. »
Turn your back on cartoons
“The difference between one film and another,” explains the composer, who has worked on more than two hundred soundtracks, “is rarely the script. Aesthetics, for me, is the most important part.”
That of Back is anchored on a very soft drawing, a fluid movement, flowing like water; a great luminosity, both always present and gently, which can make us think, dare we say, of Chagall.
“Frédéric didn’t particularly like the clean line,” explains Marco de Blois. “Traditionally, in animation, characters are outlined by very clear black lines. With Back, this line is evanescent, it has something trembling. »
Strong colors are absent from the palette, giving way to nuances, to “colors which retain something natural, which are alive like a material, which work with light and a caressing movement”.
And this is what musician Normand Roger intuitively sought to answer. “I was trying to find something less “recipe”: less based on action, on great dynamism and an invisible orchestra, with lots of effects and the same instrumentation for everything. It wasn’t what we wanted. Frédéric wanted to turn away from the personality cartoonavoid falling into the tradition of cartoons from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Frédéric Back will have rather founded his own tradition, based on an emotion in the face of nature which is still alive, and perhaps now accentuated by the climate emergency.
Some short films by Frédéric Back can be found online here and there. Radio-Canada owns the rights to the films.
The Cinémathèque québécoise presents a tribute session on Sunday: in bursts, Taratata, Everything nothing, Crack! And The man who planted trees. Children from eight years old are welcome.