Screenwriter Marie Vien talks little about what lies behind the stories she imagines. Where is the truth in Augustine’s Passion and in 14 days, 12 nights ? She’s the only one who knows.
But for One summer time, which appears on screens this Friday, she agreed to talk to me about what led her to write this film. This contemporary fable where an unorthodox chaplain brings a group of homeless people to spend a vacation in a house in Bas-du-Fleuve is a tribute to a man whose departure remains a great pain.
“My brother Jean lived on the streets and suffered from a misdiagnosed mental illness,” she confided to me over a coffee that she left to cool.
He was a poet, a man of tenderness and love. He was brilliant and crazy about Bob Dylan.
Mary Come
In the mid-1960s, Marie Vien’s family saw Jean as a boy who had trouble with authority. It was later discovered that he suffered from schizophrenia. For the time being, attempts are being made to remedy this “problem” by placing him in schools where discipline is the solution, it is believed.
“He was leaving with my mother…” Marie Vien struggles to finish her sentence. His eyes fill with water. “It was very hard for him. And for us. »
Jean later falls “into the dope », the easiest buoy. After her mother’s death, her condition deteriorated rapidly. “He could no longer keep his apartments,” continues Marie Vien. He found himself on the street. When we took him to the hospital, nothing came of it. If the person refuses to be medicated, it is difficult to move forward. »
One day, Jean learns that he has brain cancer. After a short hospitalization, he goes to the Montreal bus terminal and buys a ticket to Edmonton. “A hospital found us,” says Marie Vien. I went to find him. He was already mixed up, but that was something. I had brought a CD player and we were listening to Dylan. He told me that he was going to accompany him when he was going to die. »
Marie Vien returns to Montreal and her sister takes over. Jean dies a few days later in Alberta. It was there that Marie began to frequent La Maison du Père. “Through the eyes of these people, I found my brother. I had his gaze in front of me. »
PHOTO PROVIDED BY IMMINA FILMS
movie scene One summer time
One day, Marie Vien sees a man in a white cassock. “He was a priest. I could see that he connected with everyone. I came home and the premise of the movie popped up. I imagined a chaplain whose church is bankrupt who inherits a property. And he takes a gang of homeless people to this house for a summer. »
During the period of writing, Marie Vien met people who lived in a situation of homelessness or poverty, but also a large number of priests and chaplains.
Contrary to popular belief, most of these men are in tune with the current trend. They traveled and had intense social experiences.
Mary Come
Before filming, Marie Vien took Louise Archambault, the film’s director (whom she is full of praise for), to La Maison du Père. “Louise found that I was close to these people. I told him they were my brothers. I finally told him my brother’s story. »
This aspect of her life, Marie Vien kept it to herself until very recently. The actors do not know who Jean is. Producer Anton Cozzolino just found out. “I didn’t want people to think it was my story, because it’s not mine. »
Jean’s “street name” was Dino. There is a scene in the film which allows Marie Vien to pay homage to this brother whom she loved so much. It’s up to you to discover it.
Strangely, homelessness, which is very present in urban reality, is rarely shown in cinema and on television. The last example I have in mind goes back to Happy Calvary, by Denys Arcand. Marie Vien hopes that her film will contribute to changing the way we look at these people.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
Mary Come
The street isn’t just tough guys and junkies. My film talks about the extreme loneliness that these people experience. They are cut off from everything. I have seen young people who are in rooms where there is nothing on the walls. That’s why they go to the streets, to have contacts. They find a social network, fucked, but social all the same.
Mary Come
After starting out in advertising, a leap into the world of politics as press officer for Liza Frulla (hence the script forArlette) and the production of television programs, Marie Vien plunged into the very difficult universe of screenwriting. Each of his projects required several years of research, writing and determination.
Through it all, she has an irrepressible need to give her time to help those most in need. The one who grew up in a “bourgeois family from Outremont rich in politicians” organized an event that raised a lot of money for La Maison du Père.
“When the holiday season arrives, I’m the type to beg for beauty product samples to make pouches that I offer to Chez Doris, a women’s home. »
I left Marie Vien without telling her that I owe Dylan the best years of my youth. I still have about twenty of his LPs (well yes!) at home. The creator of Like a Rolling Stone has a nice place on my iPhone.
In the car, I remembered this disc of Bette Midler (Divine Madness) where she had the idea of pairing You Can’t Always Get What You Wantfrom the Stones, to I Shall Be Released, by Dylan. The unclassifiable artist has changed the ” man ” for some ” woman “.
It’s screaming, I warn you!
While driving, I understood why Jean liked this good old bugger of a poet so much. Everything is here !
I see my light come shining
From the west down to the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released