When the National Film Board’s (nfb.ca) online viewing platform was created in 2009, the feature film My uncle Antoine, by Claude Jutra, was one of the films to see. As of October 22, it had been viewed 76,240 times.
And to this are added some 10,000 views on the English platform of the ONF.
“The film has always had a fair amount of success,” says Marc St-Pierre, curator of collections at the NFB. All categories combined, the film by Claude Jutra arrives in 18e position for the number of views on the French platform. Not bad, when you know that it has 4,500 to 5,000 titles.
Chronicle of the modest life of the inhabitants of a mining town in Quebec on Christmas Eve and through the eyes of a teenager (Benoît, played by Jacques Gagnon) in the 1940s, My uncle Antoine enjoyed good public and critical success upon release. Gradually, the film acquired the status of a masterpiece in Quebec and Canadian cinematography.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE NFB
Benoît, performed by Jacques Gagnon
Mediafilm gives it a rating of 1 (masterpiece) with the following summary: “Great wealth of observation. Climate of calm despair. Intelligent sense of populism. Achievement with eloquent images. Fair and picturesque interpretation. ”
Popular with moviegoers, Criterion has listed My uncle Antoine in its rich catalog of world cinema. The film was also long named as the best Canadian feature film of all time in a recurring Toronto Film Festival (TIFF) list, before being downgraded by Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), by Zacharias Kunuk.
In short, the reputation of the work has stood the test of time. This consideration also remained intact following the Jutra affair, after the film historian Yves Lever, in a biography of the filmmaker released in March 2016, revealed that he had committed acts of pedophilia, revelations confirmed. by a survey of Press. According to experts consulted for this historical reminder, the work must be distinguished from the actions of the filmmaker, who must be severely condemned.
“A film is a collective creation,” says Marcel Jean, general manager of the Cinémathèque québécoise.
My uncle Antoine is directed by Claude Jutra, but it is a screenplay by Clément Perron, a man from the Thetford Mines region, where the film was shot. The story refers more to Perron’s memories.
Marcel Jean, Director General of the Cinémathèque québécoise
“It is also a masterful interpretation of Jean Duceppe. This is the incredible photo direction of Michel Brault. This is the work of Olivette Thibault, etc. He continues.
“It is important to say it and to know it, adds Mr. Jean of the denunciations made five years ago. But I think it would be a major mistake to revisit the film’s rating based on what Jutra has been criticized for. ”
“I did my masters on All things Considered (1963), by Jutra, a somewhat bizarre, amateur film, with aesthetic proposals going in all directions, but a film that completely seduces me, slips Thomas Carrier-Lafleur, lecturer at Concordia and the University of Montreal. My uncle Antoine, it’s completely different, with a much more classic style. And it’s a film that takes up all the themes of his previous work: childhood, dreams, desire, which are treated in a more narrative, more linear form. It’s certainly a great Jutra movie and a great movie, period. ”
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE NFB
Scene from My uncle Antoine
In the opinion of Mr. Carrier-Lafleur like that of the other people interviewed for this report, because of the “Jutra affair”, it is however important to speak about it, to place things in their context. Especially in front of a classroom.
“Already, it is forgotten,” he notes. When I ask my students who knows about the Jutra case, the answer is minimal. Out of a group of 50 people, I can find eight hands up. […] You still have to be honest as a teacher, just like if you teach Louis-Ferdinand Céline, it is not bad to mention that he wrote quite violent anti-Semitic pamphlets, 10 years after the publication of journey to the Edge of the Night. “
Light, documentary angle, social realism
At UQAM, Geneviève Perron teaches photography direction and obviously focuses on Michel Brault. Through him, she evokes Jutra and My uncle Antoine.
I take the time to do a preamble and explain that I am talking about outstanding works of Quebec cinema. I do not endorse the gestures, but, in a university course in photography, it is important to talk about Brault’s work in Jutra’s works.
Geneviève Perron, teacher at UQAM
An example that seduces her in My uncle Antoine ? “Michel Brault’s lighting work is remarkable,” says the one who, among other things, signed the director of photography for the films. Truck, by Rafaël Ouellet and Guide to the perfect family, by Ricardo Trogi. There is a remarkable realism of light here. I think of that scene in the general store on Christmas Eve with about 40 people. You don’t feel the guy behind what you see at all. ”
According to Marcel Jean, the film also stands out because the management team used “the achievements of direct cinema to fertilize fiction cinema”. He gives the example of another scene, this time shot in front of the general store, while men leaving the factory go to join women and children in front of the building for the inauguration of the Christmas window. “It feels like we’re in a documentary,” says Jean. There is here a lightness of the filming which is admirable. ”
In addition, the film is tinged with social realism, not to say a certain form of nationalism, which we see among other things through the character of Jos Poulin (Lionel Villeneuve), who leaves his job at the mine to go to stake in the woods and no longer have an English-speaking boss. Another strong moment, the scene of the boss, silent, who distributes, throwing them on the ground, trinkets at two cents to children while crossing the village on horseback.
Note that if the script is more the story of Clément Perron, Jutra knew the region of Black Lake, where the film was shot, because he had demonstrated with the asbestos strikers in 1949.
Moreover, in an article published in the review Sequences in 2011, author Mario Patry asserts that the opening dedication, “In the land of Quebec, in the asbestos region, not so long ago”, “sounds like a provocation in the tense context of the crisis of ‘October’.
Read the journal article Sequences
Shot in the spring of 1970 with a budget of $ 750,000, the film premiered on November 5, 1971 at the Chicago Film Festival, according to Marc St-Pierre. It was released in Toronto on November 12, a week before Montreal, as critics were more supportive following press screenings.
Also in the fall of 1971, My uncle Antoine won eight Etrog Awards (named after the trophy maker) at the Canadian Film Awards, ancestor of the Canadian Screen Awards. He has also won 21 international awards.
In his biography of Jutra, Yves Lever, who died in July 2020, indicates that the film made 360,000 theatrical tickets (it barely paid its price) and received an astronomical audience rating of nearly 2.6 million. viewers (60% of the audience) when it was broadcast on September 29, 1973 on Radio-Canada.
You can see My uncle Antoine on the NFB site, on the Criterion Channel as well as on Club illico and iTunes Store thanks to the restoration of Éléphant – memory of Quebec cinema.
Consult the NFB website