It’s noon in Montreal and it’s 31 degrees. I lie in my bed, reducing my actions so as not to suffer from the heat, I run The Press and I come across Marissa Groguhé’s article on your decision to give up cinema.
I’m only half surprised; I have always considered you a shooting star, a dazzling talent whose art of wanting to master everything closely borders on the unreal. I was watching, a few weeks ago, a report on your career and I was out of breath. Who wouldn’t get burned mid-flight with that incredible energy that has always characterized your work? You will note the use of the verb “burn”, we will come back to this.
You have reached the heights in a handful of years, you have attracted the cameras to our little piece of French-speaking America. I will not comment on your decision to stop the cinema, I sincerely sympathize, on the contrary.
However, the last excerpt of the article took me aback, or rather no, I was revolted.
I’m going to build myself a house and take refuge there with my friends and watch the world burn.
Xavier Dolan
I don’t have the full context and I don’t read Spanish to read your interview.El Mundobut…
How can an artist of your caliber, of unparalleled generosity in his cinematographic achievements, have such a selfish reflection specific to the rich white man of the northern hemisphere?
Besides your wealth, which could help you and your friends shelter in a freshly built house somewhere in Gaspésie and passively observe the course of things (which I doubt, observing your hyperactivity which characterizes you) , you have something precious, which 99.9% of people who work with their small hands for a change for the future do not have. You have the megaphone!
And in this sense you have a responsibility, the responsibility to use this megaphone, this microphone which is extended to you as an internationally known artist. Use it as an engine for change and not as therapy for your anxiety. You are not unaware that your ills go around the world.
It’s a slap in the face that you throw at all those who fight on a daily basis, without media coverage.
Take a step back, take the time to rest, to get away from such superficial glitter. And come back to us with ideas, as you do so well. Talk to Roy, Christine and so many others who use their notoriety to get things done. Make a documentary about Greta and invite me to the press screening, I’ll be ecstatic, I promise!
It’s noon in Montreal, the feeling is 37 degrees, I’m going to scratch the ground in the community garden, I’m going to change things at my level. Your level is much more important than you seem to believe.