Taking the pretext of appointments to the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec, The duty takes you into the imagination of men and women whose work, exemplary in several respects, contributes to promoting culture.
It has reigned at the heart of Quebec cinema for more than sixty years. Imposing physique, eternal suspenders attached to his pants, glasses balanced at the end of his nose, eyebrows in battle like Mephistopheles, Roland Smith is a character. Repertory cinema is his business. He has owned various venues, in Montreal and in the region.
Sitting in the middle of a rotisserie, a few steps from the Cinéma du Parc, where he provided programming for years, Roland Smith says he would happily do it again. “I couldn’t ask for anything better than to take care of the programming of a cinema again! I would also like to be able to program a series of films on television. » What the major networks offer us seems vague. “Télé-Québec had to be a national educational television,” he said, rolling his eyes.
In the Quebec metropolis, he imposed his way of seeing in theaters like the Verdi, the Outremont and the Other Cinema. He did the same in Sherbrooke, with the Festival cinema, known today as the Maison du cinéma, the Lumière in Trois-Rivières, the Cartier in Quebec and the Vendôme in Hull. In all, over the decades, he has looked after around twenty rooms. He worked to present a cinema that was not strictly commercial.
The Famous Players chain entrusted him with the management of its theaters in Quebec. He refused to present anything there. The struggles for domination of a market interested him little. The Videotron Clubs will also use its expertise, as will the Black Box and the Renaud-Bray bookstores. This is all in the past.
To keep himself busy, he is now trying to sell the rights to a few films that have been entrusted to him. “I have just sold three films to France. » Films by Denys Arcand and Gilles Carle.
Cinema banned
When he was little, his parents took him to the United States to see films. The Smith family was going to Rouses Point, in Plattsburgh, in Saint Albans… “It was a party, the cinema! I must have been ten years old, twelve years old perhaps. I also went to Radio City Music Hall in New York. A 6,000-seat cinema! » Cinema immediately became a passion, the driving force of his life.
“After the Laurier Palace fire, cinema in Quebec was forbidden to children. » In 1927, this tragedy cost the lives of 77 children. A disaster due to the poor configuration of the room and poor security measures. But for the authorities nevertheless, it was cinema as a whole that had to be considered guilty. “Animated views” are denounced by the Church, in the same way as dancing, jazz, promiscuity, alcohol. A law, following this tragedy, prohibited access to the cinema for under 16s for four decades.
Initially a graphic arts student, Roland Smith runs a small film club. He visits the cinemas. “I went to see La Notte, by Antonioni. A part had not been projected! » Roland Smith goes to see the cinema management to complain. The delay in the schedule justifies the fact that the film was cut, he was told. “That’s when I understood that cinema was above all an industry! »
After an hour of speaking with the owners of the Empire cinema, they hired him. At the time, in exchange for a small advertisement for the cinema published in the pages of Duty, Roland Smith takes on the monk’s job of compiling the weekly schedules for all the other rooms. “I was going to take this to Duty, every week. It was the newspaper’s business and mine too! »
Doubleheader
Cinemas of the time systematically offered “double bills,” recalls Smith. “It was always nonsense! Two films, any one! » Roland Smith recalls that even Sergio Leone’s films were hidden within a double bill. “We presented them as if they were any westerns. His films even appeared under the pseudonym Bob Robertson, to make it seem more American! »
These doubleheaders, Roland Smith cannot stand them. “It was ridiculous. We were burying cinema alive! » In the theaters that Smith runs, it will be only one film per screening. A voucher. “I established, first in Montreal, repertory cinema. »
His first real cinema, the Verdi, opened its doors in December 1966. “It became the first repertory cinema in Montreal. What helped me was Expo 67. In the evening, the tourists didn’t know what to do. So they went to the movies. »
At the Verdi, Roland Smith programs Fellini, Godard, Truffaut, etc. “It was the only international cinema in the city. I presented the films of Robert Bresson. It’s not easy, Bresson’s films. However, we had around 300 people at each session. »
I set up, first in Montreal, repertory cinema.
Then, he moved to the Outremont theater. “Before I arrived, two films were presented there for a penny and a quarter. I made a policy of 99 cents for a film. It was the largest room, with 1200 seats at the time. »
Smith offers a cinema card that builds customer loyalty. “I was offering 25 films for $25. Once you have paid for your card, you allow yourself to take chances, to discover films that you would not have gone to see otherwise. There, you become a movie buff! People were lining up on Bloomfield Street to enter Outremont. »
Outremont also offers shows: Pauline Julien, Félix Leclerc, Louise Forestier, Jean-Guy Moreau, Beau Dommage, Plume, Offenbach, Jean-Luc Ponty, Maxime Leforestier, Véronique Sanson, etc. Roland Smith still likes to walk near his old cinema.
Suggest something else
“I would have liked it to continue,” he says. What exactly stopped? After all, if we dare to play devil’s advocate in front of this somewhat gruff Mephistopheles, we can argue that there are still cinemas where quality films are shown… Roland Smith grits his teeth a little. His gaze rolls back. “There was no replacement for cinema programmers,” he regrets. “We did not teach this profession. »
The role left to American cinema today seems disproportionate. However, there are many other things on earth than Hollywood, he points out.
“We could do something else, if promoters wanted it. The Cinéma Moderne, boulevard Saint-Laurent, is very successful, what they do. » Places like this make all the difference, he believes. “It’s the equivalent of what Café Méliès once offered. But film critics don’t talk about it…”
For him, the role of critics remains fundamental. “It’s the reviews that encourage people to go see a film. Because of all the digital platforms, starting with Netflix, people have become homebodies. They lack the spirit of discovery. » In other words, we must know how to encourage them more than ever.
Critics like Luc Perreault, Francine Laurendeau and Odile Tremblay have made it possible to discover great films. “These critics loved cinema and made people love it,” says Roland Smith, paying them, seated on the end of his chair, a sort of fraternal homage. Marie-France Coallier, the photographer of Duty, just arrived to photograph him. “The light isn’t very good here,” he immediately points out.