Often perceived as entertainment, an escape, isn’t cinema also a philosophical space that invites us to reinvent the city? Throughout the summer, The duty gives the floor to philosophers to comment on a Quebec film of their choice. This week, Orders (1974), by Michel Brault.
For generations of cinephiles, understanding the ins and outs of the October 1970 crisis first passed through Orders (1974), by Michel Brault, still considered one of the best Quebec — and Canadian — films of all eras. The director ofBetween the sea and fresh water (1967), associated throughout his career with the greatest, as co-director (For the continuation of world1963, with Pierre Perrault) or director of photography (My uncle Anthony1971, and Kamouraska1973, by Claude Jutra; good riddance1980, by Francis Mankiewicz), signed here a real lesson in history coupled with an x-ray of the excesses of power.
Both inspired by the humanist approach of direct cinema and the use of fiction to give voice to as many people as possible, Michel Brault first collected dozens of testimonies from people unjustly imprisoned when the Prime Minister of Canada then, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, decreed the War Measures Act, deploying, mainly in Quebec and Montreal, thousands of soldiers. Activists of the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) had taken hostage James Richard Cross, a British diplomat, and then Pierre Laporte, provincial Liberal minister in the government of Robert Bourassa. The sedition had lasted long enough, and all means were justified to stifle it, as if Quebec society had suddenly fallen into a dictatorship.
These slices of life were brilliantly embodied by exceptional actors. Jean Lapointe and Hélène Loiselle form an unforgettable film couple, taking on the features of Clément and Marie Boudreau, he a union delegate in a factory and she a housewife. On their way they will meet a determined social worker (Louise Forestier), an unemployed man and good-natured father (Claude Gauthier), as well as a doctor who is a little too socialist in the eyes of the authorities (Guy Provost). Everyone will have to comply with orders, to the point of being crushed.
To revisit the political scope of this film, Christian Nadeau, professor of philosophy at the University of Montreal and former president of the League of Rights and Freedoms.
When was your first viewing of the film?
It was at the Cinémathèque québécoise, and I then discovered another type of Quebec cinema. I had seen Kamouraska in the same era. Before Orders, I remember that it was a crush more aesthetic than thematic. However, when I saw it again recently — having watched it several times a long time ago — I had completely forgotten about the transition from black and white to color. I had retained only the beauty of black and white.
Any other things that struck you when you saw him again?
The artificial nature of certain scenes, such as the one at the beginning with the family of Marie and Clément to illustrate the impact of war measures on the children, who cannot go out at night. There is also this slightly more Manichean side, showing the police as morons in the arrest scenes. The film really kicks off when the characters enter prison [c’est à ce moment que le film passe du noir et blanc à la couleur]realizing that the bullying strategy is going to go much further than they originally planned.
We first present ordinary humiliation, for example Clément losing his job only because he exercises his role as union representative in a factory. Then there is the extraordinary humiliation, erected into a system. Even the most politicized figures believe that common sense and decency will sooner or later kick in. They had never imagined mock executions! This vast strategy, orchestrated by a political order, aims at only one thing: to lower an entire population so that it has fear in its stomach and stands up not against them, but against those whom it will judge to be the real sources of their problems.
A recurring reproach is made to the film: it presents the victims, but refuses to clearly identify those responsible for their humiliation. You also invited me to read a text of the ex-Felquiste and activist separatist Pierre Vallières in Cinema Quebec (vol. 4, noh 1) published the year of its release and whose title says it all: “Brault missed his shot”.
Those responsible are not named, but for Vallières, the villains in this story are not really the politicians, but the business community, which uses them as puppets. Basically, Vallières seems to be saying that Brault is interested in epiphenomena, and not in root causes. In addition, he compares his own experience in prison to those described in Orders, his comrades and him constantly talking about politics, displaying a rebellious attitude. Personally, I find it hard to imagine that, of the 500 people arrested, all were capable of this form of political consciousness which allowed them to emerge on their own. I often use the metaphor of Baron Münchhausen pulling his hair out of a sinking pond — not everyone has that ability!
We can think of the figure of Marie Boudreau, who hardly has the profile of an activist, but who gradually takes her place, for example by phoning a minister so that her husband can be released from prison to attend the funeral of his father.
She is nonetheless a political person, because political considerations are present everywhere. Moreover, the film lingers more on the male characters, whereas I would have liked to know more about that of Louise Forestier. I’m also thinking of Louise Latraverse, who plays the doctor’s wife, visibly about to give birth, whom we only see for a few minutes. Besides, what a cruel irony that a pregnant woman should be deprived of her doctor husband at such an important moment… The arrest of her spouse brings her to the verge of tears, but her furtive presence in the film does not only she a collateral victim; his world is falling apart, and for completely absurd reasons. Which brings me back to Pierre Vallières, who seems to say that the only form of activism is that of resistance.
Besides, I’ve always been wary of these activists caught up in this dynamic where, if the world was better, they would necessarily go badly, because they need, in a certain way, things to go wrong! We are not activists because that is the meaning we want to give to our lives, but because we have no choice, that’s all. If I see someone in danger of being hit by a car, I don’t say to myself: well, I’m going to step in and be great! I wish it hadn’t happened, but the situation forces me to intervene.
Is cinema, or can it be, a philosophical space?
Yes, but if the cinema does not present people who fail, or that society has abandoned, it misses an important political reality. I am more and more convinced that there is a political charge in aesthetics itself, and maintaining it already constitutes a political gesture. I’m thinking, for example, of poets like Élise Turcotte or Denise Desautels, who pursue their work despite the ugliness of the world: it’s a form of resistance! Their texts are not written in broad strokes, they do not express particular political objects, but they oppose brutality. Let us think of that of politicians, for example with regard to refugees. Some say that artists live outside the world: I rather believe that their works represent flowers that grow despite the cement.
Ordersby Michel Brault, is available on Apple TV+ and Illico.