The A posteriori le cinema series is an opportunity to celebrate the 7and art by revisiting key titles that celebrate important anniversaries.
In the early 1970s, going back to the land was very much in vogue. Willingly tinged with idealism, even romanticism, the movement thus saw many city-dwellers leave the cities in favor of the fields, like the rodents of the fable. Released exactly 50 years ago, on May 6, 1972, the film Bernadette’s true natureby Gilles Carle, takes an amused and caustic look at all this, through a colorful protagonist brilliantly played by Micheline Lanctôt.
Micheline Lanctôt who, in this case, was absolutely not destined for a career as an actress; rather, she worked in animation.
“Gilles and I had our offices on the same floor of Place Bonaventure. Gilles watched me go by all the time – I was a little flamboyant at the time, ”confides the actress and filmmaker, suppressing a giggle, during a videoconference interview. “We had a mutual friend, and the three of us met for dinner, and Gilles talked about his film, but without seeming to try to interest me. »
Except that at this stage, the director of The happy life of Leopold Z was already beginning to have trouble considering someone else for the role.
“One day he came into my cubicle and asked me, ‘Have you ever played?’ “Amateur theater,” I replied. He then offered to spend a screen testand I said, “Yeah, why not.” The rest is history. »
That’s the case to say.
Open to everything
The film opens with Bernadette, who, tired of her bourgeois life, leaves husband, lawyer and assorted urban comfort: direction, the countryside. With her five-year-old son, here she is installed in a decrepit farmhouse which will become the base for marginalized people and old people of the region (to whom she lavishes all sorts of “sweets” out of humanism). And there’s that attractive but annoying neighbor, Thomas (Donald Pilon), who challenges the intrusion of capitalism into the village.
Her head full of “naturalist” theories, Bernadette practices free love and, like her namesake from Lourdes in the past, she will one day have a vision.
In his article of theCanadian Encyclopedia dedicated to the film, Wyndham Wise writes: “Gilles Carle combines the ridiculous with the sublime; it unites the sacred with the profane. Bernadette, in her relentless struggle to escape the banality of a middle-class existence, certainly demonstrates prodigious dedication and heroic endurance. On the other hand, she embodies the Quebec baby-boomers of the 1960s and 1970s — whom Gilles Carle openly mocks — who blindly believe in a utopian world where you can save your soul by milking a few cows and stirring up manure. . »
All things of which, she admits in all humility, Micheline Lanctôt was absolutely unaware when diving into the adventure. “I was so into the world of cartoons that I didn’t have my feet on the ground: I was in a completely offbeat world. I didn’t have any movie references, so all I remember about my reaction to the script was that I was open to anything. »
No doubt this was the ideal state of mind, since it corresponded to that of the director. Author of the book Interviews with Gilles Carle. The secret path of cinemaMichel Coulombe explained about this on the airwaves of ICI Première, as part of the program The life and work of Gilles Carle told “He made films about life, about what inspired him. For example, the return to the earth, which interested him: it gave The males and Bernadette’s true nature. But he took the other side of things. He was very wary of clichés. So he had this, this extremely open outlook on the world […] Bernadette’s true nature, it’s his way of talking about the themes of the time. »
Find your marks
Of the filming, Micheline Lanctôt retains happy reminiscences: “The fun what we had! I see myself playing chess with Donald Pilon until midnight… I see Gilles and Willie Lamothe again… So funny, unstoppable, those two… I watched them a lot, Donald Pilon too, to learn from them, since I didn’t know anything about that world. »
“One thing that helped me was the animated feature I had just worked on, Tiki-Tikiwhich was in 2.35:1 aspect ratio (or Panavision widescreen). true nature was too, and that made it so that I was able to find my bearings in front of the camera; I had this understanding of the format used, which gives a lot of side space. I was able to visualize space and move around the plane. Gilles used the format well: there are several very beautiful shots in the film. »
Indeed, with its director of photography René Verzier (The death of a lumberjack), the filmmaker managed to combine rustic realism and bucolic poetry in a unique blend.
When asked if Gilles Carle was more directive with her than with the others, given her inexperience as an actress, Micheline Lanctôt replies without hesitation: “He was not an actor’s director; he let us go. But if I was worried—and I didn’t think I was good enough—I went to see him in his motel room at night, and there he could have incredible, almost feminine intuitions. He had an understanding of women, whom he revered. So he sometimes had these kind of intuitions, like flashes…”
In the same breath, Micheline Lanctôt speaks of a free filmmaker. Besides, Bernadette’s true nature is an eminently free-toned film, shifting fluidly from sharp social satire to bawdy farce, from unbridled fantasy to leaden tragedy.
A memorable heroine
Selected at the Cannes Film Festival, the film was a real success in France, with more than 300,000 admissions: unheard of for a Quebec production.
“My most striking memory associated with the film is for the account that occurred in France, says Micheline Lanctôt. I accompanied Ted there [Kotcheff, son conjoint d’alors]with whom I had made The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitzand who was spinning there Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? with Jean Rochefort, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Philippe Noiret… One evening, Ted was late, and I had to go and greet Jean Rochefort alone, I who was so shy. I arrive in the hotel lobby, I introduce myself, but immediately he gets up and exclaims: “But I know who you are, Bernadette!” And to explain to me that Cassel, Noiret and him had gone to see Bernadette’s true nature together at the exit, and that they had fallen in love with the character. »
We understand them. “In France, it was dithyrambic, but here, we did not make a case of the film. »
The observation is not bitter, although Micheline Lanctôt believes that, in general, her friend was treated unfairly.
“Gilles, during his career, he was criticized for two things: doing caricatures, and giving roles to his girlfriends, Carole Laure and Chloé Sainte-Marie. But what we didn’t say was how brilliant a caricaturist he was, and how many great roles he wrote for his girls. Quebec directors who imagined such heroines with such constancy, there were no others. »
Taking her life into her own hands and becoming sole mistress of her destiny, Bernadette is, in this respect, one of the most memorable heroines of Gilles Carle’s cinema. And Quebec cinema, period.
The film Bernadette’s true nature is available in VOD on the Illico and iTunes platforms.