Québec: Duplessis and After...
The upcoming election season in Quebec gives us an opportunity to revisit films that explore the question of civic engagement in democracy, as well as to look back on some key milestones in political life over the past half-century.
The 1970 election campaign pitted three parties against each other: the long-standing Union nationale, the traditional Parti libéral, and the brand-new Parti Québécois. Arcand and his team follow them on the campaign trail and, through the use of archival footage during the editing process, draw a parallel between this election and the one won by Maurice Duplessis in 1936.
Denys Arcand
Denys Arcand, born in 1941 in Deschambault, Quebec, is a Quebecois film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer. He studied history at the Université de Montréal in the 1960s. A filmmaker whose style has evolved significantly over the course of his career, he is best known internationally for his two major successes: The Decline of the American Empire (1986) and its sequel, The Barbarian Invasions (2003), the only Canadian film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His work reflects the transformation of Quebec cinema, moving from incisive documentaries to fiction deeply rooted in the socio-cultural realities of the time. He then channelled his disappointment at the result of the 1980 referendum on Quebec sovereignty into themes of personal emancipation. After achieving international acclaim in the early 2000s, he went back to his roots in the mid-2010s, exploring themes he holds dear in films like An Eye for Beauty (2014) and The Fall of the American Empire (2018).
