The Art of War
Action! If there’s one word associated with cinema, the tension of movie sets, and the focus of attention, it’s this one. Action is very often at the heart of popular cinema: Harold Lloyd hanging from the clock hands in Safety Last! (1923), Cary Grant threatened and strafed by a plane in North by Northwest (1959), Franka Potente gasping for air in Run Lola Run (1998)... Westerns, swashbuckler films, martial arts or adventure flicks, thrillers, all these genres rely on action—sometimes frenetic, sometimes meticulously measured.
From movies by Sergei Eisenstein to Gilles Carle, from John Ford to John Boorman and Werner Herzog, via Paul Verhoeven, Kathryn Bigelow, Park Chan-wook, Érik Canuel, and Nicolas Winding Refn, this series will take you through the full range of emotions, from laughter to thrills, from fear to satisfaction.
Winner of the Golden Reel Award, 2001 Genie Award
Neil Shaw, a special agent reporting to the United Nations Secretary-General, is tasked with bugging a Chinese ambassador just as a major trade agreement is about to be signed between China and the United States. The ambassador is assassinated and Shaw is arrested. He must now evade the FBI and the Chinese triads, who are out to kill him.
Christian Duguay
Christian Duguay is a Quebecois director and cinematographer from Montreal. Duguay graduated from the Film Production program of Concordia University, in 1979. That year, his film Piece interrompue pour piano sauvage, co-directed by Harold Trépanier, took the Best Cinematography award at the 11th Canadian Student Film Festival. He began his professional career as a cameraman and jack-of-all-trades, working in documentaries, commercials and music videos. He became known as an expert with the Steadicam and shot many movies of the week in the United States. He is best known for directing the action films Screamers (1995) starring Peter Weller and Roy Dupuis and The Art of War (2000) starring Wesley Snipes and Michael Biehn. In May 2003, he directed the Emmy nominated miniseries Hitler: The Rise of Evil, which aired on the CBC. He directed a few miniseries before more recently making French and Franco-Canadian films, including the first sequel to Belle and Sebastian (2015).
Photo: Collections de la Cinémathèque québécoise
