Le Temps D’Une Chasse: One Take on Québec Cinema :: Movies Film Films Cinema Quebec Canada Essays

Le Temps D’Une Chasse: One Take on Quà ©bec Cinema Quà ©bec’s peculiar political and cultural status as a French-speaking and reluctant province of an English Canadian Confederation began to change with the rise of a militant independence movement in the 1960s and 1970s. †¦ [Its] emergent cinema, although it never speaks with one voice, could be said to share, both implicitly and explicitly, in a common struggle †¦ of exploring, questioning and constructing a notion of nationhood in the films themselves and in the consciousness of the viewer. †¦ [This] has not resulted in a homogeneous notion of Quà ©bec, but one of contradiction, fragmentation and uncertainty. (Barrowclough 205) This statement speaks to the futility of devising a paradigm for assessing the so-called typical Quà ©bec film; at the very core of such films lies a contradiction which cannot be summed up into one archetypal structure. Any Quà ©bec production reflects some part of the Quà ©bà ©cois experience. Attempts to prescribe criteria for what qualifies as a Quà ©bec film are restrictive, and deny the legitimacy of the multiple voices speaking out from Quà ©bec. The complexity of content in Quà ©bec films is reflected in the disparate critical response to director Francis Mankiewicz’s film, Le Temps D’Une Chasse. The film, released in 1972, was met with varied, contradictory reviews. One critic found that the film was not at all typically French-Canadian, but that it was about "the impossible efforts of man to get beyond reality" (Godard 34). Another stated that the film was very much a product of French-Canada, showing little promise as a hit anywhere else in the world (Mosk). A third reviewer thought that the episodes in the film "capture and reflect a Quà ©bà ©cois mentality," but that the film also had "many qualities" and therefore had the potential to succeed outside as well as inside of Quà ©bec (Tads). Such varied reactions serve to indicate that preconceptions had been formed as to what characterizes a Quà ©bec film, and that these preconceptions are assumed to dictate what audiences want to watch. The fact that Le Temps D’Une Chasse is open to various interpretations should not indicate a flaw in the film; rather, it should be seen as representing another aspect of the complex and contradictory social context within which it was produced. "An awareness of contradiction and a willingness to allow this awareness to shape the aesthetic experience are essential elements of modern art’s rebellion against the fixed viewpoint of perspective and linearity that created a sense of order and harmony in the past" (Leach 226). Le Temps D’Une Chasse: One Take on Quà ©bec Cinema :: Movies Film Films Cinema Quebec Canada Essays Le Temps D’Une Chasse: One Take on Quà ©bec Cinema Quà ©bec’s peculiar political and cultural status as a French-speaking and reluctant province of an English Canadian Confederation began to change with the rise of a militant independence movement in the 1960s and 1970s. †¦ [Its] emergent cinema, although it never speaks with one voice, could be said to share, both implicitly and explicitly, in a common struggle †¦ of exploring, questioning and constructing a notion of nationhood in the films themselves and in the consciousness of the viewer. †¦ [This] has not resulted in a homogeneous notion of Quà ©bec, but one of contradiction, fragmentation and uncertainty. (Barrowclough 205) This statement speaks to the futility of devising a paradigm for assessing the so-called typical Quà ©bec film; at the very core of such films lies a contradiction which cannot be summed up into one archetypal structure. Any Quà ©bec production reflects some part of the Quà ©bà ©cois experience. Attempts to prescribe criteria for what qualifies as a Quà ©bec film are restrictive, and deny the legitimacy of the multiple voices speaking out from Quà ©bec. The complexity of content in Quà ©bec films is reflected in the disparate critical response to director Francis Mankiewicz’s film, Le Temps D’Une Chasse. The film, released in 1972, was met with varied, contradictory reviews. One critic found that the film was not at all typically French-Canadian, but that it was about "the impossible efforts of man to get beyond reality" (Godard 34). Another stated that the film was very much a product of French-Canada, showing little promise as a hit anywhere else in the world (Mosk). A third reviewer thought that the episodes in the film "capture and reflect a Quà ©bà ©cois mentality," but that the film also had "many qualities" and therefore had the potential to succeed outside as well as inside of Quà ©bec (Tads). Such varied reactions serve to indicate that preconceptions had been formed as to what characterizes a Quà ©bec film, and that these preconceptions are assumed to dictate what audiences want to watch. The fact that Le Temps D’Une Chasse is open to various interpretations should not indicate a flaw in the film; rather, it should be seen as representing another aspect of the complex and contradictory social context within which it was produced. "An awareness of contradiction and a willingness to allow this awareness to shape the aesthetic experience are essential elements of modern art’s rebellion against the fixed viewpoint of perspective and linearity that created a sense of order and harmony in the past" (Leach 226).