Denys Arcand

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Denys Arcand

Georges-Henri Denys Arcand , CC , CQ (born June 25, 1941 in Deschambault , Québec ) is a Canadian film director , screenwriter and producer . Arcand achieved international fame in 1986 with his feature film The Fall of the American Empire and in 2003 with the Oscar- winning film The Invasion of the Barbarians . He has also made numerous important documentaries .

Life

Arcand grew up in a Catholic home in a village 25 miles southwest of Québec . He attended a Jesuit school for nine years . As a teenager, he moved to Montréal with his parents . He studied history at the university there, but turned to film during his student days. He and his friends would go to New York every few months to see European films that weren't shown in Québec. Before the so-called Quiet Revolution, Québec was a culturally rather isolated area, dominated by the Catholic clergy.

In 1963 he became a member of the National Film Board of Canada , where he made several documentaries. His long film on the textile industry On est au coton (We work in Cotton, 1970), which shows the exploitation of textile workers, was banned in Canada for five years. Arcand also worked for television series; in particular, he wrote the script for a historical work that deals critically with the former Prime Minister Maurice Duplessis .

Arcand made a number of feature films during the early 1970s and then returned to documentary filmmaking. He no longer worked for television. His documentary Le Comfort et l'indifférence (Le Comfort et l'indifférence) portrays the situation after the 1980 referendum, which the supporters of Québec's independence (including the majority of Québec's cineastes) lost.

Arcand wrote the script and directed The Fall of the American Empire . The film was the most commercially successful production in the history of Canadian cinema and received numerous awards, including a FIPRESCI award in Cannes in 1986 and a 1987 nomination for an Oscar for best foreign language film . The subject of the film is a meeting of middle-aged intellectuals who mainly talk about their sex life - in the two leading roles Pierre Curzi and Rémy Girard .

Even Jesus of Montreal has received numerous awards, including twice at the International Film Festival of Cannes and 1990 with an Oscar nomination as best foreign language film.

Arcand first produced in English film in 1993 was Love and Human Remains (Love and Human Remains) . It is based on a play by Brad Fraser, Unidentified Human Remains and the true Nature of love . "The film takes us to a group of seven young people who are relatively 'shaken' by the vicissitudes of life in a violence-ridden North American city. These abused young people don't know what to become of them, but they do struggle with the desperate energy of Generation X children, the unadapted ones who cannot find a place in the society of the elderly, desperately looking for love, friendship, or just human contact, with sex playing only a subordinate role. The sexual indecision that characterizes some characters fits into the overall picture of a generation that feels like victims of governments, parents and educational institutions. Some are waiting for better times and live on some kind of support and tricks. The perspective of an insecure one and unlikely future leads to a demoralizing cynicism.Even the sexuality that ku could provide a replacement in the short term, the flood of frustrations cannot stop. 'I want more than just sex,' says Candy, to which the enthusiastic zapper David replies: 'God invented television for that'.

The Toronto International Film Festival opened in 2000 with Stardom, a confrontation with television .

Arcand worked for two years on the script for The Barbarian Invasions (Les invasions barbares) , who in 2003 came out. Rémy Girard played the main role of a sick man who looks back on his life and says goodbye to his friends. The film won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2004 and Arcand received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay. At the Cannes Film Festival in 2003 he received the award for the best screenplay. In 2004, Arcand won the French Césars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, and he received three awards at the Canadian Prix ​​Jutra . His subsequent film project L'âge des ténèbres (2007) with Diane Kruger , Rufus Wainwright and Emma de Caunes was also selected as an official Canadian contribution for the nomination for the best foreign language film at the 2008 Academy Awards. The film, the English-language title of which is Days of Darkness , is about a community service worker (played by Marc Labrèche ) who escapes reality in imaginary adventures as a hero.

Overall, it is noticeable that Arcand's internationally successful films are among his most politically harmless. Some critics have accused it of adapting to the bourgeois public taste.

Arcand, who is married for the second time, has no children of his own. At the age of 55, he adopted an orphaned baby from China .

Prizes and awards

Arcand was named Officer of the Order of Canada in 1988 and promoted to Companion in 2005. In 1990 the French government accepted him into the Legion of Honor . From his own province in 2000 he was bestowed its highest honor, the title of Knight of the Ordre national du Québec . In February 2004, Arcand received one of the highest French awards when he was inducted into the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres .

In addition to an Oscar, he has won 43 other awards for his films and screenplays, including a total of six Canadian Genie Awards , and received 22 nominations.

Filmography

Director

  • 1962: Seul ou avec d'autres
  • 1963: Champlain
  • 1964: Les Montréalistes
  • 1967: volleyball
  • 1967: Parcs atlantiques
  • 1967: Montréal, un jour d'été
  • 1972: Québec: Duplessis et après ...
  • 1972: Dirty Money (La maudite galette)
  • 1973: Réjeanne Padovani
  • 1974: Gina
  • 1975: La lutte des travailleurs d'hôpitaux
  • 1976: On est au coton
  • 1982: Le confort et l'indifférence
  • 1984: The crime of Ovide Plouffe (Le crime d'Ovide Plouffe)
  • 1986: The fall of the American empire (Le déclin de l'empire américain)
  • 1989: Jesus of Montreal (Jésus de Montréal)
  • 1991: Montréal vu par ...
  • 1993: Love and Human Remains (Love & Human Remains)
  • 1996: Joyeux Calvaire
  • 2000: stardom
  • 2003: The Invasion of the Barbarians (Les invasions barbaren)
  • 2007: L'âge des ténèbres
  • 2014: Le règne de la beauté
  • 2018: The unexpected charm of money (La chute de l'empire américain)

script

As an actor

DVD

  • Denys Arcand: L'âge des ténèbres , Studio Canal (F), French without subtitles, 1 DVD

bibliography

  • Michel Coulombe: Denys Arcand. La vraie nature du cinéaste , (entretiens), Montréal, Boréal 1993
  • André Loiselle, Brian McIllroy (éd.): Auteur / Provocateur. The Films of Denys Arcand, Westport, Praeger 1995
  • Denis Bachand: The youth of a pioneer. Denys Arcand and his films, in: Michel Larouche, Jürgen E. Müller: Quebec and the cinema. The development of an adventure , Münster, Nodus 2002, pp. 189–203
  • Reinhold Zwick: Demythologizing versus Imitatio Jesu. Thematization of the Gospel in Denys Arcand's film "Jesus von Montreal" in: Communicatio Socialis, 23rd vol., No. 2 (1990), pp. 17–47.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oscar welcoming foreign contenders . In: Daily Variety, September 21, 2007, News, p. 4
  2. ↑ Critical documentary about Samuel de Champlain , the founder of the city of Québec
  3. ↑ the film was shot from September 1968 to February 1970, engl. "Cotton Mill: Treadmill"
  4. ↑ Review by Katrin Hildebrand: Film of the Month , in concrete , August 8, 2019, p. 65

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Arcand, Denys
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Arcand, Georges-Henri Denys (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Deschambault , Quebec, Canada