Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

est un élément déterminant dans la
construction du film; le cinéaste affirme
même avoir voulu faire un « musical ».
De fait l’usage astucieux des chansons
d’époque apporte une certaine légèreté
aux moments les plus sérieux du film.
Il n’y a pas de doute, Bourdon est un
humaniste et il réussit à nous rendre
proches de tous ces gens, souvent saisis
dans leur quotidien et si magiquement
filmés par les caméramen de l’ONF,
artisans d’un âge d’or où invention et
expérimentation allait de pair avec un
certain classicisme.
La Mémoire des anges, d’abord
présenté sur grand écran (festival de
Toronto, salle art et essai à Montréal)
est désormais disponible en DVD;
le film y est accompagné d’une
entrevue avec le réalisateur et son
monteur et de la version complète
de deux des films abondamment
utilisés dans le montage. Par contre
on peut regretter l’absence d’un livret
d’accompagnement, un outil qui aurait
pu aider les spectateurs étrangers à
découvrir ce film extraordinaire.
À l’opposé, l’édition DVD de Of Time
and the City (Terence Davies, U.K.
2008) comprend un très bon livret
d’accompagnement, en plus d’”extras”
exceptionnels, notamment une séance
de questions-réponses avec Davies
après une projection du film et le
merveilleux Listen to Britain (Jennings
et McCallister, 1942), un film qui, selon
les propos de Davies, l’a beaucoup
influencé.
Of Time and the City est un film sur
Liverpool, ville où Davies est né (en
1945) et où il a vécu jusqu’en 1973.
Le film, constitué à 80% d’archives
et un commentaire étourdissant
(poèmes du cinéaste, de T.S. Eliot, etc.)
lu par Davies lui-même et ponctué
d’extraits sonores d’émissions de la
BBC, conduit le spectateur à travers ce
voyage éminemment personnel. Nous
découvrons le Liverpool des taudis qui
furent détruits dans les années 50 et 60
pour faire place à des tours d’habitation
qui deviendront rapidement d’autres
taudis. Ces images suscitent chez
Davies des réflexions sur la vie et la
mort, la royauté et la religion, le cinéma
et son homosexualité. Comme Bourdon
parlant de Montréal, Davies manifeste
un réel amour pour ces inconnus qui
peuplent les rues de Liverpool à la
recherche d’un peu de bonheur.
history is a personal exploration, perhaps autobiographically inspired, by
three sensitive and skilled filmmakers.
La Mémoire des anges (2008) is a production of the National Film Board of
Canada. Director Luc Bourdon, his picture editor Michel Giroux, and sound
editors Sylvain Bellemare and Frédéric Cloutier have constructed a film
from 120 NFB films and archives, which date from the 1950s and 1960s.
La Mémoire is not a series of clips. It is a narrative of 20 years in the life of
the city of Montréal – a narrative different from the intent of the original
narratives being constructed by the directors and cameramen in that
period. There are overall themes, a celebration of the daily life of people,
very many of whom are now living with the angels, which incidentally look
down on Montréalers from the city’s 100 churches; and that of change,
inexorable change, which in those 20 years was very dramatic. There was
change in the environment as the old buildings gave way to the new world
of high-rises and highways; change as the good life spread; and change
as the Québécois threw off the shackles of Anglo dominance. All this is
presented by Bourdon with great subtlety – no narration, just sound tracks
from that period (not necessarily from the footage we are looking at). And
much music. Bourdon has said that he made a musical. Music, particularly
song, is the thread on which the content hangs – whether romantic,
nostalgic, or political. Even when the film is being very serious, there is a
certain lightness of touch – never polemical, it focuses on people – in the
streets, the shops, the hockey arenas, bistros, the national day parade, in
the workplace, children playing in the streets, lovers hand-in-hand in the
parks, the poor in the slums. Bourdon is a humanist, and he leads us to feel
for these people caught so magically by NFB cameramen.
When Bourdon set out to make this film he was not certain of the period
of the film and looked at footage from many decades before settling on
these 20 years. It was a golden period of the NFB camera-eye. Startling
imagery, shot with invention and experimentation yet still classical – no
agitated camerawork here, even when the subject is agitated. It is footage,
as Bourdon points out, impossible to get now. Quebec law now demands
releases from all people filmed on the street, even accidentally as passersby.
Yet one wonders if the same curiosity exists now among filmmakers.
Contemporary documentary seems more oriented to the personal, or full of
talking heads or being about something. In this NFB film, one sees people
as subjects, not means to an end.
The film sets up the theme of change immediately with the song Jericho,
in which the walls come tumbling down; and we then meet Montréal, the
Canadian gateway, through which pass goods and immigrants. In that
harbour, we meet the two cultures in the workplace. After a screening
of La Mémoire, a Québécois said to me that “the orders came down
from the English and the French carried them out”. La Mémoire does not
treat its subject seasonally, as many films about Canada do. It moves
through activities, wherever they happen. The cutting is exemplary, moving
effortlessly (it seems) between black-and-white and colour. Frequently,
since it is the memory of angels, transitions are shots looking down,
sometimes ironically as near the end of the film, when we see a modern
angel, a businessman looking down from his skyscraper window. Or, as
another example, two lovers look out over the city from Mont Royal in
58 Journal of Film Preservation / 81 / 2009