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In tune with socially distanced festivities, the more melancholy end of the seasonal movie spectrum beckons, with an undertaker, sudden death and doomed romance
Even in a year that has made us numb to strangeness, it’s been a funny old December: a festive season largely without festivities, while many will be spending Christmas apart from their usual crowd. With that in mind, the usual seasonal viewing options – those extravagant Christmas films that pile on the tinselly cheer – may feel out of step with the collective mood.
A time, then, for Christmas films that permit a little wintry chill, some room for loneliness or pensive melancholy. Or exquisite misery, if you feel like plunging into the anti-Christmas genre at its most extreme with Mon Oncle Antoine – a Canadian classic that I hadn’t seen until recently. Made in 1971, Claude Jutra’s film is an unsentimental coming-of-age tale, following a Quebecer...
Even in a year that has made us numb to strangeness, it’s been a funny old December: a festive season largely without festivities, while many will be spending Christmas apart from their usual crowd. With that in mind, the usual seasonal viewing options – those extravagant Christmas films that pile on the tinselly cheer – may feel out of step with the collective mood.
A time, then, for Christmas films that permit a little wintry chill, some room for loneliness or pensive melancholy. Or exquisite misery, if you feel like plunging into the anti-Christmas genre at its most extreme with Mon Oncle Antoine – a Canadian classic that I hadn’t seen until recently. Made in 1971, Claude Jutra’s film is an unsentimental coming-of-age tale, following a Quebecer...
- 12/19/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- The Guardian - Film News
The Canadian film industry produces numerous blockbuster features, as well as popular TV series, in an entertainment business mostly financed by Us Hollywood studios:
Some notable 'Hollywood North' movies produced over the years include "2012", "X-Men: The Last Stand", "Man of Steel", "Star Trek Beyond", "Tron: Legacy", "Titanic", and "I, Robot", all filmed in Vancouver, with "Kick-Ass" and "Suicide Squad" shot in Toronto.
But truly 'Canadian' movies, produced and directed by Canadian film-makers, are not as well known around the world as their Us counterparts. Is it because the Canadian government investing tax dollars into properties, insist their films be representational 'art', while Hollywood films only care about profit ?
Chances are, you will never see a slot machine based on "Jesus of Montreal", or "Goin' Down The Road"...
...while Hollywood's "Terminator" and "Jurassic Park" movies have popped @ the 'Royal Vegas Online Casino' as slot games.
The Royal Vegas, just like Hollywood,...
Some notable 'Hollywood North' movies produced over the years include "2012", "X-Men: The Last Stand", "Man of Steel", "Star Trek Beyond", "Tron: Legacy", "Titanic", and "I, Robot", all filmed in Vancouver, with "Kick-Ass" and "Suicide Squad" shot in Toronto.
But truly 'Canadian' movies, produced and directed by Canadian film-makers, are not as well known around the world as their Us counterparts. Is it because the Canadian government investing tax dollars into properties, insist their films be representational 'art', while Hollywood films only care about profit ?
Chances are, you will never see a slot machine based on "Jesus of Montreal", or "Goin' Down The Road"...
...while Hollywood's "Terminator" and "Jurassic Park" movies have popped @ the 'Royal Vegas Online Casino' as slot games.
The Royal Vegas, just like Hollywood,...
- 12/20/2016
- by Michael Stevens
- SneakPeek
The Canadian film industry produces numerous blockbuster features, as well as popular TV series, in an entertainment business mostly financed by Us Hollywood studios:
Some notable 'Hollywood North' movies produced over the years include "2012", "X-Men: The Last Stand", "Man of Steel", "Star Trek Beyond", "Tron: Legacy", "Titanic", and "I, Robot", all filmed in Vancouver, with "Kick-Ass" and "Suicide Squad" shot in Toronto.
But truly 'Canadian' movies, produced and directed by Canadian film-makers, are not as well known around the world as their Us counterparts. Is it because the Canadian government investing tax dollars into properties, insist their films be representational 'art', while Hollywood films only care about profit ?
Chances are, you will never see a slot machine based on "Jesus of Montreal", or "Goin' Down The Road"...
...while Hollywood's "Terminator" and "Jurassic Park" movies have popped @ the 'Royal Vegas Online Casino' as slot games.
The Royal Vegas, just like Hollywood,...
Some notable 'Hollywood North' movies produced over the years include "2012", "X-Men: The Last Stand", "Man of Steel", "Star Trek Beyond", "Tron: Legacy", "Titanic", and "I, Robot", all filmed in Vancouver, with "Kick-Ass" and "Suicide Squad" shot in Toronto.
But truly 'Canadian' movies, produced and directed by Canadian film-makers, are not as well known around the world as their Us counterparts. Is it because the Canadian government investing tax dollars into properties, insist their films be representational 'art', while Hollywood films only care about profit ?
Chances are, you will never see a slot machine based on "Jesus of Montreal", or "Goin' Down The Road"...
...while Hollywood's "Terminator" and "Jurassic Park" movies have popped @ the 'Royal Vegas Online Casino' as slot games.
The Royal Vegas, just like Hollywood,...
- 12/3/2016
- by Michael Stevens
- SneakPeek
Organisers of Prix Jutra ceremony may consider removing late director’s name following biographer’s claim he slept with underage prostitutes
He is known as the grandfather of Quebecois cinema, his name still garlanding the Canadian province’s annual equivalent of the Oscars more than three decades after the actor and celebrated director drowned himself in the St Lawrence River, aged 56. But Claude Jutra’s legacy as a Canadian film icon has been called into question following the publication of a new book that claims he was a paedophile.
Film historian Yves Lever’s biography of Jutra, who was openly gay, claims the director of Mon Oncle Antoine and Kamouraska regularly had sex with boys as young as 14 and 15, and in one case under 14. In a section titled plainly “Claude Jutra and boys”, Lever writes: “During shoots, especially those in the country, promiscuity renders secrets impossible to keep. People quickly...
He is known as the grandfather of Quebecois cinema, his name still garlanding the Canadian province’s annual equivalent of the Oscars more than three decades after the actor and celebrated director drowned himself in the St Lawrence River, aged 56. But Claude Jutra’s legacy as a Canadian film icon has been called into question following the publication of a new book that claims he was a paedophile.
Film historian Yves Lever’s biography of Jutra, who was openly gay, claims the director of Mon Oncle Antoine and Kamouraska regularly had sex with boys as young as 14 and 15, and in one case under 14. In a section titled plainly “Claude Jutra and boys”, Lever writes: “During shoots, especially those in the country, promiscuity renders secrets impossible to keep. People quickly...
- 2/17/2016
- by Ben Child
- The Guardian - Film News
Five days behind schedule, here’s a great Criterion essay from Michael Koresky on the bleak sentiments behind some of cinema’s classic and overlooked Christmastide tales. Suggesting the holiday’s proximity to winter solstice, and thus, the death of light, Koresky explores the backwards tendency to characterize a time of joy and harmony with mortality, existential crises, and dysfunction in Mon Oncle Antoine, My Night at Maud’s and A Christmas Tale. I’d scarcely be the first to suggest how peculiar it is that the quintessential all-ages Christmas film, It’s A Wonderful Life, is centrally preoccupied with suicide.
- 12/30/2014
- by Sarah Salovaara
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Five days behind schedule, here’s a great Criterion essay from Michael Koresky on the bleak sentiments behind some of cinema’s classic and overlooked Christmastide tales. Suggesting the holiday’s proximity to winter solstice, and thus, the death of light, Koresky explores the backwards tendency to characterize a time of joy and harmony with mortality, existential crises, and dysfunction in Mon Oncle Antoine, My Night at Maud’s and A Christmas Tale. I’d scarcely be the first to suggest how peculiar it is that the quintessential all-ages Christmas film, It’s A Wonderful Life, is centrally preoccupied with suicide.
- 12/30/2014
- by Sarah Salovaara
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies who have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Michel Brault (1928-2013) - Pioneer of the Direct Cinema style in Canada, specifically Quebec, who codirected the classic documentaries Les Raquetteurs [watch below], Pour la Suite de Monde and L'acadie, l'Acadie as well as the historical drama Les Ordres, for which he was named Best Director at Cannes in 1975. As a cinematographer, he also shot Jean Rouch's landmark documentary Chronicles of a Summer and the dramas Mon Oncle Antoine and No Mercy. He appears in the documentary...
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- 10/1/2013
- by Christopher Campbell
- Movies.com
Mon Oncle Antoine
Directed by Claude Jutra
Canada, 1971
Mon Oncle Antoine could easily have been directed by Louis Malle. Its bittersweet tone, its curious, naïve protagonist, its meandering semi-narrative structure all find cousins in such films as Murmur of the Heart (released the same year, 1971), Lacombe Lucien, and Au Revoir Les Enfants.
For that matter, Mon Oncle Antoine could easily have been directed by Bill Forsyth. Its rejection of traditional narrative principles, its look at a small, tightly-knit community, its balancing act of comedy and coming-of-age all find cousins in such films as That Sinking Feeling, Gregory’s Girl, and Gregory’s Two Girls.
While Malle, Forsyth, and Claude Jutra might form some distinct directorial triumvirate, Mon Oncle Antoine is still uniquely Jutra.
The plotting is simple. Adolescent Benoit (a magnificent Jacques Gagnon) lives in foster care with his uncle Antoine (Jean Duceppe) and aunt Cecile (Olivette Thibault). Also in...
Directed by Claude Jutra
Canada, 1971
Mon Oncle Antoine could easily have been directed by Louis Malle. Its bittersweet tone, its curious, naïve protagonist, its meandering semi-narrative structure all find cousins in such films as Murmur of the Heart (released the same year, 1971), Lacombe Lucien, and Au Revoir Les Enfants.
For that matter, Mon Oncle Antoine could easily have been directed by Bill Forsyth. Its rejection of traditional narrative principles, its look at a small, tightly-knit community, its balancing act of comedy and coming-of-age all find cousins in such films as That Sinking Feeling, Gregory’s Girl, and Gregory’s Two Girls.
While Malle, Forsyth, and Claude Jutra might form some distinct directorial triumvirate, Mon Oncle Antoine is still uniquely Jutra.
The plotting is simple. Adolescent Benoit (a magnificent Jacques Gagnon) lives in foster care with his uncle Antoine (Jean Duceppe) and aunt Cecile (Olivette Thibault). Also in...
- 7/14/2011
- by Neal Dhand
- SoundOnSight
As we kick the snow from our boots and find the nearest roaring fire to warm ourselves by HeyUGuys want to take this time to wish our readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Whether you choose to celebrate this time with the classic It’s a Wonderful Life, or with a bunch of Gremlins, suffer a visit from an excitable Elf or a Bad Santa (perhaps even Mon Oncle Antoine) or are looking to join in with the many voices of A Christmas Carol we hope you have a wonderful day, and join us in looking forward to another exciting year of cinema in 2011.
Merry Christmas.
-The Staff of HeyUGuys...
Whether you choose to celebrate this time with the classic It’s a Wonderful Life, or with a bunch of Gremlins, suffer a visit from an excitable Elf or a Bad Santa (perhaps even Mon Oncle Antoine) or are looking to join in with the many voices of A Christmas Carol we hope you have a wonderful day, and join us in looking forward to another exciting year of cinema in 2011.
Merry Christmas.
-The Staff of HeyUGuys...
- 12/25/2010
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Welcome to “Not In The English Language”, a new weekly column from HeyUGuys. Each week a different film not in the English language will come under scrutiny.
This week, with festivities in the air, Adam Batty takes a look at Claude Jutra’s 1971 French Canadian classic, Mon Oncle Antoine.
Jutra’s Christmas-set tale of life in rural Quebec provides a wonderful and unique spin on the festive movie. The story of Benoit, a 15-year old boy who works in his uncle’s general store, Mon Oncle Antoine follows him one Christmas Eve, in which Benoit accompanies the titular character to pick up the dead body of a local teenage boy. Somehow, in spite of this rather gloomy sounding set of events, Mon Oncle Antoine manages to capture the heart and soul of the festive period in a timeless and wholly convincing manner.
Granted, Jutra’s film is a tad macabre...
This week, with festivities in the air, Adam Batty takes a look at Claude Jutra’s 1971 French Canadian classic, Mon Oncle Antoine.
Jutra’s Christmas-set tale of life in rural Quebec provides a wonderful and unique spin on the festive movie. The story of Benoit, a 15-year old boy who works in his uncle’s general store, Mon Oncle Antoine follows him one Christmas Eve, in which Benoit accompanies the titular character to pick up the dead body of a local teenage boy. Somehow, in spite of this rather gloomy sounding set of events, Mon Oncle Antoine manages to capture the heart and soul of the festive period in a timeless and wholly convincing manner.
Granted, Jutra’s film is a tad macabre...
- 12/22/2010
- by Adam Batty
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
• Introduction to The Great Movies III
You'd be surprised how many people have told me they're working their way through my books of Great Movies one film at a time. That's not to say the books are definitive; I loathe "best of" lists, which are not the best of anything except what someone came up with that day. I look at a list of the "100 greatest horror films," or musicals, or whatever, and I want to ask the maker, "but how do you know?" There are great films in my books, and films that are not so great, but there's no film here I didn't respond strongly to. That's the reassurance I can offer.
I believe good movies are a civilizing force. They allow us to empathize with those whose lives are different than our own. I like to say they open windows in our box of space and time.
You'd be surprised how many people have told me they're working their way through my books of Great Movies one film at a time. That's not to say the books are definitive; I loathe "best of" lists, which are not the best of anything except what someone came up with that day. I look at a list of the "100 greatest horror films," or musicals, or whatever, and I want to ask the maker, "but how do you know?" There are great films in my books, and films that are not so great, but there's no film here I didn't respond strongly to. That's the reassurance I can offer.
I believe good movies are a civilizing force. They allow us to empathize with those whose lives are different than our own. I like to say they open windows in our box of space and time.
- 10/2/2010
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
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