Of course, the language of business in Montreal is too often that of the big Yankee neighbor. But if there is one field where Anglophones and newcomers master French more than elsewhere, it is that of the arts. There are fewer excuses to lose them in these alleys. Because a francophone cultural aura still surrounds the metropolis. It’s hard to imagine an orchestra, a choir, a film crew turned back to pure English today, without suffocating in a neighborhood courtyard. Alas! Fr Anglais takes part in the great creative metropolitan cacophony and its dissonances scratch our ears like chalk on a blackboard, but the French fact wavers without falling.
It is true that the bilingualism of young Francophones encourages them to turn their jackets over. The mad hope of global conquest of the Web or of the breakthrough of the American market is there that sparkles. However, on the island, currents meet as in a river.
The cultural industry, mainly built around a linguistic rampart offering Quebec its distinct voice, pushes creators and performers of all stripes to come again and warm up in the French-speaking household. Speaking better French would help spread its radius further. We don’t want to place a burden of responsibility on artists, but their voices carry. If they don’t like their language, who will?
Too easy to associate all Anglophones with the same surly linguistic fold, when so many of their creators remain attracted by the vitality of Francophone culture. Listening to young musicians talking about different accents is to feel the persistence of a certain French or a certain French. Even on English-language film sets, the outbursts of voices from several Quebec technicians enliven the background. This cultural backstroke is not just a threat to the majority of Quebecers. It has fostered artists and their respective audiences for a long time.
With her half-French, half-Irish roots, nourished by reels and French folklore, Mary Travers, known as La Bolduc, once revolutionized popular song with us. The Segal Center and the Centaur Theater, for English-speaking audiences, are adapting several shows by pure-wool French authors who shine differently. This intermingling of influences serves everyone. If, failing to believe ourselves in the subtleties of French, it ceases to be a cultural magnet for creators and intellectuals from other linguistic backgrounds, we will slide towards nothingness, because this breeding ground is its living soul.
Dear Martin Duckworth
At the National Film Board, initially dominated by Anglophones, reconciliations have produced pearls. In 1964 in Montreal, the division of its programs into two linguistic areas allowed the development of young filmmakers from our ranks. The Perrault, Groulx, Jutra, Brault, Carle, Arcand and company propelled direct cinema to new heights. Anglos and francos of the company associated themselves with it on occasion, some more than others and for the better.
This trajectory came back to me in front of the documentary DearAudrey by Jeremiah Hayes on filmmaker Martin Duckworth, screened at RIDM on November 19 before hitting theaters in May. This film, really touching, especially depicts the octogenarian as a family man, alongside his wife Audrey Schirmer suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, who has since died. Excerpts from his works and archival documents punctuate this portrait of a magnificent human, an English-speaking Montrealer with eyes open to the struggles of others and their frailties.
I was thinking of the commitment of this great filmmaker and director of photography, winner of the 2015 Albert-Tessier Prize, as of his perfect command of French. Duckworth also recalled having known the golden age of the NFB with the pioneers of direct: the technique of the handheld camera with Jean-Claude Labrecque, the freedom of editing with Gilles Groulx, the desire to film the combat activists under the influence of Fernand Dansereau, humor as an approach to people in contact with Arthur Lamothe. With Magnus Isacsson, the director of The battle of Rabaska has toured everywhere and here, exploring Louis Riel’s legacy in contemporary Manitoba, jumping a thousand fences.
Montreal will have benefited from the bridges stretched between the enlightened artists of the two solitudes. The cultural environment is more porous than the business world, more flexible, nourished by sound echoes. May French keep its appeal for all strollers attracted by the singularity of this metropolis! True wish for survival, because it is losing ground there too. We can still maintain our flame in the heart of these sensitive intra zones of creation, but we will have to learn ourselves how to make it burn better.