Pour la suite du monde

Pour la suite du monde (also known as For Those Who Will Follow; Of Whales, the Moon, and Men, or The Moontrap in English) is a 1963 Canadian documentary film produced by the National Film Board of Canada and directed by Michel Brault, Marcel Carrière and Pierre Perrault. It is the first of Perrault's Isle-aux-Coudres Trilogy–Le règne du jour (The Times That Are) followed in 1967, Les voitures d'eau (The River Schooners) in 1968.[1][2]

Pour la suite du monde
Title card
Directed byMichel Brault
Marcel Carrière
Pierre Perrault
Written byMichel Brault
Pierre Perrault
Produced byFernand Dansereau
Jacques Bobet
Narrated byStanley Jackson
CinematographyMichel Brault
Bernard Gosselin
Edited byWerner Nold
Distributed byNational Film Board of Canada
Release date
  • August 4, 1963 (1963-08-04)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageFrench

Synopsis

The film is a work of ethnofiction. It shows life in a small isolated community, when the influence of the Catholic Church in Quebec was still strong.

For centuries the inhabitants of Ile-aux-Coudres, a small island in the St. Lawrence River, trapped beluga whales by sinking a weir of saplings into the offshore mud at low tide. After 1920, the practice was abandoned. In 1962, a team of National Film Board of Canada filmmakers led by director Perrault and cinematographer Brault arrived on the island to make a cinéma-vérité documentary about the people and their isolated life. They encouraged the islanders to revive the practice of beluga fishing. The live animal they caught was then driven on a truck to an aquarium in New York City.

The film also shows the daily life of the islanders, and their celebrations, such as the festival at mid-Lent (mi-carême).

Cast
  • Léopold Tremblay as Marchand and president of the new beluga fishing co.
  • Alexis Tremblay as Cultivateur et politicien
  • Abel Harvey as Capitaine et maître de pêche
  • Louis Harvey as Cultivateur et chantre d'église
  • Joachim Harvey as Capitaine du Nord de l'Île
  • Stanley Jackson as Narrator

Alternate English versions and titles

The film has been screened in various versions and with no less than four English-language titles. At its 1963 Cannes premiere, it was billed as For Those Who Will Follow.[3] The NFB has also promoted the film in English as Of Whales, the Moon and Men [4] or The Moontrap,[5] depending upon whether it was the 105 minute or 84 minute version, respectively. The release of a 2007 "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy" DVD trilogy also translates the film title as For the Ones to Come.[6]

The film is commonly referred to as simply Pour la suite du monde in both French and English.[7][8]

Reception

The resulting film was hugely popular in Quebec, and today is recognized as a classic of Canadian cinema. Pour la suite du monde has been consistently ranked by critics as one of the best ever made and it represents a major development in the Direct Cinema movement, moving away from simple observation to a more immediate participation and a great emphasis on the words of the people portrayed.[7] Pour la suite du monde was the first Quebec film shown at the Cannes Film Festival.[3][9]

Quebecois filmmaker Denis Villeneuve declares that Perrault's "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy" is "amongst the most beautiful films he has ever seen".[10] It remains a major source of inspiration and influence for him.

Awards

See also

References
  1. Melnyk 2004, p. 130-131.
  2. David Clandfield, Pierre Perrault and the Poetic Documentary. Indiana University Press, 2004. ISBN 9780968913239.
  3. "Festival de Cannes: For Those Who Will Follow". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
  4. "Of Whales, the Moon and Men". National Film Board of Canada collections page. Archived from the original on September 2, 2007. Retrieved March 8, 2009.
  5. "The Moontrap". National Film Board of Canada collections page. Archived from the original on February 22, 2012. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  6. "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy - Disc 1". National Film Board of Canada collections page. Archived from the original on January 23, 2008. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  7. "Pour la suite du monde". Canadian Film Encyclopedia. Film Reference Library. Archived from the original on February 4, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  8. "Pour la suite du monde". National Film Board of Canada collections page. Archived from the original on February 22, 2012. Retrieved March 8, 2009.
  9. Melnyk 2004, p. 130.
  10. "Full Director's Roundtable: Angelina Jolie, Guillermo del Toro, Greta Gerwig | Close up with THR". YouTube.
  11. "Awards". Of Whales, the Moon and Men collections page. National Film Board of Canada. Archived from the original on September 2, 2007. Retrieved March 10, 2009.
  12. "Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time," The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2012, URL accessed April 28, 2013.

Works cited
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