 With PETER BLACK Quebec Culture Report
Inspired by the National Post's gesture to national unity in putting a big picture of Quebec's effervescent talk-show host Julie Snyder on its front page (while the rival Globe and Mail carried chopper-jockey, war-crimes buster Louise Arbour), this column brings you a sampling of breezy summer items from the regrettably neglected world of Quebec arts and culture.
Seeing as the subtext of this column is to avoid writing about the nurses strike, it's only fitting that the first item deal with another havoc-wrecking labor dispute -- the theatre technicians walk-out at Place des Arts in Montreal.
While as yet no one has argued that the curtain-pullers and spotlight gunners at Montreal's premier theatre provide essential services, the dispute is making the producers of PdeA shows, such as Les Miserables, well, miserable. If the strike is not settled well before the musical's August 3 opening date, Les Miz will have to find another venue -- not easy in a city chock-a-block with summer spectacles -- or cancel its lucrative Montreal run.
With that kind of leverage, the stagehands, for the moment, would seem to be masters of the house (Miz fans will get that one.) The Miz show, by the way, if it goes ahead, will be presented in English, with Quebec star Robert Marien in the lead Valjean role.
Moving from the stage to the screen, we note Elvis Gratton II: Miracle à Memphis, is still commanding the Quebec box office, despite the vigorous efforts of virtually all film critics in the province to scare and shame people away.
Elvis Gratton, for those who may have missed the wave of publicity surrounding the movie's release, is the king of kétaine (loosely translated as bad taste or embarrassingly colloquial), an Elvis imitator who unwittingly becomes a global sensation. The movie, the brainchild of fiercely separatist filmmaker Pierre Falardeau, is a less than subtle swipe at everything remotely associated with Canada. Naturally, the film was made with the help of generous funding from Telefilm Canada.
The actor who incarnates Elvis, Julien Poulin, defends the film's obsession with the moronic as the reflection of a colonized people. The critics, he argues, are snobs who deny the less refined aspects of Quebec culture. Meanwhile, Elvis's motto, "Think Big, sti," has become an ironic catchphrase as the movie racks up box office records for a Quebec film -- up against Hollywood's summer blockbusters.
One of the investors in Elvis Gratton, doubly proving that money knows no politics, is the ambitious TVA network which this spring began broadcasting into homes across the country. One of the TVA programs Canadians may learn to enjoy regardless of linguistics skills is Fort Boyard.
The show is filmed at an island fort off La Rochelle, on the south-west coast of France -- it was ordered built by Napoleon, who was long gone by the time it was completed in 1866). The concept of the TVA program -0 borrowed from French TV, is for teams of contestants to perform feats of courage and agility, often involving bungees, snakes, and scorpions, in order to get clues to unravel a mystery and the chance to rake in gold coins.
The Québécois version of Fort Boyard, which has had four successful seasons on TVA, normally recruits teams featuring attractive young bodies -- examples being Olympic biathlon gold medalist Myriam Bedard and goalie Manon Rheaume, among the women. Next season, though, the show is shooting for a different audience altogether -- the more mature set.
The star recruit for the "old-timers" series is Michèle Richard, a one-time singing star who is now more famous for being famous -- the Zsa Zsa Gabor of Quebec, according to one culture watcher -- and a staple of the tabloids and talk show circuit. It's not known what kind of horrors the always well-coifed Richard will be subjected to, but they surely can't be any more cruel or humiliating than the treatment she gets in some media quarters.
There is no suggestion as yet from culture critics that one of the torture tests of Fort Boyard should be a forced viewing of Elvis Gratton II.
Copyright © 1999 Peter Black/Log Cabin Chronicles/7.99 |
