Black Robe | |
---|---|
Directed by | Bruce Beresford |
Screenplay by | Brian Moore |
Based on | Black Robe by Brian Moore |
Produced by | Robert Lantos Sue Milliken Stéphane Reichel |
Starring | Lothaire Bluteau Aden Young Sandrine Holt August Schellenberg Tantoo Cardinal |
Cinematography | Peter James |
Edited by | Tim Wellburn |
Music by | Georges Delerue |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Alliance Films (Canada) Hoyts-Fox-Columbia TriStar Films (Australia) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 101 minutes |
Countries | Canada Australia |
Languages | English Cree Mohawk Algonquin |
Budget | A$11 million [1] |
Box office | $8,211,952 [2] |
Black Robe is a 1991 historical drama film directed by Bruce Beresford, adapted by Brian Moore from his 1985 novel of the same name. Set in the 17th century, it depicts the adventures of a Jesuit missionary tasked with founding a mission in New France. To do so, he must traverse 2400km of harsh wilderness with the help of a group of Algonquins, facing danger from both the unfamiliar environment and rival tribes. The title refers to the nickname given to the Jesuits by the Algonquins, referring to his black cassock.
The film stars Lothaire Bluteau in the title role, with other cast members including Aden Young, Sandrine Holt, Tantoo Cardinal, August Schellenberg, Gordon Tootoosis and Raoul Trujillo. It was the first official co-production between a Canadian film team and an Australian one. It was shot mostly in the Canadian province of Quebec. [3] It was Young and Holt's film debut.
Black Robe premiered at the 1991 Toronto International Film Festival and was given a wide release on 6 October, becoming the highest-grossing Canadian film of 1991. [4] It received generally positive reviews and won several accolades. It was nominated for ten Genie Awards and won six, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director (Beresford), Best Adapted Screenplay (Moore), and Best Supporting Actor (Schellenberg). It was also nominated for ten AACTA Awards, with Peter James winning Best Cinematography.
Set in New France in 1634 (during the period of conflicts known as the Beaver Wars), the film begins in the settlement that will one day become Quebec City. Jesuit missionaries are trying to encourage the local Algonquin people to embrace Christianity but have thus far had only limited results. Samuel de Champlain, the founder of the settlement, sends Father LaForgue, a young Jesuit priest, to found a Catholic mission in a distant Huron village. With winter approaching, the journey will be difficult and cover as much as 2400 kilometres.
LaForgue is accompanied on his journey by a non-Jesuit assistant, Daniel, and a group of Algonquin Indians, whom Champlain has charged with guiding him to the Huron village. This group includes Chomina, an older experienced traveller who has clairvoyant dreams; his wife; and Annuka, their daughter. As they journey across the lakes and forests, Daniel and Annuka fall in love to the discomfort of the celibate LaForgue.
The group meets with a band of Montagnais, First Nations people who have never seen Frenchmen before. The Montagnais shaman, Mestigoit, is suspicious (and implicitly jealous) of LaForgue's influence over the Algonquins and accuses LaForgue of being a demon. He encourages Chomina and the other Algonquins to abandon the two Frenchmen and travel instead to a winter hunting lodge. They do so and paddle away from the Frenchmen. LaForgue accepts his fate, but Daniel is determined to stay with Annuka and so follows the Indians as they march across the forest. When one Indian tries to shoot Daniel, Chomina is consumed by guilt at having betrayed Champlain's trust. He and a few other members of the Algonquin tribe return with Daniel to try to find LaForgue.
As they recover LaForgue, a party of Mohawk Iroquois attack them, killing most of the Algonquins such as Chomina's wife, and take the rest captive. The prisoners are taken to an Iroquois fortress, where they are forced to run the gauntlet and to watch Chomina's young son be killed. They are told they will be slowly tortured to death the next day. That night, Annuka seduces their guard and allows him to engage in coitus with her. When that distracts him, she strikes him with a caribou hoof, renders him unconscious, and allows them to escape. Chomina, dying of a wound from his capture, sees a small grove of which he has dreamed many times before, and realizes that it is the place in which he is destined to die. LaForgue tries unsuccessfully to persuade Chomina to embrace Christ before he dies. As Chomina freezes to death in the snow, he sees the She-Manitou appearing to him.
As the weather grows colder, Annuka and Daniel take LaForgue to the outskirts of the Huron settlement but leave him to enter it alone, as Chomina had dreamed must happen. LaForgue finds all but one of the French inhabitants dead since they were murdered by the Hurons, who blamed them for a smallpox epidemic. The leader of the last survivors tells LaForgue that the Hurons are dying and that LaForgue should offer to save them by baptizing them. LaForgue confronts the Hurons.
When their leader asks LaForgue if he loves them, LaForgue thinks of the faces of all of the Indians he has met on his journey and answers "Yes." The leader then asks him to baptize the Hurons, and LaForgue obeys. The film ends with a golden sunrise. An intertitle states that 15 years later, the Hurons, having accepted Christianity, were routed and killed by their enemies the Iroquois; the Jesuit mission to the Hurons was abandoned; and the Jesuits returned to Quebec.
Bruce Beresford had wanted to make a film out of Brian Moore's novel ever since it was first published. The rights had been acquired by Canada's Alliance Films, which had signed another director. That person fell out, as did another director, before the job was given to Beresford. [5] Beresford stated:
I think that, even if you have no religious faith whatever or, even if you despised the Jesuits, you would still find it an interesting story. It's a wonderful study of obsession and love. And it is a wonderful adventure of the spirit and of the body. What those people did, going to a country where winters were far more severe than anything they had known in Europe, meeting people who were far more fierce than anyone they had ever encountered... Having to deal with these people shows us something of humanity at its greatest. It's the equivalent of today's people getting into space shuttles and going off into space. It takes unbelievable courage to do this. [6]
The film remained in development hell for over four years due to no major American studio willing to finance the project. Beresford was only able to convince Alliance Films to hire him after his previous film, Driving Miss Daisy , won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The success of Dances with Wolves , a film with similar themes released the prior year, also convinced Alliance of the project's viability.
Funds were raised under a co-production treaty between Canada and Australia. The production needed 30% Australian financing, and the Film Finance Corporation investment had to be spent on Australian elements, such as an Australian crew and two Australian actors. [5] [6]
The film was shot primarily on-location in Quebec, in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region. Additional scenes were shot in Rouen in northern France. The entire film was shot in-sequence.
Black Robe opened in Canada on 4 October 1991 and then had a exclusive opening in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago on 1 November 1991 before expanding on 22 November to a further 222 theaters. [7]
Black Robe was praised as a "magnificently staged combination of top talents delivering a gripping and tragic story", [3] and has been rated one of the most meticulously researched representations of indigenous life put on film. [8] Notably, the film includes dialogue in the Cree, Mohawk, and Algonquin languages. The French characters speak English in the film. Latin is used for Catholic prayers.
Political activist Ward Churchill, after highly praising the film-making, criticized historical inaccuracies. [9] He said he thought the film vilified the Mohawks as part of a theme that Indian resistance to European culture was evil. [10]
Black Robe grossed $1.1 million in Canada in its first four weeks before opening in the United States. Expanding to 55 screens it grossed $179,467 for the weekend of 3 November 1991. [11] It expanded on the weekend of 22 November to 282 screens, grossing $882,300 for the weekend, finishing 11th in the United States and Canada for the weekend. [12] In Canada, it won the Golden Reel Award, indicating the highest box-office performance of any Canadian film that year. In English Canada, it was among only three Canadian films to gross over $500,000 between 1987 and 1990, along with Jesus of Montreal and Dead Ringers . [13] Black Robe grossed $2,036,056 at the box office in Australia, the third highest-grossing Australian film of the year behind Strictly Ballroom and Romper Stomper . [14] [15]
Year | Category | Nominee | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1991 | Best Motion Picture | Robert Lantos, Sue Milliken, Stéphane Reichel | Won |
Best Achievement in Direction | Bruce Beresford | Won | |
Best Screenplay, Adapted | Brian Moore | Won | |
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role | August Schellenberg | Won | |
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role | Sandrine Holt | Nominated | |
Best Music Score | Georges Delerue | Nominated | |
Best Achievement in Cinematography | Peter James | Won | |
Best Achievement in Film Editing | Tim Welburn | Nominated | |
Best Achievement in Art Direction | Gavin Mitchell, Herbert Pinter | Won | |
Best Achievement in Costume Design | John Hay, Renée April | Nominated | |
1992 | Golden Reel Award | Robert Lantos, Sue Milliken, Stéphane Reichel | Won |
Year | Category | Nominee | Result |
---|---|---|---|
1992 | Best Film | Robert Lantos, Sue Milliken, Stéphane Reichel | Nominated |
Best Direction | Bruce Beresford | Nominated | |
Best Screenplay, Original or Adapted | Brian Moore | Nominated | |
Best Actor in a Leading Role | Lothaire Bluteau | Nominated | |
Best Actor in a Supporting Role | August Schellenberg | Nominated | |
Best Original Music Score | Georges Delerue | Nominated | |
Best Cinematography | Peter James | Won | |
Best Editing | Tim Welburn | Nominated | |
Best Sound | Phil Judd, Penn Robinson, Gary Wilkins | Nominated | |
Best Costume Design | John Hay, Renée April | Nominated |
Year | Association | Category | Nominee | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
1992 | Australian Cinematographers Society | Cinematographer of the Year | Peter James | Won |
Motion Picture Sound Editors | Best Sound Editing - Foreign Feature | Phil Judd, Penn Robinson, Karin Whittington, Jeanine Chiavlo, Stephanie Flack, Frank Morrone, Susan Midgley, David Grusovin, Nicki Roller | Won |
The Wyandot people are an Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands of the present-day United States and Canada. Their Wyandot language belongs to the Iroquoian language family.
New France was the territory colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spain in 1763 under the Treaty of Paris.
The Canadian Martyrs, also known as the North American Martyrs, were eight Jesuit missionaries from Sainte-Marie among the Hurons. They were ritually tortured and killed on various dates in the mid-17th century in Canada, in what is now southern Ontario, and in upstate New York, during the warfare between the Iroquioan tribes the Mohawk and the Huron. They have subsequently been canonized and venerated as martyrs by the Catholic Church.
The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi, Ojibwe, Mississaugas, and Nipissing, with whom they form the larger Anicinàpe (Anishinaabeg). Algonquins are known by many names, including Omàmiwinini and Abitibiwinni or the more generalised name of Anicinàpe.
Étienne Brûlé was the first European explorer to journey beyond the St. Lawrence River into what is now known as Canada. He spent much of his early adult life among the Hurons, and mastered their language and learned their culture. Brûlé became an interpreter and guide for Samuel de Champlain, who later sent Brûlé on a number of exploratory missions, among which he is thought to have preceded Champlain to the Great Lakes, reuniting with him upon Champlain's first arrival at Lake Huron. Among his many travels were explorations of Georgian Bay and Lake Huron, as well as the Humber and Ottawa Rivers. Champlain agreed to send Brûlé, at his own request, as an interpreter to live among the Onontchataron, an Algonquin people, in 1610. In 1629, during the Anglo-French War, he escaped after being captured by the Seneca tribe. Brûlé was killed by the Bear tribe of the Huron people, who believed he had betrayed them to the Seneca.
The Mohawk, also known by their own name, Kanien'kehà:ka, are an Indigenous people of North America and the easternmost nation of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy.
The Beaver Wars, also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars, were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout the Saint Lawrence River valley in Canada and the Great Lakes region which pitted the Iroquois against the Hurons, northern Algonquians and their French allies. As a result of this conflict, the Iroquois destroyed several confederacies and tribes through warfare: the Hurons or Wendat, Erie, Neutral, Wenro, Petun, Susquehannock, Mohican and northern Algonquins whom they defeated and dispersed, some fleeing to neighbouring peoples and others assimilated, routed, or killed.
This section of the Timeline of Quebec history concerns the events between the foundation of Quebec and establishment of the Sovereign Council.
Events from the 1600s in Canada.
Isaac Jogues was a French missionary and martyr who traveled and worked among the Iroquois, Huron, and other Native populations in North America. He was the first European to name Lake George, calling it Lac du Saint Sacrement. In 1646, Jogues was martyred by the Mohawk at their village of Ossernenon, near the Mohawk River.
The Seven Nations of Canada was a historic confederation of First Nations living in and around the Saint Lawrence River valley beginning in the eighteenth century. They were allied to New France and often included substantial numbers of Roman Catholic converts. During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), they supported the French against the British. Later, they formed the northern nucleus of the British-led Aboriginal alliance that fought the United States in the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
The Carignan-Salières Regiment was a 17th-century French military unit formed by the merging of two other regiments in 1659. Approximately 1,100 men from the regiment were sent to New France in 1665 to deal with the threat of the Iroquois to the colony. While in New France they were under the command of the Lieutenant Général of the Americas, Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy; the Governor General, Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle; and their colonel, Henri de Chastelard de Salières. The regiment constructed fortifications along the Richelieu River, and took part in three expeditions against the Iroquois in 1666. A peace settlement was reached the following year. Roughly 400 officers and soldiers remained behind in New France as settlers when the regiment returned to France in 1668.
Gabriel Lalemant was a French Jesuit missionary in New France beginning in 1646. Caught up in warfare between the Huron and nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, he was killed in St. Ignace by Mohawk warriors and is one of the eight Canadian Martyrs.
Lothaire Bluteau is a Canadian actor, active in film, theatre, and television. He won the Genie Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his portrayal of the title character in Denys Arcand's Jesus of Montreal (1989), with a second nomination for his work in Robert Lepage's The Confessional (1995).
August Werner Schellenberg was a Canadian actor. He played Randolph in the first three installments of the Free Willy film series (1993–1997) as well as characters in Black Robe (1991), The New World (2005), and dozens of other films and television shows.
Daniel de Rémy de Courcelle, Sieur de Montigny, de La Fresnaye et de Courcelle was the Governor General of New France from 1665 to 1672.
Black Robe, first published in 1985, is a historical novel by Brian Moore set in New France in the 17th century. Its central theme is the collision of European and Native American cultures soon after first contact. First Nations peoples historically called French Jesuit priests "Black Robes" because of their religious habit.
Fathers and Crows is a 1992 historical novel by the American author William T. Vollmann. It is the second book in the seven-book series Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes.
The Battle of Sorel occurred on June 19, 1610, with Samuel de Champlain supported by the Kingdom of France and his allies, the Huron, Algonquin people, and Montagnais that fought against the Mohawk people in New France at present-day Sorel-Tracy, Quebec. The forces of Champlain armed with the arquebus engaged and killed or captured nearly all of the Mohawks. The battle ended major hostilities with the Mohawks for twenty years.