In the Shadow of the Wind

Last updated

In the Shadow of the Wind
In the Shadow of the Wind.jpg
Film poster
French Les Fous de Bassan
Directed by Yves Simoneau
Written by Marcel Beaulieu
Sheldon Chad
Anne Hébert
Yves Simoneau
Based onLes fous de Bassan by Anne Hébert
Produced by Justine Héroux
StarringSteve Banner
Charlotte Valandrey
Laure Marsac
Marie Tifo
Cinematography Alain Dostie
Edited byJoële Van Effenterre
Music by Richard Grégoire
Release date
  • 1987 (1987)
Running time
105 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageFrench

In the Shadow of the Wind (French : Les Fous de Bassan) is a 1987 Canadian drama film, directed by Yves Simoneau. [1] It was entered into the 37th Berlin International Film Festival. [2]

Contents

Based on the novel by Anne Hébert, [3] the film depicts a small town in the Gaspésie region of Quebec shaken by a rape and murder in 1936. [1] The story is depicted from the perspective of Stevens Brown, played by Steve Banner in the 1936 storyline and by Jean-Louis Millette as an old man in the present day reflecting on the events. [1] The cast also includes Charlotte Valandrey, Laure Marsac, Marie Tifo and Lothaire Bluteau.

The film was originally slated to be directed by Francis Mankiewicz, but he left the production due to a creative dispute with the producers. [1] The community in Hébert's novel was an Anglo-Quebecer village, but the film's primary expected audience was a francophone audience in Quebec, leading to a dispute about whether to shoot the film in English and then dub it into French or vice versa. [1]

The film received four Genie Award nominations at the 8th Genie Awards in 1987: Best Supporting Actress (Tifo), Best Art Direction/Production Design (Michel Proulx), Best Cinematography (Alain Dostie) and Best Costume Design (Nicole Pelletier). [4]

Cast

Production

Anne Hébert wanted Mireille Dansereau to direct the film adaption of her novel Les fous de Bassan. Yves Simoneau was selected to direct after Francis Mankiewicz withdrew from the project. Simoneau and Marcel Beaulieu wrote a script that Hébert accepted. [5]

Reception

The film was criticized[ by whom? ] for removing two characters from the book, the twin sisters Pam and Pat, and condensing the four painters into one character. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Hébert</span> Canadian author and poet

Anne Hébert, was a Canadian author and poet. She won Canada's top literary honor, the Governor General's Award, three times, twice for fiction and once for poetry.

<i>Good Riddance</i> (film) 1980 Canadian film

Good Riddance is a 1980 French-language Canadian drama film. Directed by Francis Mankiewicz and written by Réjean Ducharme, the film concerns Manon, an unstable young girl who lives with her mother Michelle and her alcoholic and intellectually disabled uncle Ti-Guy.

The 8th Annual Genie Awards were held on March 18, 1987, to honour Canadian films made the previous year. The show was again held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and was co-hosted by actors Helen Shaver, Linda Sorensen and Jean LeClerc. It was broadcast live on CBC Television.

<i>The Confessional</i> (film) 1995 Canadian film

The Confessional is a 1995 mystery-drama film directed by Robert Lepage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lothaire Bluteau</span> Canadian actor (b. 1957)

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).

<i>Being at Home with Claude</i> 1992 Canadian film

Being at Home with Claude is a 1992 Canadian drama film directed by Jean Beaudin and based on the play by René-Daniel Dubois. The film stars Roy Dupuis as Yves, a gay man who has just murdered his lover Claude, and is attempting to explain his reasons to the police investigator.

Yves Simoneau is a Canadian film and television director.

Paul Hébert, OC, CQ was a French Canadian television and stage actor and director, and the founder of six theatres in Quebec. He is best known for his role as Siméon Desrosiers in Le Temps d’une paix, a Canadian soap opera.

Alain Dostie is a Canadian cinematographer, film director and screenwriter. His work includes Silk, The Red Violin and The Confessional. He was nominated for a Genie Award for Best Achievement in Cinematography for his work in Silk.

Marie Tifo is a Canadian actress, and a major star in French-speaking Canada.

Francis Mankiewicz was a Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer. In 1945, his family moved to Montreal, where Francis spent all his childhood. His father was a second cousin to the famous Hollywood brothers, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Herman J. Mankiewicz.

<i>Intimate Power</i> (1986 film) 1986 Canadian film

Intimate Power is a 1986 Canadian thriller film.

Maria Chapdelaine is a French-Canadian historical drama film, released in 1983. An adaptation of Louis Hémon's novel Maria Chapdelaine, the film was directed and co-written by Gilles Carle and starred Carole Laure in the title role.

Happy Memories is a Canadian drama film, directed by Francis Mankiewicz and released in 1981. Identified by film critics as a spiritual if not literal sequel to his previous film Good Riddance , the film stars Julie Vincent as Viviane, a young woman returning home for the first time since running away several years earlier.

In the Belly of the Dragon is a Canadian comedy science fiction film, directed by Yves Simoneau and released in 1989. The film stars David La Haye as Lou, an aimless slacker who is dissatisfied with his job distributing flyers around the city, and signs up to be a drug testing subject for two mysterious scientists ; meanwhile, his delivery colleagues Steve and Bozo must team up to find and rescue him before the medical experiments go horribly wrong.

Bassan may refer to:

The Child Prodigy is a Canadian drama film, directed by Luc Dionne and released in 2010. A biographical drama about classical pianist André Mathieu, the film stars Guillaume Lebon as Mathieu in childhood and Patrick Drolet as Mathieu in adulthood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Grégoire</span> Canadian film and television composer

Richard Grégoire is a Canadian film and television composer from Montreal, Quebec. He is most noted for his work on the film Being at Home with Claude, for which he won the Genie Award for Best Original Score at the 13th Genie Awards in 1992.

Justine Héroux was a Canadian film and television producer, who was a partner with her husband Denis Héroux in Cite Internationale du Cinema et de L'Audiovisuel, later known as Ciné-Vidéo. She is most noted as a two-time Genie Award nominee as producer of the Best Picture finalists The Plouffe Family at the 3rd Genie Awards in 1982 and The Alley Cat at the 7th Genie Awards in 1986, and an Emmy Award nominee as producer of the television miniseries Little Gloria... Happy at Last.

Red Eyes is a Canadian thriller drama film, directed by Yves Simoneau and released in 1982. The film is a dramatization of the "automne chaud", a real-life series of voyeurism and sexual assault incidents in Quebec City in 1979 that culminated in the murder of young actress France Lachapelle.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Les Fous de Bassan: Psychological insights missing; Ambitious Les Fous a mixed success". The Globe and Mail , December 22, 1986.
  2. ↑ "Berlinale: 1987 Programme". berlinale.de. Retrieved February 28, 2011.
  3. ↑ "Quebec's 'enfant terrible' pulls off heist movie". The Globe and Mail , April 4, 1986.
  4. ↑ "Decline rises to top Genie nominations". Toronto Star , February 5, 1987.
  5. ↑ Pallister 1995, p. 184.
  6. ↑ Pallister 1995, p. 186.

Works cited

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.