The Apprentice (1971 film)

Last updated
The Apprentice
The Apprentice.jpg
DVD cover
French Fleur bleue
Directed by Larry Kent
Written byLarry Kent
Edward Stewart
Produced by Donald Brittain
Starring Susan Sarandon
Steve Fiset
Celine Bernier
Jean-Pierre Cartier
Carole Laure
Gerard Parkes
CinematographyJean-Claude Labrecque
Edited byJohn Broughton
Distributed bySomerville House Distribution (DVD)
Release dates
  • September 10, 1971 (1971-09-10)(Canada)
  • July 1996 (1996-07)(United States)
Running time
81 min
CountryCanada
LanguagesFrench
English

The Apprentice (French : Fleur bleue) is a 1971 Quebec-made comedy-drama film directed by Larry Kent, starring Susan Sarandon and Steve Fiset. [1] Although the original title literally translates to English as Blue Flower, it is better known in English as The Apprentice, which is a better translation of the idiom used in the title. It is one of the very few Canadian films that is functionally bilingual, shot in both English and French, with the appropriate dialogue dubbed for the appropriate audience.

Contents

Plot

Jean-Pierre (Fiset) is a working class young Francophone with big dreams. He comes under the tutelage of his older best friend, a con-man and bank robber named Dock (Jean-Pierre Cartier), who starts teaching him the secrets of his trades, and making him an accomplice in his crimes. He is dating Dock's virginal sister, who is also active in the Quebec separatist movement.

To make ends meet, Jean-Pierre works a series of menial jobs. While doing clean-up on a commercial shoot, he meets Elizabeth (Sarandon), a beautiful Anglophone model. After he is fired from the shoot for explaining the English meaning of the French name of the product she is supposed to be selling, she starts going out with him out of a sense of guilt, and they soon become lovers. However, she is a sexual libertine with no intention of being monogamous, and this soon strains their relationship.

Eventually, the strain of keeping up with his two girlfriends wears on him and he decides to break up with Elizabeth. However, his clumsy attempts to break up in English (of which he does not have a fluent command) merely results in their spending the night together. He then decides to break up with Dock's sister, who realizing that he is going back to Elizabeth because of their sexual relationship, throws herself at him.

Eventually, Jean-Pierre's criminal activities catch up with him, and everything ends tragically.

Place in Canadian film history

Fleur bleue is one of the very few films to deal with the strain between Anglophone and Francophone relationships in the city of Montreal in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At the time the film was made, Montreal was largely segregated into French speaking areas in the east, and English speaking areas in the west, with the two groups rarely interacting with each other. Jean-Pierre and Elizabeth both are from Montreal, but neither has a working command of the other's language - Jean-Pierre's English is non-fluent, and Elizabeth's French is non-existent.

In addition to the strain of his relationships and his criminal career, Jean-Pierre is also dealing with a society which, while marginally under French political control, was largely under English economic control. This film was made just after department stores such as Eaton's required their Francophone clerks to converse with customers in English only, even if the customer was a Francophone as well. Jean-Pierre, rightly or wrongly, blames his economic circumstances on Anglophones, who are the only ones who can provide him with an honest, but low paying, job. His girlfriend has come to the conclusion that separation from Canada is the only solution to the problems plaguing Francophones. Dock is convinced that it doesn't matter who is in charge - people like him will suffer nevertheless, so it's everyone for themselves. Elizabeth, who is relatively well off, doesn't acknowledge the problems that exist for all the Francophones with whom she shares her city .

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mordecai Richler</span> Canadian writer (1931–2001)

Mordecai Richler was a Canadian writer. His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959) and Barney's Version (1997). His 1970 novel St. Urbain's Horseman and 1989 novel Solomon Gursky Was Here were nominated for the Booker Prize. He is also well known for the Jacob Two-Two fantasy series for children. In addition to his fiction, Richler wrote numerous essays about the Jewish community in Canada, and about Canadian and Quebec nationalism. Richler's Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! (1992), a collection of essays about nationalism and anti-Semitism, generated considerable controversy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day</span> Holiday celebrated on June 24

Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, also known in English as St John the Baptist Day, is a holiday celebrated on June 24 in the Canadian province of Quebec. It was brought to Canada by French settlers celebrating the traditional feast day of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. It was declared a public holiday in Quebec in 1925, with publicly financed events organized province-wide by a Comité organisateur de la fête nationale du Québec.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franco-Ontarians</span> Francophone resident of the Canadian province of Ontario

Franco-Ontarians are Francophone Canadians that reside in the province of Ontario. Most are French Canadians from Ontario. In 2021, according to the Government of Ontario, there were 650,000 Francophones in the province. The majority of Franco-Ontarians in the province reside in Eastern Ontario, Northeastern Ontario, and Central Ontario, although small francophone communities may be found in other regions of the province.

This article presents the current language demographics of the Canadian province of Quebec.

Pierre Bourgault was a politician and essayist, as well as an actor and journalist, from Quebec, Canada. He is most famous as a public speaker who advocated sovereignty for Quebec from Canada.

<i>The Hockey Sweater</i> 1979 Canadian short story

The Hockey Sweater is a short story by Canadian author Roch Carrier and translated to English by Sheila Fischman. It was originally published in 1979 under the title "Une abominable feuille d'érable sur la glace". It was adapted into an animated short called The Sweater by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) in 1980 and illustrated by Sheldon Cohen.

Quebec English encompasses the English dialects of the predominantly French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. There are few distinctive phonological features and very few restricted lexical features common among English-speaking Quebecers. The native English speakers in Quebec generally align to Standard Canadian English, one of the largest and most relatively homogeneous dialects in North America. This standard English accent is common in Montreal, where the vast majority of Quebec's native English speakers live. English-speaking Montrealers have, however, established ethnic groups that retain certain lexical features: Irish, Jewish, Italian, and Greek communities that all speak discernible varieties of English. Isolated fishing villages on the Basse-Côte-Nord of Quebec speak Newfoundland English, and many Gaspesian English-speakers use Maritime English. Francophone speakers of Quebec also have their own second-language English that incorporates French accent features, vocabulary, etc. Finally, the Kahnawake Mohawks of south shore Montreal and the Cree and Inuit of Northern Quebec speak English with their own distinctive accents, usage, and expressions from their indigenous languages.

William Denis Hertel Johnson, CM was a Canadian academic, journalist, and author.

<i>Bon Cop, Bad Cop</i> 2006 Canadian film

Bon Cop, Bad Cop is a 2006 Canadian black comedy-thriller buddy cop film about two police officers – one Ontarian and one Québécois – who reluctantly join forces to solve a murder. The dialogue is a mixture of English and French. The title is a translation word play on the phrase "Good cop/bad cop".

<i>Météo+</i> Canadian TV series or program

Météo+ is a Canadian television sitcom which aired on TFO, the French language public broadcaster in Ontario, from February 14, 2008 to April 28, 2011. The series is about the colourful crew of Météo+, a fictional francophone weather channel for the Northeastern Ontario region based in Sudbury.

Pierre Houde is a Canadian play-by-play sports announcer for RDS. He has announced broadcasts of Montreal Canadiens games since 1989. Over the years he was partnered with Pierre Bouchard and Yvon Pedneault. From 2007 to 2011, his partner was former Canadiens' player Benoît Brunet. In 2009, Joël Bouchard was his and Brunet's partners, but when Bouchard left for the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada in 2011, he was replaced by former NHL goaltender Marc Denis. Houde also broadcasts Formula One Races at the same station along with Bertrand Houle.

An apprentice is someone who is in training for a trade, profession or in the context of the British abolition of slavery an obligatory status whereby the former slave was forced to labour for three quarters of the time for their former owner.

Frank Howard was a Canadian journalist and columnist who wrote for the Ottawa Citizen, The Globe and Mail, the Montreal Gazette, the Montreal Star, and the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph.

Heather Keith, formerly known as Heather Keith-Ryan, is an anglophone rights activist from the Eastern Townships region of the Canadian province of Quebec. She has served two terms as president of the Townshippers' Association and in this capacity has opposed provincial restrictions on the use of the English language. Keith herself is fluent in English and French.

Townshippers' Association is a non-partisan, non-profit organization mandated to support the rights of English-speaking people in the historical Eastern Townships region of the Canadian province of Quebec. It is known in French as the Association des Townshippers. The association has its head office in Lennoxville and a branch office in Knowlton.

Nicole Boudreau is a Canadian administrator, activist, and politician in Montreal, Quebec. Closely associated with the Quebec sovereigntist movement, she led the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society in Montreal from 1986 to 1989 and oversaw the group Partenaires pour la souveraineté in the 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Ciaccia</span> Italian-born Canadian politician (1933–2018)

John Ciaccia was an Italian-born Canadian politician who was provincial cabinet minister from Montreal, Quebec. Ciaccia served as a member of the National Assembly of Quebec from 1973 to 1998, representing the Mount Royal riding for the Quebec Liberal Party. He occupied various posts in the cabinets of Liberal premiers Robert Bourassa, and Daniel Johnson Jr., such as minister of Energy and Natural Resources, International Affairs, Native Affairs, and Immigration and Cultural Communities. At his resignation, Ciaccia was the longest-serving member of the Assembly. Ciaccia gained international attention for his efforts in negotiating the end of the Oka Crisis alongside his federal counterpart, Tom Siddon, in 1990. Former Quebec Premier Jean Charest described Ciaccia's political career as having "revolutionized relations with the native people and cultural communities of Quebec by always favouring an approach marked by respect."

Wallace E. Lambert was a Canadian psychologist and a professor in the psychology department at McGill University (1954–1990). Among the founders of psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, he is known for his contributions to social and cross-cultural psychology, language education, and bilingualism.

<i>A Wedding</i> (2016 film) 2016 film

A Wedding is a 2016 internationally co-produced drama film directed by Stephan Streker. It was screened in the Discovery section at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. It received eight nominations at the 8th Magritte Awards, including Best Film and Best Director for Streker, and won two. It is based on the honour killing of Sadia Sheikh. Streker described the film as a Greek tragedy.

English-speaking Quebecers, also known as Anglo-Quebecers, English Quebecers, or Anglophone Quebecers or simply Anglos in a Quebec context, are a linguistic minority in the francophone province of Quebec. According to the 2011 Canadian census, 599,225 people in Quebec declare English as a mother tongue. When asked, 834,950 people reported using English the most at home.

References

  1. Gerald Pratley, A Century of Canadian Cinema. Lynx Images, 2003. ISBN   1-894073-21-5. p. 164.