Jesus of Montreal (French: Jésus de Montréal) is a 1989 French Canadian comedy-drama film written and directed by Denys Arcand, and starring Lothaire Bluteau, Catherine Wilkening and Johanne-Marie Tremblay. The film tells the story of a group of actors in Montreal who perform a Passion play in a Quebec church (the film uses the grounds of St Joseph's Oratory on Mount Royal), combining religious belief with unconventional theories on a historical Jesus. As the church turns against the main actor and author of the play, his life increasingly mirrors the story of Jesus, and the film adapts numerous stories from the New Testament.
Jesus of Montreal | |
---|---|
Theatrical poster | |
Jésus de Montréal | |
Directed by | Denys Arcand |
Produced by | Roger Frappier Pierre Gendron Monique Létourneau |
Written by | Denys Arcand |
Starring | Lothaire Bluteau Catherine Wilkening Johanne-Marie Tremblay |
Music by | Yves Laferriere |
Cinematography | Guy Dufaux |
Edited by | Isabelle Dedieu |
Distributed by | Cineplex Odeon Films Orion Classics |
Release date |
|
Running time | 118 minutes |
Country | Canada France |
Language | French English |
Budget | $4.2 million |
Box office | $1,601,612 |
The film came out to critical acclaim and won numerous awards, including the Genie Award for Best Picture and the Jury Prize at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. The film was also nominated for the 1989 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Critics in the Toronto International Film Festival have regarded the film to be one of the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time.
Screenplay
In Montreal, an unknown actor named Daniel is hired by a Roman Catholic site of pilgrimage ("le sanctuaire") to present a Passion play in its gardens. The priest, Father Leclerc, requests Daniel "modernize" the classic play the church has been using, which he considers dated. Despite working with material others consider to be cliché, Daniel is inspired and sets out on intensive academic research, consulting archaeology to check the historicity of Jesus and drawing on alleged information on Jesus in the Talmud, using the Talmud name Yeshua Ben Pantera for Jesus, whom he portrays. He also includes arguments that the biological father of Jesus was a Roman soldier, who left Palestine shortly after impregnating the unwed Mary. Daniel assembles his cast, discovered from low-profile and undesirable employment, and moves in with two, Constance and Mireille.
When the play is performed, it receives rave reviews from critics, but is regarded as unconventional and controversial by Father Leclerc, who angrily distances himself from Daniel. Daniel's life is further complicated when he attends one of Mireille's auditions. Mireille is told to remove her top, causing an outburst from Daniel in which he damages lights and cameras. He begins to face charges for property damage. As the higher authorities of the Roman Catholic Church continue to strongly object to his Biblical interpretation, security forcefully stops a performance. The audience and actors object to the stoppage and Daniel is injured in an ensuing accident.
Daniel is first taken by ambulance to a Catholic hospital. He is completely neglected there and leaves. He then collapses on a Montreal Metro platform. The same ambulance takes him to the Jewish General Hospital. Despite immediate, skilled, and energetic efforts by the doctors and nurses to revive him, Daniel is pronounced brain-dead. Daniel's doctor asks for the consent of his friends to take Daniel's organs for donation, since Daniel has no known relatives. Daniel's physician states that the staff would have been able to save him, if he had been brought to them half an hour earlier. In the wake of his death, his friends start a new theatre company to carry on his work.
Actor | Character | Biblical analogue |
---|---|---|
Lothaire Bluteau | Daniel | Jesus |
Catherine Wilkening | Mireille | Mary Magdalene |
Johanne-Marie Tremblay | Constance | Mary, mother of Jesus |
Rémy Girard | Martin | Saint Peter |
Robert Lepage | Rene | Apostle |
Gilles Pelletier | Father Leclerc | Judas Iscariot (possible) |
Roy Dupuis | Marcel Brochu | N/A |
Yves Jacques | Richard Cardinal | Satan |
Cédric Noël | Pascal Berger | John the Baptist |
Denys Arcand | The Judge | Pontius Pilate |
Authors have written Jesus of Montreal has "many parallels" to the New Testament, and "is so loaded with all sorts of fascinating allusions" between modern Quebec and the Gospels. Daniel is mainly known to the public through "hearsay", and is reported to have traveled to India and Tibet, reflecting "extra-biblical legends" about Jesus. The story begins when Daniel becomes a teacher to his actors, as Jesus was to his disciples. Another actor named Pascal Berger, played by Cédric Noël, praises Daniel as John the Baptist hailed Jesus. Pascal "loses his head" when an advertiser uses his photo to sell perfume, just as John the Baptist was beheaded.
Daniel's outburst in the audition scene evokes the Cleansing of the Temple. In the subsequent criminal case, Daniel has a Pontius Pilate-like judge played by Arcand, and meets a lawyer played by Yves Jacques who offers Daniel profit and fame, telling him "The city is yours," which is a reference to the Temptation of Christ. After he is injured, Daniel is taken to the Jewish General Hospital. Arcand said this is a deliberate parallel with Jesus being a Jew "rejected by his own people," but Arcand depicted the hospital as efficient and better organized than other Montreal hospitals because he felt this was accurate. Scholar Jeremy Cohen tied the Jewish doctor's statement "we lost him" to the idea of Jewish deicide. At the end, Daniel's organs are donated to patients, equated to the Resurrection of Jesus. Daniel's "disciples" also continue his work after he dies, led by Martin, played by Rémy Girard, who is an analogue of Saint Peter.
Development
The idea for the film came to director Denys Arcand after an actor apologized for appearing with a beard at an audition at a Montreal conservatory, saying "I'm sorry, I'm Jesus." The actor explained that he had the role of Jesus in a passion play at Saint Joseph's Oratory. Arcand went to see the play and recalls, "I saw actors in a mediocre production which received shouted applause from the tourists. I decided I had to make a film." The actor also spoke to Arcand about the difficulties he and his friends had in the acting profession, taking undesirable roles in TV advertisements and pornographic films.
As a lapsed Catholic and self-proclaimed atheist, Arcand did not envision Jesus of Montreal as a religious film, adding, "In my film, the story of the Passion is a metaphor of an artist and his struggles and temptations." He spent a year in 1987 writing the screenplay. The film was made on a budget of $4.2 million, with Arcand saying he got a "blank check" after his success with The Decline of the American Empire (1986). This budget was unusually large for a Quebec film.
Casting
Arcand saw actress Johanne-Marie Tremblay in Straight for the Heart (1988) and cast her as Constance, one of Daniel's actresses who takes him in to live with her. She reprised her role as Constance in Arcand's later films The Barbarian Invasions (2003) and Days of Darkness (2007).
Robert Lepage, who played René, one of Daniel's "disciples", was a playwright and said that aside from TV and student films, Jesus of Montreal was his first major acting role. He said that the screenplay was complete and detailed, leaving less room for improvisation than he expected.
Filming
The film was shot with mobile cameras on location in Montreal, which has many churches against its skyline and has been "a center of Catholicism since its beginnings". Arcand stated he often shot Montreal from a distance or from the air to represent God viewing the city.
He claimed that while French Canadian churches in Montreal denied permission to shoot inside their buildings, an English language Catholic church allowed the crew to use its space. He said this was because although church members asked to see the screenplay, they didn't speak French and needed money from the rental. Some scenes were shot near Saint Joseph's Oratory. A substantial amount of theatrical blood was required for the Passion play scenes.
Box office
According to Box Office Mojo, the film grossed $1,
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