Garneau / Bori, the film: a film that takes its time
A scene from the shooting of Bori / Garneau, the film, with Edgar Bori in the foreground.
Share November 3, 2020 11:15 am Share Garneau / Bori, the film: a film that takes its time
Mélanie Noël La Tribune Leaving the Garneau / Bor i show, presented at the Outremont Theater in 2018, directors Jean-Pierre Gariépy and Benoit Pilon were convinced that a film had to be produced. Filmmaker Denys Arcand, who attended one of the following performances, was of the same opinion. There was consensus.
“This is a film and not a recording of the show,” says Edgar Bori. We shot at the theater and in the streets of Rosemont, my neighborhood. We made up a story. That of the author who is imagining his play in a room without spectators. He thinks, goes outside, speaks out loud. And everything is brilliantly put together. “
The shooting of Garneau / Bori, the film has just ended and a first cut is already ready. Directed by the same Jean-Pierre Gariépy, an old friend of Bori's, the film is a film adaptation of the show created by Edgar Bori and directed by Michel Bruzat, from the Théâtre de la Passerelle, in Limoges, France. It was the latter who had the idea of mixing the words of Michel Garneau with those of Edgar Bori.
Until 2017, the two men of letters did not know each other, even if they had left, 15 years apart, the same classical college in Outremont at the age of 15, well before the end of the program. . They had the same French teachers before turning their backs on their bourgeois world to embrace that of written, read and sung poetry.
“At one time it was a cardinal sin to say the word breast. Then there was a rebellion of poets and of the word. Michel Garneau was one of the many first to use Quebec words and often believed in his texts, ”says Bori, who notably appropriated Garneau's La chanson d'amour de cul.
“When I poke your buttocks or when I plant you, I plant in the sun and happiness with it”, he hums at the end of the line.
Michel Garneau Photo archives La Tribune
Take the time to take the time
Edgar Bori, with the complicity of actress Josianne Paradis and musician Jean-François Groulx, tells and sings, with his words and those of Michel Garneau, “little journeys of humans with beating hearts, sometimes beaten. A world that takes the time to speak and sing about life, its softness, its hardness, its strength and its colors ”.
“Garneau is someone who really liked women and, without being out of place, excess in food and alcohol. His texts suggest that life revolves around sensual pleasure. Then the older he gets, the more we notice in his texts that he turns to the pleasure of breathing and being, for example, in harmony with a sunset. “
“It's a film that takes its time, because that's what the film is about. It starts with: today, we will take the time to take the time to take our time, as in the time when we had all our time. It is not a film that can be listened to while watching the notifications on our cell phone, ”adds the Montreal singer.
It is a first cinematographic experience for the artist who had predicted, in his biography of Bori's future, written in 1996, that he would release a first film in 2021.
“The film is slated for release in March 2021 and, according to The Book of the Future, I will win an award with this film. It is also written that I die in 2054 after having given a farewell show a few years earlier, ”underlines, mockingly, the 66-year-old artist.
Man with 1001 anecdotes
Over the past three years, Garneau and Bori have developed a great relationship. “He's the kind of man with a thousand and one anecdotes. He was a boyfriend with Leonard Cohen, he wrote dozens of plays, he participated in the first night of poetry in 1970 with Gaston Miron. You go to his place just to have him sign a paper and you come out four hours later, ”Bori sums up.
Postproduction of the film is underway and Bori invites friends from writing, cinema, theater, music and song to support this last essential step of the project by participating in his crowdfunding campaign.
“This self-directed cinematographic challenge hit the road two years ago and today we are at the last kilometer of the journey, before reaching the finish line thanks to you. So that these popular Quebec words paying homage to Michel Garneau remain in our memories, help us close the loop, ”asks Bori.
The film's total budget is $ 200,000 and $ 20,000 is missing to complete the funding. “In Quebec, a film should cost around $ 7 million, an author's film, $ 1 million. So $ 200,000 is nothing. But I have already put a lot of under Edgarborians ”, underlines the new actor.
The film's premiere will take place on March 16, 2021 at 7 p.m. at the Théâtre Outremont. A road show will follow in spring and summer 2021 across Quebec.
To contribute: http://www.haricot.ca/project/garneau-bori-le-film.
