III.

Culture

French Canadian writers and performing artists have used their language to create a uniquely modern and diverse artistic culture. A profound transformation occurred in 1945 with the publication of Bonheur d’occasion (The Tin Flute, 1947), a novel by Gabrielle Roy. Portraying the harsh reality of an urban, working-class family during wartime, this novel broke with the tradition of French Canadian romantic novels that focused on a vanishing Catholic and rural way of life. Many French Canadian writers turned to themes and critical approaches reflecting the complex social, cultural, and class structure of modern French-speaking communities in Québec and elsewhere. Tit-Coq (Little Rooster), a 1948 play by Gratien Gélinas, deals with the clash between the old and the emerging societies. The novels and plays of Michel Tremblay, set in Montréal’s working-class neighborhoods and dealing with such themes as the politics of language and homosexuality, explored the transformation of Québec society in the 1960s and 1970s. Denise Boucher’s 1978 play Les Fées Ont Soif (The Fairies are Thirsty) provocatively examined the relationship between women and the Catholic Church in contemporary Québec.

French-speaking literature also blossomed in other French Canadian communities. Acadian playwright and novelist Antonine Maillet’s popular novel Pélagie-la-Charette (1979; Pélagie, 1982) and plays, La Sagouine (1971, translated 1979) and Evangeline deusse (1975; Evangeline the Second, 1987) explore Acadian folklore and history. Franco-Ontarian writers Gabrielle Poulin and Paul Savoie and Francophone writers in western Canada have also contributed to fashioning a Francophone culture that spans the entire country.

French Canadians have also made distinctive contributions to Canadian art and architecture. A group of Montréal-based Francophone painters, known as the Automatistes, led the cultural transformation in the years immediately after World War II. Painters such as Paul-Émile Borduas, Alfred Pellan, Jean Paul Riopelle, and Fernand Leduc brought various avant-garde styles to their canvases. In 1948 Borduas authored a manifesto, Refus Global (Global Refusal), attacking the Catholic Church and other conservative elements in Québec society. When the other Automatistes signed the manifesto, they provoked a backlash from the traditional political and religious elites. This backlash forced many Automatistes to earn their living abroad, mainly in Paris.

The hard-edged, abstract style of painters such as Guido Molinari, Rita Letendre, and Claude Tousignant became the most influential art movement in Québec in the 1960s. Ever since, many Francophone visual artists, including sculptors and multimedia specialists, have helped push Canadian art in innovative directions. Montréal remains one of Canada’s leading artistic and cultural centers, attracting world-class art exhibitions.

Until the 1950s, French Canadian music was dominated by rural folk traditions, epitomized by the songs of Félix Leclerc. A new generation of urban Québécois and Acadian singers, such as Gilles Vigneault, Pauline Julien, Edith Butler, Angèle Arsenault, and Claude Léveillée, emerged in the early 1960s to give voice to the nationalist and cultural aspirations of their generation. This movement was soon followed by the more commercial rock music of Robert Charlebois, Ginette Reno, Beau Dommage and Daniel Lavoie, and the love ballads of Céline Dion and Roch Voisine.

With financial support from various government agencies, Québécois filmmakers made documentaries and commercial feature-length motion pictures. Among the most important French Canadian films are Gilles Carles’s La vraie nature de Bernadette (The True Nature of Bernadette, 1972), Claude Jutra’s Kamouraska (1973) and Mon Oncle Antoine (My Uncle Antoine, 1971), and Denys Arcand’s Réjeanne Podavani (1973), Gina (1974), Le déclin de l'empire américain (1986, also released as The Decline of the American Empire), and Jésus de Montréal (Jesus of Montréal, 1989). During the 1970s and early 1980s, many French Canadian films championed Québécois nationalism and helped feed the growing separatist movement in Québec. Later filmmakers, abandoning this crusade, focused on the more personal themes of guilt, retribution, and relationships.

Other French Canadian producers and directors focused their talents on creating television programs. They created a wide variety of children’s shows, situation comedies, popular drama series, documentaries, public affairs shows, and sports programs. Since the 1950s television has helped draw together Québécois from all regions and social classes to forge a new sense of linguistic and ethnic solidarity.