Cinémathèque Québécoise preserves Quebec and international film heritage

Cinémathèque Québécoise

The Cinémathèque Québécoise, the Cinema Museum Is a venue whose first mission is to preserve, document and develop the film and television heritage here and internationally.

Over the past hundred years, we might consider cinema to be a type of visual memory.

It is precious, especially as cinematographic works are a particularly fragile heritage.

An impressive number of old films are now being destroyed because the nitrate found within represents a fire hazard.

This is the case regarding the films of Ernest Ouimet.

In 1963, the Cinémathèque Québécoise was created in order to preserve the works of the seventh art and disseminate the culture of film.

Located on Boulevard Maisonneuve, this non-profit corporation assumes the role of both cinema museum and film archive.

The Cinematheque contains both a screening room and exhibition hall. Its center is the largest of its kind in North America and operates extensive archives consisting of film, stills, local movies posters, scripts, original soundtracks, and a large number of older aircraft.

The Cinematheque is also a research center specializing in the field of animation and contains a unique collection of 3000 titles. Its warehouses are home to a total of 20,000 films.

The Cinémathèque Québécoise is also used to edit a large number of publications regarding the Quebec cinema and organizes nearly five hundred public screenings annually.

The programming mainly consists of Quebec repertoire films, classics in the history of cinema, and retrospectives of great directors.

In addition the Cinematheque is home to several film festivals including the Rendezvous du Cinéma Québécois.

When Montreal City was “minded”

Cinema

The origins of the Canadian cinematic adventure start with Montreal. Not only has the city become the focus for organized film, in June 1896, Montreal became the venue for the first ever film screening in the country.

On this occasion, several prominent journalists met in Montreal at the Palace Theater Boulevard St-Laurent to discover the Lumière brothers’ cinematograph.

Montrealers became crazy about “moving pictures” and made Sunday a “day of p’tites vues,” despite reprimands by the clergy.

Films were shown in the parks at the beginning of the century. Often colored by hand, these five-minute films were presented as a curiosity, along with the feats of Louis Cyr and a concert band.

During this time, Montrealers diligently attended the screenings of Mary Hauterives, the “Countess of moving pictures” and his son Viscount Henry in Sohmer Park. The filmmakers also included Lumières, Méliès and Pathé.

The city’s growing interest in cinema brought a new organized industry. In 1907, projectionists left the park and instead showed films indoors.

These little pictures were then shown in theaters during intermissions and as a complement to vaudeville acts.

After 1915, films become a main attraction. During this time people begin to invest heavily in theaters known as the “scopes.”

Regular clientele of cinemas consist mostly of children, although several families adopt p’tites views for a leisurely Sunday. Cinemagoers on average paid 10 to 15 cents to see the cowboy Tom Mix and Rin-Tin-Tin.

They also followed the adventures of Zorro or laughed at the adventures of Charlie Chaplin.

Love stories with beautiful Hollywood starlets and Rudolph Valentino appeared more real than that of a dream.

The Catholic clergy was not indifferent to the cinema. The clerical elite would initiate a struggle against the owners of scopes that operate on Sundays.

According to the clergy, the “moving pictures” were full of displaced and suggestive scenes; in addition, they were being played in places dangerously obscure.

The clergy prepared a decree that the sessions were to be presented in semi-lit rooms. Bishop Bruchési even stated that “bless the legislature would enact the abolition of moving picture theaters!”

However, barely losing to the Archbishop of Alexandre Taschereau, government shrinks the popularity of cinema.

The ban would cost him many votes and taxpayer money. Failing to ban films, their content is monitored. An act of censure is adopted in 1913, and the city of Montreal hires a censor poster during 1924.

The Laurier Palace fire in 1927, in which 78 children die, provides an argument for size opponents to cinema.

Following an inquiry, the government banned those under the age of 16 from viewing the cinema. Montreal remains one of the few cities in North America where you can still go “minded” on Sunday.

Elsewhere, in Canada and the United States, the Puritans succeeded in imposing their will. At the dawn of the nineteen thirties they are not at the end of their sentence. The decade begins to mark the golden age of cinema in Montreal.

Did you know …

More than candy…

During 1907, following a meeting concerning the municipal law commandments of the Archbishop of Montreal, Paul Bruchési, owners of theaters are forced to close their doors on Sunday.

They are forbidden to sell movie theater tickets on the day of the Lord. However, Ernest Ouimet boldly bypasses the law by selling something called “Ouimetoscope candy” for 10 cents with a bonus, a free session of cinema!

At the Cinémathèque Québécoise – The silent cinema in the spotlight.

While youth are released, Laurel and Hardy returned to service. The famous comedy duo invade the screens of the Cinémathèque Québécoise times a week for spring break, and enable young and old alike to discover three features works of American silent burlesque in the late ’20s.

A journey through time, a return to the golden age of cinema and, of course, a good dose of laughter.

Thanks to the Cinémathèque Québécoise then more than 80 years later, it seems that the magic works featuring the famous duo of “big” and “small” always works. “The Laurel and Hardy films have aged well. It is a devastating humor that works very well.

This renewed enthusiasm for silent film and burlesque, the Cinematheque must also students of the University of Montreal who provide the live musical accompaniment and thus give life to films.

Bon Cinema!

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