Pour la suite du monde

1963 film

August 4, 1963 (1963-08-04)

Running time

105 minutesCountryCanadaLanguageFrenchBudget$80,000

Pour la suite du monde (transl. "So That the World May Go On", also known as Of Whales, the Moon, and Men; For Those Who Will Follow, and The Moontrap in English) is a 1963 Canadian documentary film produced by the National Film Board of Canada and directed by Michel Brault, Marcel Carrière and Pierre Perrault. It is the first of Perrault's Isle-aux-Coudres Trilogy: Le règne du jour (The Times That Are) followed in 1967, Les voitures d'eau (The River Schooners) in 1968.^[1]^[2]

Synopsis

The film is a work of ethnofiction. It shows life in a small isolated community, when the influence of the Catholic Church in Quebec was still strong.

For centuries the inhabitants of Ile-aux-Coudres, a small island in the St. Lawrence River, trapped beluga whales by sinking a weir of saplings into the offshore mud at low tide. After 1920, the practice was abandoned. In 1962, a team of National Film Board of Canada filmmakers led by director Perrault and cinematographer Brault arrived on the island to make a cinéma-vérité documentary about the people and their isolated life. They encouraged the islanders to revive the practice of beluga fishing. The live animal they caught was then driven on a truck to an aquarium in New York City.

The film also shows the daily life of the islanders, and their celebrations, such as the festival at mid-Lent (mi-carême).

Cast

Léopold Tremblay as Marchand and president of the new beluga fishing co.
Alexis Tremblay as Cultivateur et politicien
Abel Harvey as Capitaine et maître de pêche
Louis Harvey as Cultivateur et chantre d'église
Joachim Harvey as Capitaine du Nord de l'Île
Stanley Jackson as Narrator

Production

The film was shot in L'Isle-aux-Coudres and New York between 1961 and 1962, on a budget of $80,000 (equivalent to $712,453 in 2021).^[3]

Alternate English versions and titles

The film has been screened in various versions and with no less than four English-language titles. At its 1963 Cannes premiere, it was billed as For Those Who Will Follow.^[4] The NFB has also promoted the film in English as Of Whales, the Moon and Men ^[5] or The Moontrap,^[6] depending upon whether it was the 105-minute or 84-minute version, respectively. The release of a 2007 "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy" DVD trilogy also translates the film title as For the Ones to Come.^[7]

The film is commonly referred to simply as Pour la suite du monde in both French and English.^[8]^[9]

Reception

The film premiered at the Loew's International Film Festival on 4 August 1963.^[3] It was hugely popular in Quebec, and today is recognized as a classic of Canadian cinema. Pour la suite du monde has been consistently ranked by critics as one of the best ever made and it represents a major development in the direct cinema movement, moving away from simple observation to a more immediate participation and a great emphasis on the words of the people portrayed.^[8]

It was the first Canadian film to be shown at competition at the Cannes Film Festival.^[10] It was also the first Quebec film shown at the festival.^[4]^[11]

Quebecois filmmaker Denis Villeneuve declares that Perrault's "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy" is "amongst the most beautiful films he has ever seen".^[12] It remains a major source of inspiration and influence for him.

Accolades

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s)	Result	Ref.
Canadian Film Awards	8 May 1964	Film of the Year	Pour la suite du monde	Won	^[10]

Awards

Ibero-American-Filipino Documentary Film Contest, Bilbao, Spain: First Prize, Gold Medal, 1963
Évreux International Short Film Festival, Évreux, France: Grand Prize, Golden Viking, 1964
Columbus International Film & Animation Festival, Columbus, Ohio: Chris Award, First Prize 1966
Melbourne Film Festival, Melbourne: Diploma of Merit, 1966
Sardinia International Ethnographic Film Festival, Nuoro, Italy: Special Mention, 1994
Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto: Canada's Ten-Best Films, 8th Place, 1984^[13]

References

^ Melnyk 2004, p. 130-131.
^ David Clandfield, Pierre Perrault and the Poetic Documentary. Indiana University Press, 2004. ISBN 9780968913239.
^ ^a ^b Turner 1987, p. 46.
^ ^a ^b "Festival de Cannes: For Those Who Will Follow". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved February 27, 2009.
^ "Of Whales, the Moon and Men". National Film Board of Canada collections page. Archived from the original on September 2, 2007. Retrieved March 8, 2009.
^ "The Moontrap". National Film Board of Canada collections page. Archived from the original on February 22, 2012. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
^ "Île-aux-Coudres Trilogy - Disc 1". National Film Board of Canada collections page. Archived from the original on January 23, 2008. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
^ ^a ^b "Pour la suite du monde". Canadian Film Encyclopedia. Film Reference Library. Archived from the original on February 4, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
^ "Pour la suite du monde". National Film Board of Canada collections page. Archived from the original on February 22, 2012. Retrieved March 8, 2009.
^ ^a ^b Pallister 1995, p. 41.
^ Melnyk 2004, p. 130.
^ "Full Director's Roundtable: Angelina Jolie, Guillermo del Toro, Greta Gerwig | Close up with THR". YouTube.
^ "Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time," The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2012, URL accessed April 28, 2013.

Works cited

Melnyk, George (2004). One Hundred Years of Canadian Cinema. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 080203568X.
Pallister, Janis (1995). The Cinema of Quebec: Masters in Their Own House. Associated University Presses. ISBN 0838635628.
Turner, D. John, ed. (1987). Canadian Feature Film Index: 1913-1985. Canadian Film Institute. ISBN 0660533642.