March 2, 2015 – Montreal, National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) wishes to honour the work and the memory of Jacques Giraldeau, who died this past weekend at the age of 87. Born in Montreal in 1927, Giraldeau earned degrees in philosophy and social science, then began his career in film in 1950. Over the years he worked as a director, animator, cinematographer, editor, producer and screenwriter. For a few years, he divided his time among the NFB, Société Radio-Canada and his own production house, Studio 7. A true forerunner of direct cinema, he set the tone with his distinctive way of approaching and filming people in a series of short films for television, entitled Petites médisances, which he began shooting in 1953 in collaboration with Michel Brault.
In 1963, Giraldeau decided to make his professional home at the NFB, and he worked there as a staff filmmaker with the French Program until he retired in 1995. In a career that spanned more than 50 years, he enriched the cinematic repertoire with over 165 short, medium-length and feature films—mainly documentaries, but also a few landmark animated films. His distinctive body of work dealt chiefly with the history of art in Quebec, a subject about which he thought profoundly and productively.
Quick Facts
• Jacques Giraldeau’s career
• Jacques Giraldeau became interested in film early in life. While attending the Université de Montréal, he founded the first film club in Quebec in 1948. He was also a founding member of the Commission étudiante du cinéma (a student film society), the Association professionnelle des cinéastes (professional association of Quebec filmmakers) and the Cinémathèque québécoise. He also served as editor of the film magazine Découpage and as a critic for the newspaper Le Front ouvrier.
• Over his long career, Giraldeau examined a variety of subjects in his films, but starting with La forme des choses/The Shape of Things, in 1965, the situation of the arts in Quebec and communication between artists and the public became his central concerns. Shot at the first international sculpture symposium in North America, held in Montreal in 1964, the film features a musical score by Pierre Mercure.
• In the years that followed, Giraldeau directed a number of other films about art. They included Les fleurs c’est pour Rosemont (1969), about the difficult relation between artists and the general public; Bozarts (Collage 1)/Bozarts ‒ We Are All… Picasso! (1969), a vibrant plea for everyone’s right to self-expression; Faut-il se couper l’oreille? (1970), in which key figures from the art world debated the social role of artists; La fougère et la rouille ou Collage 2 (1974), which dealt with the special problems of the art world in Quebec; and then, in 1979, La toile d’araignée (Collage 3), which attempted once more to explain the chasm that separates art from the general public. In 1989, with Le tableau noir (Collage 4) and La toile blanche (Collage 5), Giraldeau analyzed, respectively, the laws that govern the art market and the relationship between artists and money.
• In the 1990s, Giraldeau directed Les amoureux de Montréal (1992), about the architecture of that city, and Blanc de mémoire (1995), an inquiry into the career of Quebec painter Évariste Quesnel, through which Giraldeau traced the major phases in the history of modern art in Quebec.
• Giraldeau also directed a small number of landmark animated films, including Opéra zéro (1984); the famous L’homme de papier/Moving Picture (1987), which explains the various methods of animation; and Les Iris/The Irises (co-directed with Suzanne Gervais, 1991), which evokes the dizzying heights to which the bidding rose when one of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings was sold at auction in 1987.
• In 2007, Giraldeau returned to the NFB to direct L’ombre fragile des choses/The Fleeting Shadow of Things (Productions Grand Angle/ONF), a composition of chiselled memories in which art becomes the archive of reality.
• In addition to his work as a filmmaker, Giraldeau was a painter and engraver. His works are on exhibit in many cities, including Montreal, Quebec City, Hull, Ottawa, Boston and New York.
• In 1996, the Government of Quebec awarded Giraldeau the Prix Albert-Tessier for his entire body of work. In 2000, he received a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.
Quote
Government Film Commissioner and NFB Chairperson Claude Joli-Coeur said, “Jacques Giraldeau was one of a generation of pioneers who played a central role in the emergence of Quebec cinema. His sensitive approach and his intimate way of looking at both people and things let him bring the work and concerns of artists to the screen, preserving living traces both of their works and of the things that they had to say about them. His contribution to the National Film Board of Canada and to Quebec filmmaking as a whole has been priceless.”
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Media Relations
Lily Robert
Director, Corporate Communications and Corporate Affairs
Tel.: 514-283-3838
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E-mail: l.robert@nfb.ca
About the NFB
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) creates groundbreaking interactive works, social-issue documentaries and auteur animation. The NFB has produced over 13,000 productions and won over 5,000 awards, including 14 Canadian Screen Awards, 8 Webbys, 12 Oscars and more than 90 Genies. To access acclaimed NFB content, visit NFB.ca or download its apps for smartphones, tablets and connected TV.
