Montreal in Historical Perspectives: “ North ” and No – Racial Relations

1. "I don't like this city [Montreal]. You can't throw a stone without breaking a church window" (Mark Twain qut in 57) Montreal in Historical Perspectives: “North” and No – Racial Relations The Battle of Quebec 1756-1763

2. Outline History: • Major Dates • the Quebec separatist movement • Features: Two solitudes and St. Laurence Blvd. • 1950’s -- Clark Blaise • A Child’s View of Language/Culture Issues in “North” (from Resident Alien [1986]) • 1970’s ( 1980) –Robert Lepage; • No: Introduction and FLQ • No (1998): Analysis

3. History: Dates Source

4. the Quebec separatist movement Source • 一八四○年：境內百分之六十為法語人口，但加拿大聯邦以英語為唯一官方語言。 • 1969 --Two official languages

5. Language Policy and Referendum Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Quebec_history_(1960_to_1981)

6. Montreal’s City map and cityscapes Three major buildings: Churches, skyscrapers and triplexes or duplexes with steep stairways.

7. Two solitudes and St. Laurence Blvd. • Two Solitudes by Hugh MacLennan 1945 (e.g. Views from the Typewriter) • The French live in the east, the English, in the west, and the Portuguese, Italians, Greeks, Chinese, and Blacks in between. • Between the solitudes: clip 12:46 • “North” the Jewish p. 212 • Catholic church: major influence in politics until Quiet Revolution in 1960’s. (“North” 212, 213)

8. Two Solitudes? • Come, my brothers,let us govern Canada,let us find our serious heads,let us dump asbestos on the White House,let us make the French talk English, • not only here but everywhere,let us torture the Senate individually • until they confess,let us purge the New Party,let us encourage the dark races • so they'll be lenient • when they take over,let us make the CBC talk English,let us all lean in one direction • and float down • to the coast of Florida,let us have tourism,let us flirt with the enemy,…. • the rich Brits • Leonard Cohen • about Q parents’ stereotypes

9. Clark Blaise the migrant writer -- at 10, after one of his father's frequent business failures • Born to Canadian parents in North Dakoda, 1940. • French-Canadian father: handsome, extroverted, charming, and untrustworthy English-Canadian mother: upright, resolute and intelligent. • Went to Canada for refuge -- at 5, following an assault charge against his father in Pittsburgh

10. Clark Blaise the migrant writer • Started moving at the age of 6 month: He moved 30 times before the 8th grade and attended 25 different schools. He spent his childhood in Alabama, Georgia, and central Florida, later in the American midwest, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, but always returned to his mother's family in Winnipeg whenever his father "ran out of work, or was run out of work, or town" (RA 167). • Montreal 1966 – 1978: 13 years, the longest of his stay in one place (with his wife Bharati Mukherjee). • Now in San Franscisco, CA

11. Ref. Blaise & Mukherjee The host introduces both writers, as well as their meeting in Iowa Writers’ Workshop and their marriage.

12. Clark Blaise’s “self”-creation in his fiction • His work is usually half-autobiographical and half fictional. • “Anyone who led a life as tenuous as I did, fraught with almost daily evidence of evanescence, is obviously going to be concerned with establishing a place and a name and an identity for himself that he could not have established in life. I did not ever have a sense of place, or belonging, in my life. So I had to create it, fabricate it, in my art.” • e.g. "I was born in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1940.” from the autobiographical fragment "Memories of Unhousement" in Resident Alien. (Source: http://www.ucalgary.ca/library/SpecColl/blaisbioc.htm)

13. “North” & Resident Alien • "This book is a journey into my obsessions with self and place; not just the whoness and whatness of identity, but the whereness of who and what I am." (RA 2). • Two "autobiographical fragments“+ four short stories about the character Carrier/Porter.

14. North: Autobiographical Elements Blaise • Went to Canada for refuge at 5, following an assault charge against his father in Pittsburgh • a French-Canadian father who ishandsome, extroverted, charming, and untrustworthy and English-Canadian mother: upright, resolute and intelligent. • Blaise moved around, unlike Porter.

15. “North”: Starting Questions • How are different races or different nations set against each other? • What is Phil’s position regarding these conflicts? • What makes him change? • What does the ending mean?

16. “North”: Races or Places • Phil in between different conflicting forces and opinions • the U.S. vs. Canada • English vs. French – • Mick Fortin’s looking for comrades p. 210; • Phil’s father and mother’s argument over Phil’s schooling p. 212; 213-14; • Pittsburgh vs. Papineau pp. 214; • Therèse vs. American teenagers p. 215

17. “North”: Catholic school • Phil’s experience of Catholic education: • punishment pp. 213 –14 shame • The society’s conformity and dullness p. 218 (weather, names) • Change: Therèse as tutor: • Apologetics(基督教辯證): searching for nuns and monks as if they were wildlife animals 216

18. Phil and Therèse • Therèse interested in English names; American cultures pp. 216-17 • Find common interest with Therèse • Therèse Englishized Image Source

19. Mother against French education –the alternative? • Eaton Center, scones and lemon curd, speaking English; • Meeting with Ella (220 – 221) • feminists • Ella from Austria, studied with/by Freud • Adoption by Dolly and Ella (223) McGill University • Knowing the world, and being racist 224

20. Ending: • separation between the mother and the son. • Gloomy old environment, constraints vs. youthful love + learning + immanent domination of US culture • the seascape of dust and cracks on surfaces (225) • Phil + Therèse • Radio and TV transmitting American culture + real life experience

21. No: National and Personal Choices Set on an International Stage Yes or no – to separatism, to abortion, to obsession

22. Robert Lepage • born in Quebec City, Quebec, December 12, 1957. An actor, director of plays and films. • Characteristics: • Style: auteur but not “author” -- his bilingualism, his explorations into multimedia, use of theatrical space and impromptu acting, • Issues: interculturalism and the nature of language (No), memory, guilt, father-son relationship, brotherhood, double identity, the act of creation itself. (source). • e.g. The Seven Faces of Robert Lepage: 1. acting; writing 10:00; Vinci 12:50

23. Robert Lepage: Works Films • Possible Worlds (2000) • No (1998) • Polygraphe, Le (1996) • Confessionnal, Le (1995) • Starring in Stardom (2000) Montreal vu par... (1991) Jesus de Montreal (1989) Plays – Vinci, Hamlet, the Dragon Trilogy, and The Seven Streams of River Ota (1994).

24. Robert Lepage: existential concerns • Le Confessional --the question "Where do I come from?"; • Le Polygraphe -- to examine "What is truth?"; • No -- to contemplate "Where am I going?"; • Possible Worlds -- to discover “What my real world is?" (Dundjerovic source)

25. Robert Lepage on Independence Issue • Sympathetic and critical: e.g. FLQ – idealist but comical (the insistence on correcting the language. “To set off a bomb or to advance a cause”)  more discussion of Michel later • * Unlike most Quebecois artists, Lepage looks at Quebecois issues from a broader—cross-cultural-- perspective. e.g. The Confessional and No. E.g. Pierre and the translators – the ones to link the East and the West.

26. the East as mirror • My fascination with the East also helps me to understand the West.  For many years now, the former has helped me understand the latter.  How can you understand the West, the culture of the twentieth century, when you're a Quebecer with virtually no cultural means at your disposal to interpret the world?  You need a mirror, and one of my first mirrors was the East.  In Seven Streams, mirrors are pervasive.  They help to funnel Jana Capek's memory, bringing her back to Theresienstadt, the Czech concentration camp.  We also have the reverse, the complete lack of mirrors in the life of a hibakusha [Nozomi]. . . Charest 36

27. Examples of Interculturalism and Multiple Language in No • Double-plot (French play with the film) • Sound track crosses over to the next scene (e.g. end of the invitation scene 30:00-) and the other scenes (restaurant); images overlapping (beginning and 5:00) • multiple language– the translators’ scene; “translator traitor”  Coexistence,  (mis)understanding (tower of Babel) • Broader perspective or • Solution of conflicts?

28. The Role of No play? • (As a contrast to the French farce) Tradition and self-composure • Duality in communication: the use of lip-synching, mask and ritual • intercultural communication and life as performance,

29. No– Background: FLQ: Front de Liberation du Québéc • Formed in the wake of Quiet Revolution in 1960’s. • While the majority of nationalists chose the democratic path of René Lévesque’s Parti Québécois, at the fringes more militant groups like the FLQ emerged. The FLQ’s campaign of bombings and robberies culminated in thekidnappings in 1970. . . • Influence on literature: In 1963, shortly after the first wave of FLQ bombings, a group of francophone writers in their twenties founded . . .Parti pris, advocating a sovereign and socialist Quebec.

30. soldier stands guard at Parliament Hill in Ottawa as security was stepped up because of terrorist kidnappings in Montreal during the FLQ crisis. Oct. 13, 1970. October Crisis in 1970 • Oct. 5, 1970 -- kidnapped James Cross, the British trade commissioner • Oct 10 – kidnapped Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte and killed him on the 17th.

31. October Crisis in 1970 • Trudeau invoked War Measure Act. • By noon of Oct 16, police officers arrested more than 450 people suspected of being FLQ members, even friends of FLQ members. [e.g.Sophie] • Cross stayed alive, in return his kidnappers got safe passage to Cuba.

32. No’s Background (2)The Seven Streams of River Ota and No • No -- the characters taken from Act 5, in which Sophie has an affair with Walter. • Seven Streams has as its historical contexts • the second World War (concentration camps and Hiroshima) • Madame Butterfly, and • 1970 Osaka Expo, while No just used FLQ terrorism and Expo.

33. Personal Conflicts and Survival: Characters with (or without) Emotional Problems National Conflicts: FLQ movement Cultural Issues the Use of Symbols No: Major Issues

34. No: the Characters in Osaka The Canadian characters in Osaka • What is Sophie’s problem and how is she looked at by Walter and Patricia? • How do Sophie and Patricia express their antagonism to each other? (39:00-) • How about François-Xavier? • How are Hanako and her translator friend Harold set as a contrast to her Canadian friends? (Hanako as an “ibakusha”) • How do the Canadian expatriates in Osaka view themselves and Quebecois separatism? (1:06)

35. Re. to discussionSophie in and out of the play • In the play, a whore who is able to finds ways out of her dilemma • In her world, she is caught up in the complicated relations and faced with the difficult decision of whether to have an abortion or not. Bumps her head

36. No: the Characters in Osaka and Mirror/Photo • Obsession (François-Xavier), fantasy (Walter), peeping (Patricia), harmony (Harold and Hanako)

37. No: the Characters in Osaka and Mirror/Photo • Fantasy orientalism (stereotyping the East) • mirror image reflects the narrow-mindedness of the twins as a kind of Canadian dual identity.

38. Hanako and Harold • Hanako: blind and perceptive; helpful to Sophie, understanding and sensitive 2. Harold: does not worry about the hereditary possibility of atomic radiation

39. No: the Characters in Montreal In Montreal – the officers and FLQ members • How is Michel different from his comrades? Why does he insist on revising the communiqué? • And the investigators? Central symbols and themes -- 3. Why are the clocks and phone booths important? 4. The plays within the play?

40. No on Quebecois Separatism • No – puts FLQ’s faulty idealism in the context of the problems in human communication and the issue of survival. • both critical of and sympathetic with Quebecois nationalism. • The “terrorists”: • trivial concern (about routes—which routes allow left turns “Guy street is fine.”), one’s romantic involvement with Sophie (betrayal of his friend), mis-calculation of time • destruction(juxtaposed with François-Xavier’s self-destructitve acts in the phone booth).

41. hasn’t written anything for three years; idealistic and unrealistic (refuses to write for Radio Canada) Reasons: “phrases not well-formulated,” confusing, not French. Gaps in his communication with Sophie. failure to understand Bad timing in calling each other Michel – a writer

42. Government Officers: Trivial, Comic (seen as a gay couple) and Incompetent

43. Symbols: Clock  bad timing 1. bad-timing  miscommunication between Michel and Sophie (53:00 ); Patricia’s discover of the affair 2. wrong calculation: • using the wrong clock (Tokyo time) to set the bomb, • Since there is a 14 hour difference—or 2 hour difference on the clock face, the bomb is set 2 hours earlier.

44. the plays within the film No play Feydeau’s domestic farce

45. No and Farce • Farce: superficial patriotism, lack of blood lineage, an example of colonialism and superficial culture (Sophie 44:00) • The Japanese play// Hanako: about a woman who finds her way back to life thanks to her hero lover. • (vs. Sophie gets no help  one of the innocent victims)

46. The Endings

47. Endings • Immediate consequence: miscarriage and possible sexual harassment • 10 years later: the couple is older, richer, calmer and probably more indifferent • “Common project” – birthing • They are less concerned with national issues, but they survive.