Nomination Statement
Nominated by Robert Daudelin (former director of the Cinémathèque québécoise, critic, teacher)
Serge Giguère is one of the most original documentary filmmakers in Quebec. A complete filmmaker (photography director, cameraman and author of all his films), initially a collaborator of Pierre Perrault and Bernard Gosselin and thus an heir to the tradition of direct filming, he has invested this heritage with a unique approach, modifying the codes as he needed. In the words of David McIntosh, programmer of the Giguère retrospective at last year’s Hot Docs: “Giguère boldly asserts the creative role of the documentarian as interventionist and as co-creator of innovative cultural expressions with the subjects of his films.”
Serge Giguère is an attentive filmmaker. Like the great classical documentarians, he knows how to take his time and establish the trust essential to a fruitful approach. This art involves attention to detail, sensitivity to language, and mutual trust and respect.
This being said, Giguère gives us the definition of the documentary approach: an approach that he has embraced and renewed, by periodically using fiction to make reality open up more: hence the scenes suggested by the hero of the film inserted into Le roi du drum (and other films) that allow the filmmaker to penetrate further into the world of Guy Nadon – the dreamlike aspect of these parentheses is another way of exploring the reality of the character.
Although he had made four films between 1975 and 1980, it was after 1987 and Oscar Thiffault that Giguère became the filmmaker whose style and stances are now recognized. The six eminently personal films he has made since then are portraits of a singular citizen, filmed with a respect and love that are the mark of a true documentarian. Whether he is looking at a self-taught musician who became a Montreal jazz star (Le roi du drum), a worker priest (9 St-Augustin), a labour activist (Le reel du mégaphone), or even a painter who died decades ago (Suzor-Côté), he establishes a magical complicity with his characters. This, one of the great qualities of his films, is explained in part by the fact that he is his own cameraman (and what a cameraman!), imposing himself on his characters as a man at work, trying to understand them in their own work.
This connivance is also explained by his ability to let the people being filmed dream, even staging their dreams. The farthest he has gone in this direction was in his most recent film, À force de rêves.
A harmonious culmination of 20 years of work, À force de rêves sets the bar high in proposing not one but six portraits in which the age of the heroes allows for unity – the age, but even more the ability to dream and to hold to life. The pleasure of filming people, another essential aspect of his work, has never been more in evidence. He is in complete possession of his skills, able to go where he wants with a gracefulness that magnificently translates the fluid editing of his long-time collaborator Louise Dugal.
Sensitive to popular culture, curious about men and women and their unpredictable destinies, the filmmaker never abstracts people from their environment – watching his films is also taking a trip into the heart of Quebec, a trip without words where all is revealed through the sensitive gaze of an artist who loves his country and its inhabitants.
The social dimension of his films is at the basis of the characters that he presents with warmth and humour, giving us the sensation that we are learning without being submitted to lectures. His films are very serious: the filmmaker does not take himself seriously, but seeks the best way to make us embrace the subjects.
As a cameraman, he has been the precious collaborator of several filmmakers, and to each he has contributed both his technique and his exceptional ability to go to the heart of people and things without having to be shown the way. This was the case for the two feature films by Lucie Lambert where the quality of the images is imbued with emotion. His support for Maurice Bulbulian over a number of years in filming Coastal Indians attests to this ability to wait for the right moment. His magnificent work for Fernand Bélanger was in perfect synchronicity with the filmmaker’s poetry.
All those who have worked with him have had an exceptional experience. He stands at the forefront of Canadian documentary filmmaking.