Making Movie History: Michel Brault

Back in 1947, while still making amateur movies with Claude Jutra, could Brault have known that he would mark film history? His defiant experimentalism shook things up at the NFB, and films like Les raquetteurs (1958) would launch an irreversible movement. Alongside US filmmakers such as Richard Leacock, the young Québécois was at the forefront of the Direct Cinema revolution--and his "walking camera" would influence Jean Rouch. He collaborated with Pierre Perrault and the inhabitants of Île-aux-Coudres on the landmark film Pour la suite du monde (1963), a key moment in vérité cinema. Restlessly creative, Brault continued investigating both reality and fiction. His own feature, Les ordres (1974), honoured at Cannes, remains ingrained in Quebec's collective memory, as does his cinematography in legendary films like Mon oncle Antoine and Les bons débarras. It is impossible to imagine Quebec cinema without him. Michel Brault died in 2013 at the age of 85.