Pour la suite du monde
1963 film
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Pour la suite du monde (French pronunciation: [puʁ la sɥit dy mɔ̃d], 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, followed by The Times That Are (Le règne du jour) in 1967, and The River Schooners (Les voitures d'eau) in 1968.[1][2]
Marcel Carrière
Pierre Perrault
Pierre Perrault
Jacques Bobet
| Pour la suite du monde | |
|---|---|
Title card | |
| Directed by | Michel Brault Marcel Carrière Pierre Perrault |
| Written by | Michel Brault Pierre Perrault |
| Produced by | Fernand Dansereau Jacques Bobet |
| Narrated by | Stanley Jackson |
| Cinematography | Michel Brault Bernard Gosselin |
| Edited by | Werner Nold |
| Distributed by | National Film Board of Canada |
Release date |
|
Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | French |
| Budget | $80,000 |
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 $826,164 in 2025).[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]
See also
- Docufiction
- List of docufiction films
- Man of Aran, a 1934 film centred around reviving a shark fishing tradition