The Historical Imaginary in 21st Century Quebec National Cinema

It is becoming a cliché for critics and scholars to describe Québec national cinema in the twenty-first century as having reached a certain maturity, reflected in its diversity, including a number of quirky auteurs highly present on the international film festival, popular genre films that can become box office sensations, and several directors who have become Hollywood or European phenomena. In this presentation, I take a look at one particular slice of that spectrum of films, perhaps that most clearly reflective of how Quebec national cinema continues to reflect a certain identity for its francophone majority: the historical film and its subgenres. I will begin to unpack how Quebec lives up to its motto of “Je me souviens” (I remember) in historical films, biopics, literary adaptations of national classics, and period films set in the 1960s. 

Amy J. Ransom is Professor of French at Central Michigan University, where she teaches all levels of French language and literature, French film, and Quebec studies courses. She has published two dozen articles and two books on Quebec popular culture, science-fiction and fantasy literatures in particular. Science Fiction from Québec: A Postcolonial Study (2009) was both the first monograph on “SFQ” and an early application of postcolonial theory to science fiction. Hockey PQ: Canada’s Game in Quebec’s Popular Culture (2014) examines representations of ice hockey in popular fiction, music, film, and television. Her current book project, Quebec Film in the New Millennium: Memory, Territory, Identity, is underway.