Manouane River Lumberjacks

Manouane River Lumberjacks
French	Bûcherons de la Manouane
Directed by	Arthur Lamothe
Written by	Arthur Lamothe
Produced by	Fernand Dansereau Victor Jobin
Cinematography	Guy Borremans Bernard Gosselin
Edited by	Arthur Lamothe Jean Dansereau
Production company	National Film Board of Canada
Release date	1962 (1962)
Running time	27 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	French

Manouane River Lumberjacks (French: Bûcherons de la Manouane) is a Canadian short documentary film, directed by Arthur Lamothe and released in 1962.^[1] Considered an important milestone in the Cinema of Quebec,^[2] the film is a portrait of lumberjacks working in the Manouane River area of Quebec, based in part on Lamothe's own history of having worked in the lumber camps before pursuing filmmaking.^[3]

The film has faced some discussion of the fact that some of its content was censored. Because the film contained some allegations of mistreatment and exploitation of the lumberworkers, the National Film Board prevented Lamothe from explicitly naming the lumber company they were working for, and from drawing any political conclusions about the fact that the lumber company was owned by English Canadians while the workers were all québécois or indigenous.^[4] Later analysis has also highlighted the fact that the lumberworkers' dialogue in the original French version of the film was not directly translated by either subtitling or dubbing in the English version, but was simply overdubbed with commentary by the film's narrator.^[4]

Despite this, the film is still seen as having a significant pro-worker political position, and as one of the first major Canadian documentary films to present a gritty direct cinema view of Quebec rather than a romanticized or folkloric image.^[3]

References

1. Gilles Marsolais, "Bûcherons de la Manouane d’Arthur Lamothe". 24 images, No. 132 (Jun-Jul 2007). p. 27.
2. Marc-André Lussier, "Arthur Lamothe (1928-2013): adieu à un grand documentariste". La Presse, September 20, 2013.
3. Wise, Wyndham, ed. (2001). Take One's Essential Guide to Canadian Film. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 29. ISBN 9781442656208.
4. Peter Harcourt, "Images and Information: The Dialogic Structure of Bûcherons de la Manouane by Arthur Lamothe" in Candid Eyes: Essays on Canadian Documentaries (Jeannette Sloniowski and Jim Leach, eds.) University of Toronto Press, 2003. ISBN 9781442658691.

External links

• Watch Manouane River Lumberjacks on the NFB website
• Manouane River Lumberjacks at IMDb