ARCAND A FAN OF TIFF’S GOOD OLD DAYS
Denys Arcand may be one of Quebec’s most revered directors, but he feels right at home at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
“I think every one of my films has been to this festival,” the 77-year-old filmmaker, said on Thursday afternoon, a few hours before the TIFF opening night screening of his latest feature, La chute de l’empire américain (The Fall of the American Empire) at the historic Elgin Theatre. Then he corrected himself. “I’m so old, I started making films before there was a Toronto Film Festival. So my first few films, they didn’t take, because (TIFF) didn’t exist.”
All of which makes Arcand a perfect guy to comment on the evolution of TIFF. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he is not dazzled by the glamour and glitz that has come with the festival’s rise to the top of the elite circuit of film events around the world.
“I shouldn’t be saying that, but I thought it was more fun in the old days when it was just beginning,” he admitted. “We were all living in the same hotel, Sutton Place. Every filmmaker and reporter, we all lived like one huge extended family. Everyone met everyone. We ate at the same restaurant every night, we talked, had relationships. Now, because it’s so big, I’m doing my (press) stuff here, and there’s probably another filmmaker doing stuff in another hotel and we’ll never meet. Thank God for the festival — they’re happy, they’re big. But as a participant, I thought it was more fun earlier. But I guess every old person is always reminiscing about how ‘It was better in my day.’ ”
Arcand has fond memories of his breakthrough film Le déclin de l’empire américain opening the festival, back in 1986. And though the title of his latest is a knowing wink to that earlier work, it is not a sequel. Rather, it is yet another step on the storied path of a philosophical filmmaker who continues to follow his muse.
La chute de l’empire américain premièred in Quebec in June, but it screened only in French, with no subtitled version made available (a condition imposed by American distributor Sony Classics, so as to protect against piracy until the film’s release in the fall).
For all intents and purposes, this is the movie’s première for the rest of Canada, and the rest of the world. But while many film teams come to TIFF hoping to sell to foreign markets, Arcand is in the privileged position of arriving with zero pressure, allowing him to just enjoy the ride.
“The film is sold everywhere,” he said. “There may be a couple of countries in which it hasn’t been bought, but basically it’s sold all over the world.”
That leaves TIFF’s other key role as a major industry player: its ability to attract top-tier media from around the globe. Arcand was playing along, Thursday, stringing together interviews to help promote his product, while waiting for the reviews to begin coming in.
If they’re anything like those that greeted the film in Quebec, he has nothing to worry about. While his 2014 film Le règne de la beauté was judged harshly, La chute de l’empire américain has been called a return to form and his best film since Les invasions barbares. Arcand is happy to hear such kind words, but he doesn’t let them go to his head.
“I’ve been through so many cycles,” he said. “I’ve been making films forever. You get used to peaks and valleys. For me, it’s always strange. I make films in the same way, often with the same crew; to me, all my films are equal. But the reactions vary from: ‘Oh, this is a masterpiece,’ to ‘This is a piece of s---.’ I can’t understand it, but this is life. Every filmmaker knows this.”
Perhaps part of La chute de l’empire américain’s early success lies in the way in which Arcand imbues a classic plot device — “the heist,” he said, grinning — with broader themes of greed, happiness and human suffering.
The writer-director was inspired by the premise of a parcel delivery man who comes into the possession of a large sum of money, after stumbling across a botched robbery, and then has to decide what to do with it.
“This is a film about the loss of every value we held as important,” he said. “The last one, which is still there, is money. If you have money, you’re respected. You can be elected president of the U.S., even if you have no other quality but you have money — or at least people perceive you as having money. That’s the world we live in.”