Gilbert Sicotte the best Quebec actor of his generation
Veteran thespian has been discovered by a new generation of Québécois filmmakers
No one who knows his work would argue that Gilbert Sicotte is not the best male actor of his generation in Quebec. Arguably, he has been for a while. As with all artists, the great test is time. Sicotte has passed.
Gilbert Sicotte is 69 years old. He made his first film, Montreal Blues, in 1972. Some of his other performances in the early years were in Ti-Cul Tougas, Cordélia and the late Francis Mankiewicz’s 1979 film, Les bons débarras, which many people, myself included, believe is one of the best films ever made in this country.
He has taught acting at the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal since 1987. Ironically, despite the fact he played so many movie parts, it was television that made him a star.
When I first went to work in an entirely francophone milieu in the late-1980s, among the many major eye-openers was Québécois television. On any given morning, but especially Mondays, there was the then-phenomenon of water cooler/coffee machine chatter, something else that’s been killed by the internet.
In our office — two guys and eight women — the buzz was all Jean-Paul this and Jean-Paul that.
I smiled a lot, the smile that acknowledges without committing to actual knowledge — just keep it pleasant and vague. I knew, of course, they were not talking about a pope. That, at least, was a start.
Although I prided myself on knowing a great deal about Quebec cinema, at that time, I knew nothing about Quebec television. My discovery of Des dames de coeur, which was broadcast on Radio-Canada between 1986 and 1989, led to my discovery of the very bad boy Jean-Paul, who seemed to be sleeping with more women than Frank Sinatra was supposed to have bedded. On TV, of course.
Ah, the great revelation: sexy Jean-Paul was played by the same scary guy who was in Les bons débarras.
Sicotte is not a classically handsome man. He is certainly a man’s man, masculine but with just enough of a feminine side to make the women in my office believe they could tame him, or at least enjoy trying to. His greatest gift is his voice, deep and smooth. It resonates with conviction and just a hint of amusement.
What sets Sicotte apart is that he has been discovered by a whole new generation of Québécois filmmakers, beginning with his pivotal role in the 2007 film Continental, un film sans fusil directed by Stéphane Lafleur.
In the fall of 2011, Sicotte and I had lunch at Lester’s (we share a love of smoked meat and tennis) just before he left to go to Lac StJean, where he was about to start work on the film Le vendeur.
He told me this “kid,” Sébastien Pilote, had sent him a script and there was practically no one else in the film except his character, a car salesman who says almost nothing. It was shooting in the winter and he had no idea what was going to happen. “Un affaire de fou,” I recall him saying.
He was clearly excited by the prospect. When great actors get a whiff of a new part, a new skin to fit into, however temporary, they cannot hide their enthusiasm.
Sicotte is way too young to say he peaked in the role of the lonely used car salesman who suffers through an unthinkable tragedy in a winter without pity. Nevertheless, it remains one of the most moving performances I have ever seen on a movie screen. His best actor Jutra was never in question.
Éléphant, the wonderful film preservation project headed by Claude Fournier and Marie-José Raymond, recently released two restored films featuring Gilbert Sicotte: Les vautours, directed by Jean-Claude Labrecque in 1975, and Visâge pale, directed by Claude Gagnon in 1985.
Anyone interested in the art of acting or the history of Quebec cinema should have a look at his work.