Under the pretext of new appointments to the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, Le Devoir invites you into the imagination of artists whose exemplary work promotes culture.
“I’m not dissatisfied with what I’ve achieved, with what I was,” says Paule Baillargeon, staring at a beam of light in which a small cloud of fine dust flutters. “I’ve written three books. I hope to publish another one there, with the drawings that I have made in my life. »
Actress and filmmaker Paule Baillargeon wished she could have devoted herself more to painting, drawing and graphics. As soon as she talks about it, her gentle face lights up. “I would have liked to have been a great painter. I realize that today…”
Dozens of notebooks filled with drawings of all kinds lay in boxes at his feet. “When I was little, I wanted to draw. My mother said to me, “So it’s valuable that you don’t have a talent for drawing…”. I must have been 8 or 9 years old. That was all over! So it was twenty years before I allowed myself to start drawing! »
Paule Baillargeon, born in 1945 in Val-d’Or, Abitibi, emerged from the turbulent world of the 1960s with the deep conviction that as an actress he wanted to embody characters that touched the heart of being. “I started out as an actress. I thought it was the deal of my life. I did it. »
Another era?
From 1969 she was an integral part of the adventure Grand Cirque Ordinaire, a collective theatrical experience performed in the company of Raymond Cloutier, Suzanne Garceau, Guy Thauvette and others. “It was terribly difficult. We invented everything… And I learned everything there. »
“I was an actress. I have made films. I had an appetite to realize myself. But I still feel like I wasn’t at the right time. What era would you have wanted to live in? Be silent. The answer will not come.
In the cinema, the audience saw her in Un 32 avril sur terre (1998) as well as in Réjeanne Padovani (1973) and Jesus of Montreal (1989) by Denys Arcand or in Trois temps après la mort d’Anna (2010). by Catherine Martin.
As an actress, she says, she was disillusioned at an early age when she realized the limited opportunities she had in the heart of Quebec cinema. “When I started playing outside of the Grand Cirque, I realized it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to play a dancer or a waitress… That was what Quebec cinema offered at the time. It can be very, very good. I don’t mind at all. But I didn’t mean to do that… When you realize you’ll never be in a Jean-Luc Godard film, for example, when you realize you have dreams that will never come true, you will disillusioned… I’ve done things. Good things. I’m aware of that. But I haven’t fulfilled myself as an actress. »
Behind the camera
Paule Baillargeon passes behind the camera very quickly. “I started making films. One night I dreamed of a girl. She was elegantly dressed there, in front of me… I woke up. I immediately wrote a note to remember what I had just seen in my dream. It will be Anastasia, Oh My Darling (1977). “Le Grand Cirque gave me $5,000 for it. It was good I think. The film tells the story of my life, but it doesn’t actually happen. The film will be set in the spirit of South American magical realism, she says.
She will then shoot under the auspices of the National Film Board. “I wasn’t a documentary filmmaker at all, but the NFB asked me to do it. However, she regrets: “From then on, I was never accepted by SODEC again.” [l’organisme subventionnaire québécois] make an author’s film. I couldn’t really continue my career as a filmmaker, at least not in the way I would have liked. »
What moved him? “I was a feminist. But I never said I would do a feminist film. Because after that there is nothing more to say. If it’s just a feminist film, then you can’t talk about the film, the form, the frame, the cinema! But for her, form is everything. “We can do anything with this topic. The form interested me and still interests me a lot. Maybe more than anything. »
Paule Baillargeon says she still enjoys watching Pasolini’s films. “The gospel of Matthew, the plans are simple. Pasolini made his film debut. I don’t think he really knew what to do. So everything is so simple. And that makes his pictures strong. It leads us to a sublime truth. she is talking to me The same applies to me before films by Kurosawa or Tarkovski. In the cinema, I like the shot, the setting…”
Of shadow and light
She read. And she has seen many films. His eyes are now leaving him. Paule Baillargeon is ill. She speaks about it gently and without pretense. His body no longer obeys him as before. She reconsiders her life. They are childhood memories that are projected into her more than ever. “I’ve always been drawn to really dark things. Black. The fear. It comes from afar. I realize it. »
In Abitibi, his father, a lawyer who later became a judge, had bought a house that was the home of a former gold miner. Right next to it was the abandoned mine. “I spent a lot of time staging myself on the way to the mine. I ventured out on the trails all by myself. I wanted to go to the mine. Who might I have encountered? From a very early age, she formed dark images that shaped her. “If my mother had known what I was lying around…”
Sent to the Ursulines in Quebec by her parents to board school, she was attacked by a priest, a friend of her father’s, who had been given permission to meet her in the visiting room during the week, under the nuns’ absentminded supervision. “I wrote a text that tells this story. He kissed me, not roughly… Then I found myself in a situation that I didn’t understand. I had been kissed by a man, by a priest. So it was inevitable that I had sinned… I lived in it… This story repeated itself all my life. It’s not rape. But it was systemic. These were never consensual situations. This severely disrupted my relationship to the world. When #MeToo happened I was so happy. I would have jumped for joy. I would have jumped to the ceiling. Paule Baillargeon shared some of her intimate stories in A Girl Without a Gun, published by Editions des Herbes rouges in 2021.
She willingly lent her camera to the words of others, but insisted on autographing this work in her own way. “Even though I didn’t write the script, I still gave everything I had. I think I’m best known for The Sex of the Stars (1993) which is based on the book by Monique Proulx. The movie is good. He was seen often. But it hurts me today to be mostly known for that. »
Life is over quickly, she says. “I want to die soon, but at the same time I want to live. I’m so curious about life, about what’s going to happen… Basically, the regret I feel is what everyone feels in their own way. I’m an artist from an olden time. I’ve done things even when I thought they were of no use, of no use to me or anyone else. I did things because I felt the need to do them. Quite easy. And eventually people got interested in what I was doing. People said “thank you”. »