The documentary is the first Quebec film to be shot in stereo more than 50 years ago The unfinished Infonia will be entitled to a second life thanks to the restoration work carried out by the organization Elephant: memory of Quebec cinema.
The newly restored version of this 1972 film by Roger Frappier will be presented on Monday evening at the Cinémathèque québécoise. Mr. Frappier, who will attend the screening, is pleased to be able to share with the public his work, which has been inaccessible for many years.
“We made this film 50 years ago, that doesn’t make me any younger! laughs the 77-year-old producer, who was nominated for an Oscar last year for director Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog”.
“I appreciate the work of Elephant and its CEO Dominique Dugas. The unfinished Infonia sat in limbo for years. It’s great to be able to breathe new life into it half a century later! »
musical experience
As the title suggests, L’Infonie inachevée focuses on the creative process of L’Infonie, a poetic-musical group led by musician Walter Boudreau and poet-singer Raoul Duguay from 1967 to 1974. Roger Frappier came up with the idea to shoot the film in stereophony to reproduce “the sonic spatialization of the long musical tracks” of the collective.
“It was crazy in the past, but it represents the era well,” explains Mr. Frappier. When the film was released in 1974, only the Imperial Cinema was equipped to show it in stereo. We presented him at the Imperial and it was wonderful. But after that it was in mono in the other rooms and it was disastrous! »
The restoration work was carried out using one of the rare 35mm prints of the film kept at the Cinémathèque Québécoise. This was sent to a lab in Los Angeles to transplant the four magnetic tracks. “They put everything back together and the sound is fabulous,” says Roger Frappier.
L’Infonie inachevée was Roger Frappier’s second feature film as director after Le Grand Film Ordinaire, released in 1971. Mr. Frappier later became a producer. We owe him several outstanding Quebec films over the past 40 years, including The Decline of the American Empire (by Denys Arcand), A Zoo at Night (by Jean-Claude Lauzon) and The Great Seduction (by Jean-François Pouliot).