Quebec National Cinema by Bill Marshall

47? Reviews by summarizing: 'ainsi, c'est le pere qui constitue la force motrice de la poetique de Modiano' (p. 200), but this does not detract fromthe originality ofthe study as a whole. University of Warwick Akane Kawakami Quebec National Cinema. By Bill Marshall. Montreal, London, and Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press. 2001. xi + 37ipp. ?46 (pbk ?19.95). ISBN 0-7735-2103-8 (pbk 0-7735-2116-x). As Bill Marshall states in his firstchapter, there is no doubt that Quebec cinema is a 'national cinema'. The problem is that, in Quebec, the term 'national' is so charged with political, cultural, and social connotations, in which one perception of national identity is set against another, that there can be no single, accepted definition of it, and consequently no 'master' or 'national' reading of a film. Marshall sets out to resolve this problem by constructing a methodology that enables him to reconcile the evidence ofthe filmtexts, and their undisputed foundation in the concept of 'nation', with the multiple levels of actual and potential reading. He explores Fredric Jameson 's approach that rejects the inadequacies of 'one-to-one homologies' and a 'master hermeneutic', and which stresses discontinuities and polysemia, and develops a 'mo? bile spiral' of arguments, each weaving wider and deeper, allowinghim to explore the competing and varied discourses on nationhood in all their fullness and openness. Marshall writes from a position of substantial knowledge and research not only on francophone film,but also on the language of culture and politics. By limiting his work mostly to Quebec fictional feature films, he is able to engage in the widest possible debate, ranging, for example, across the problematic 'national/allegorical tension' of Quebec/France, the shifting and ambiguous relationship between personal/national identity and gender, a questioning ofthe notion of 'auteurism' within the specificities of Quebec film-making, indeed all the contradictions and fault-lines inherent in any construction of the term 'nation' or 'people' in the context of Quebec cinema. The work is comprehensive in its detail and, as Marshall says in his preface, it may 'help as a reference work' (p. ix), but it is much more than that, opening up Quebec cinema to major, current theoretical and critical debates. Marshall's exploration of Pierre Perrault's Pour la suite du monde is typical of his method. He begins where others leave off,summarizing the established debates about 'le direct', the fabrication of a fiction,and the relationship between identity and the past, but he then extends the debate via the Frankfurt School to the paradoxes of Gilles Deleuze's analysis of the film, to Nietzsche, Felix Guattari, and then on to Claude Jutra's A tout prendre to test his ideas in a differentcontext. Even more interesting is the chapter on 'Popular Cinema', a subject that tends to be glossed over in normal reference works. A comparison here between Marshall's approach to Pierre Falardeau's Elvis Gratton and that of Yves Lever in his standard reference work Histoiregeneraledu cinema au Quebec (Montreal: Boreal, 1995) highlightsthe dif? ferences. Lever makes seven separate references to the film,but they are short, and two repeat the information concerning its success as a rented film. Marshall not only gives information, but he puts it into a wider theoretical base, enabling him to delve into the Lacanian mirror phase and an investigation into the ambivalent perception of 'us' and 'not us' that is at the heart of popular Quebec identity as condensed in le quetaine. This is an invigorating work that challenges many assumptions and received opin? ions. I occasionally feltthe need for subsections to divide one set of arguments from another, but that is the nature of the mobile spiral, and in fact the strength of Mar? shall's approach. Divisions are inimical to it. Marshall has succeeded in breaking through established readings and fixed positions, and in opening up whole news ways MLR, 98.2, 2003 471 of understanding Quebec cinema. The work is essential reading for all those who wish to understand more about Quebec national cinema, and who want to engage in an open debate about it. University of Reading Tony Simons The Art and Genius...

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