News

Daniel Pilon died on June 26 after a battle with cancer. He was 77.

Pilon, who had a 50-year career as an actor that reached its peak during the 1970s and 1980s, was born on November 13, 1940, in Montreal.

His first movie role was in Gilles Carle's 1968 drama Le Viol d’une Jeune Fille Douce (The Rape of a Sweet Girl), where Pilon and his elder brother, Donald Pilon, played two of the heroine's three brothers.

That was followed by an appearance in the 1969 British war film, Play Dirty, where Pilon played the role of Capt. Allwood alongside Michael Caine and Nigel Davenport.

During the 1984-1954 season, Pilon guest-starred on primetime soap opera Dallas as Renaldo "Naldo" Marchetta, the villainous tycoon and ex-husband of Jenna Wade.

In daytime soaps, Pilon's most popular role was Max Dubujak on Ryan's Hope (1984-1988). He went on to play Alan Spaulding on Guiding Light (1989-1990) and...

Daniel Pilon, the Dallas actor who portrayed Renaldo "Naldo" Marchetta, the villainous tycoon and ex-husband of Jenna Wade, has died. He was 77.

His agent at Noble Caplan Abrams in Toronto confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that Pilon died June 26 after a battle with cancer. Pilon, who had a 50-year career as an actor that reached its peak during the 1970s and 1980s, was born on Nov. 13, 1940, in Montreal.

His first movie role was in Quebec director Gilles Carle's 1968 drama Le Viol d’une Jeune Fille Douce (The Rape of a Sweet Girl), where Pilon and ...

The Bitter Ash

A rather precious thing happened in Montreal in the mid 1970s. Canadian cinema had been dominated by the National Film Board since its formation in 1940, and the generally-perceived character of Canadian film was all educational documentary, and not a lot of fun. Directors such as Claude Jutra, Don Owen, and Gilles Groulx struck off on their own to make the first Canadian new wave fiction films (A tout prendre [1963], Nobody Waved Goodbye, and Le chat dans le sac [both 1964] respectively), on the back of independents like Sydney J. Furie’s groundbreaking A Dangerous Age (1959) and Larry Kent’s student feature The Bitter Ash (1963), but for all their youthful, semi-bohemian trappings, these were still quite po-faced affairs. Then came the “genial loser” films of the 70s, led by Owen’s Goin’ Down The Road (1970), and others such as The Rowdyman (Peter Carter, 1972) and Paperback Hero (Peter Pearson, 1973), for the...

Reese Witherspoon and Jean-Marc Vallée making Wild

Jean-Marc Vallée’s eighth feature film Wild is just about to begin its theatrical release in North America. The film stars Reese Witherspoon, who plays Cheryl Strayed as she goes on an incredible, though unprepared, hike across the Pacific Crest Trail to morn the death of her mother. This new release provides a great opportunity to reflect on the director’s career and survey the literature surrounding him.

Even though I’m sympathetic to Barry Hertz’s article in Maclean’s, "Jean-Marc Vallée: Film’s redemption man" (Sept. 15, 2014), for acknowledging the director’s talent and growing international reputation, it still doesn’t do Vallée justice as it concludes with vague generalizations that, instead of enlightening, overlook his actual merits. Hertz overemphasizes Vallée’s work with actors and argues that he ‘lacks’ a unique style of directing, criticizes him for his modesty, and...

Despite not being what it used to be in the 1990s, the Montreal World Film Festival - which will be held from August 26 to September 6 - is trying to make a name for itself. In fact, yesterday, it has revealed its line up of Canadian feature films.

World Competition

First Films World Competition

* Route 132 (opening film) - Directed by Louis Bélanger.

* Trois temps après la mort d'Anna - Directed by Catherine Martin.

First Films World Competition

* The Neighbor (Hamseyeh) – Naghmeh Shirkhan (coproduction with USA).

Focus on World Cinema

* I Heart Regina - N/A

* I Was Once Told – Directed by Aliaa Khachouck

* Mary - Directed by Andrey Petrusha

* New Year - Directed by Phil Borg

Documentaries of the World

* Turning 32 (Avoir 32 ans) – Robbie Hart and Luc Côté.

* Corpus – Connie Diletti.

* Children of Soldiers (Enfants de soldats) – Claire Corriveau.

* Funeral Season (La saison des funérailles) – Matthew Lancit (coproduction with Cameroun...

Leading light in the emergence of French Canadian cinema

After years of neglect and discrimination by the dominant Anglophone culture, a distinctive French Canadian cinema emerged in the 1960s with the victory of René Lévesque's Liberal party in Quebec and the sponsorship of the National Film Board of Canada and the Quebec Film Commission. Among the beneficiaries was a group of young directors headed by Claude Jutra, Denys Arcand and Gilles Carle, who has died aged 80.

Carle, the most senior, was always an anti-elitist, independent figure, a social satirist whose films sought to expose "the secret order of things". Eroticism and violence are dominant themes in his critiques of middle-class rectitude, corruption and religious hypocrisy. He once described his movies as "social fables, allegorical tales rather than films of social protest".

At the heart of most of Carle's films is a beautiful, commanding, impulsive and defiant woman. The role...