Cinema
Once Upon a Time in the East
Il était une fois dans l'Est
André Brassard · 1974
Synopsis
The east end of Montreal and the Main. Germaine Lauzon has won a million premium stamps and invites her neighbours to help her stick them in. Hélène, the former queen of the Main, leaves her job as a waitress to try to make a comeback at Sandra's cabaret. Lise Paquette, a young waitress, is pregnant and is secretly seeking an abortion. At the cabaret, a drag gala is being prepared at which Hosanna means to appear as Elizabeth Taylor, while the Duchess of Langeais returns to town.
Context
The author's first feature film, written with Michel Tremblay, who brings together in it characters from five of his plays; the mother with the trading stamps comes from the 1968 one. The film was released in Montreal on 28 February 1974 and earned a hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars in its first week, in six cinemas. The cabaret is on the Main, the boulevard Saint-Laurent. The screenplay and dialogue were published the same year by the éditions de L'Aurore.
Who it is for
One hundred and one minutes, in the colloquial French of Montreal, with many characters drawn from the plays; it is better to know a few of them.
Prizes and reception
Presented in competition at Cannes in 1974; Thomas Waugh sees it as a pioneering manifesto of queer desire.
Sources for this page 14
The pages consulted to check this page.