2023-08-16 04:00:00
I have been in Paris for a few weeks.
Every time I go there, it strikes me: the past, in France, is not past.
He is present.
It is part of everyday life.
He is remembered by passers-by on every street corner.
History, in France, is not hidden in the bottom of a drawer or imprisoned in perpetuity in a museum.
She’s alive. She breathes.
FROM YESTERDAY TO TOMORROW
Every time I go to Paris, I stay at the same hotel.
What is written on a plaque affixed to the facade of this hotel?
“Félix Leclerc (1914-1988) stayed here in 1951. He gave French song its letters of nobility.”
It must be said that there are commemorative plaques every 20 meters in Paris.
“Here, Molière died on February 17, 1673, following a performance of the Imaginary illness.»
“Here lived Marguerite Duras.”
“Here, Voltaire scratched the smurf following drinking a beer…”
There are so many such plaques that a souvenir shop sells a humorous plaque saying, “Here, on March 22, 1765, nothing of interest happened…”
But when I talk regarding the presence of the past, I’m not just talking regarding History with a capital H.
I am also talking regarding culture. With a big and a small C.
This is how I was able to show my 15-year-old son several cinema classics, in restored versions: Clockwork Orange et The Shining, de Stanley Kubrick, Dog Day Afternoon, de Sidney Lumet avec Al Pacino, The fabulous destiny of Amelie Poulainthe first films of Christopher Nolan (which he wanted to see following being “pulverized” by Oppenheimer)…
And I was able to see Italian, Swedish and German classics on the big screen.
Not at the Cinémathèque française, no.
In modern cinemas, with a big screen and big comfortable seats.
And to get in, you had to queue, because there were plenty of young people who wanted to buy a ticket!
Because, yes, over there, the past does not only interest people with white hair…
NO MEMORY
And meanwhile, in Quebec, we wonder if we shouldn’t have young people read classics of literature…
As if the question arose!
In October 2022, my girlfriend Sophie received the Minister of Culture Mathieu Lacombe on QUB radio. She asked him which great Quebec director had just died…
Seeing that the minister did not know the answer, she gave him a clue: “He staged Michel Tremblay’s greatest plays, including The Sisters-in-Law.»
Still no answer.
“André Brassard”, whispered Sophie to him.
The minister had obviously never heard of that name.
“It’s a question of generation,” replied the Minister of Culture to explain his ignorance.
Ah good.
It’s funny, I know who Émile Nelligan is, even though he died 20 years before I was born.
That is the memory of Quebec.
Thirty years max.
Afterwards, it’s good for the oil changes.
I’m the bulldozer.
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