2023-07-13 04:00:00
From Michel Tremblay to Maka Kotto to the author and lesson giver of the Cégep du Vieux Montréal, Claire Briffault, a good dozen authors and commentators have studied on the fate of Xavier Dolan.
An avalanche of recommendations fell on him. A little more, he was advised antidepressants, the yoga cure, thermal waters, transcendental meditation or a spiritual stay in an ashram in India. All that for an interview that the Quebec filmmaker gave to the Spanish press at the beginning of July. He announced his retirement from the cinema, nevertheless half-opening a door on television.
Dolan, there can be no doubt, is a gifted filmmaker. A miracle even. That his films are very successful like I killed my mother, Laurence Anyways, Tom at the farm, Mommy et Just the end of the world or less well put together like The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, Matthias and Maxime and his television series The night Laurier Gaudreault woke up, no work of Dolan leaves indifferent. His cinema is inventive and breaks all established rules. His acting direction is sensitive and intelligent. His ellipses are brilliant and his montages are skilful. His ear for music is unmatched.
A busy career
At just 34 years old, Xavier Dolan has made eight feature films, a television series in five episodes, a few notorious music videos like those of singer Adele. He has acted in 22 films, not counting his remarkable interpretations in dubbing. For anyone, regardless of age, this would be a busy career. Xavier is only 34 years old. But if he had given everything he had to give as a creator?
Xavier Dolan would be far from the first to abandon his creative work at this age, to have exhausted his dramatic resources. I am thinking of my late friend Marcel Dubé who, at the age of 30, had written the best of his work. To René-Daniel Dubois who left playwriting when he was 35. Émile Nelligan said it all at 20. I might also mention the very talented Nelly Arcan or the prodigious British playwright Sarah Kane, but let’s not assume what they would have achieved if they had not ended their lives prematurely.
French literature is full of prodigy authors who put their pen away when they were in their prime. Think of Arthur Rimbaud, Raymond Radiguet, Françoise Sagan and Antonin Artaud.
A great actor
Novelist Harper Lee was 34 when her masterpiece was published To Kill a Mockingbird which won him a Pulitzer Prize and which has become a great classic of American literature and cinema. Ms. Lee did nothing therefollowing.
In 2009, Quentin Tarantino, another cinematic prodigy, was 46 when he announced that he would be retiring following his tenth film. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, his last film (10th), was released in 2019 and Tarantino has still not said goodbye to cinema. Quite the contrary! It might be that Xavier Dolan returns to the cinema, one day. I hope so, but the pathetic appeals that some are making to him today will have nothing to do with it.
Until then, I will always have the greatest pleasure to find Xavier Dolan as an actor.
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