Continental Drift: Negotiating Male Performance in Canadian and American Cinema from the Late Sixties

Abstract

Michel Brault's Entre la mer et l'eau douce (1967), one of the most accomplished feature films of the Quiet Revolution period, follows the journey of singer-songwriter Claude Fournier from the Charlevoix region to Montreal, where he drifts through a series of marginal jobs and love relationships before returning, disappointed, to his rural village. A portrait of “in-betweenness” in terms of identity, space and time, Brault's film tells the story of Quebec's increasing urbanization and of a people's collective entry into modernity, yet has received much less critical attention than other Quiet Revolution classics such as À tout prendre and Le chat dans le sac. This article proposes a reading of this film that recognizes its importance as a key cinematic stepping stone in the Quebec national project, but also places it within a larger context of “coming-to-the-city” narratives. How does comparing Entre la mer et l'eau douce to English-Canadian and American classics which tackle similar themes (i.e., Goin' Down the Road, 1970; Midnight Cowboy, 1969) enable a larger discussion of the representation and appropriation of space, place and movement in the North America imaginary and Quebec's place therein?