When Night Is Falling

Directed by Patricia Rozema

Canada, 1995 (fiction, 95 minutes, colour, English)

Also known as "Cuando cae la noche", "Gdy zapada noc", "Mikor leszáll az éj", "Quand tombe la nuit", "Quando a Noite Cai", "Wenn die Nacht beginnt"

Image: © patriciarozema.com

Film Description [in French] :
"Ayant promis d'épouser un professeur de théologie, traditionnaliste (et blanc), Camille tombe amoureuse de Petra, une acrobate sulfureuse (et noire) qui travaille dans un petit cirque ambulant."
-- Marta Dvorak (source)

Film Description:
"Camille, a professor at a Protestant college, is engaged to Martin, a sympathetic minister and fellow professor. As 'career Christians,' they are urged to get married and to become co-chaplains of the New College of Faith. But Camille is vaguely unhappy with Martin and her life, and when her beloved dog dies suddenly, she begins to lose her grip. On the same day, in a laundromat, Camille meets Petra, a flamboyant circus performer, and is inexplicably attracted to her. Petra flirts brazenly with Camille. She draws her into the seductive world of the 'modern primitive circus.' The two become friends, then more. For the first time in her very proper and very intellectual life, Camille's desire comes rushing forward. [...]"
-- patriciarozema.com (source)

Film Credits (partial):
Written by:	Patricia Rozema
Produced by:	Barbara Tranter, Sandra Cunningham, Robert Lantos
Principal Cast:	Pascale Bussières, Rachael Crawford, Henry Czerny, Don McKellar, Tracy Wright, Clare Coulter
Cinematography:	Douglas Koch
Film Editing:	Susan Shipton
Music:	Lesley Barber
Production Company:	Alliance Communications Corporation, Crucial Pictures, Ontario Film Development Corporation, Telefilm Canada

(sources)

Notes about When Night Is Falling

Filmed in Toronto.

(sources)

Quote by the Director

"I wanted [Martin] to be a really decent human being because I didn't want to depict the cliché that a woman becomes a lesbian because her husband is terrible to her."
-- Patricia Rozema (source)

Quotes by the Director [in French]

"Ce film, pour moi, constitue une prise de position sur la normalité. C'est juste une autre histoire d'amour. Les personnages vont vivre le même genre de difficultés que s'il s'agissait d'un homme et d'une femme. Il n'y a pas de différence essentielle. La psychologie est la même. L'amour obéit toujours aux mêmes règles."
-- Patricia Rozema (source)

"Mes actrices devaient me faire confiance. À cause de la sensualité de certaines scènes, qui auraient pu faire craindre une certaine vulgarité dans le traitement. Je ne voulais pas de comédienne pudique, au sens juvénile du terme, et Pascale [Bussières] possède cette tristesse intérieure si touchante qui colore tous ses rôles."
-- Patricia Rozema (source)

Quotes about When Night Is Falling

"Rozema's camera work, mise-en-scène, humourous dialogue, and circus space combine to make When Night is Falling a lesbian love story that not only includes one of the most erotic love scenes I've seen but frames the growing passion between the women in a beautiful and fanciful setting."
-- Rhona J. Berenstein (source)

"Superb, captivating, tender, often funny and frequently beautiful, When Night Is Falling is like a lyrical poem, deeply felt and perfectly formed. Rich, vibrant colours, romantic images—naked women swimming in clear blue water—a dusting of snow, a half-moon and always the night just a moment away."
-- Alison Darren (source)

"[Patricia] Rozema achieved something quite remarkable with this film. In a decade when the New Queer Cinema almost demanded radical formal innovation, she chose to step in the opposite direction, opting for the warm comforts of narrative convention [...]."
-- Matthew Hays (source)

"In the solemnly romantic world of Patricia Rozema's film When Night Is Falling, erotic passion is as dizzying as doing cartwheels, as scary as hang gliding for the first time and as tricky to coordinate as a trapeze act."
-- Stephen Holden (source)

Quotes about When Night Is Falling [in French]

"Comment ne pas reconnaître cette douceur insidieuse de la lumière portée sur les visages féminins, cette dédramatisation des scènes de forte tension dramatique au profit des affrontements intérieurs, cette poétisation des couleurs qui fait passer du prosaïsme de la vie à l'idéalisme du rêve?"
-- Jacques Siclier (source)

"Camille, que Pascale Bussières interprète avec conviction (son premier rôle en anglais) est le personnage du film le plus développé, mais son passage de la fiancée raisonnable et conservatrice à l'amoureuse lesbienne passionnée s'avère pour le moins rapide. On ne sent pas suffisamment son déchirement intérieur ni le poids de son éducation."
-- Louise-Véronique Sicotte (source)

Bibliography for When Night Is Falling

Book Chapters

Kabir, Shameem. "Lesbian Desire for Bedding Lesbians in Cinema: Plural Positionalities: Claire of the Moon Wants to Go Fish ... When Night Is Falling." In Daughters of Desire: Lesbian Representations in Film, 88-110. Washington, DC: Cassell, 1998.
Stuart, Jamie. "Getting the Couple Together: The Tropes of Glossy Films in When Night Is Falling." In Performing Queer Female Identity on Screen: A Critical Analysis of Five Recent Films, 98-119. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2008.

Brief Sections of Books

Darren, Alison. Lesbian Film Guide. New York: Cassell, 2000. (pp. 218-219)
Hays, Matthew. "Where is Here? Here Is Queer: Four Defining Bent Moments in Toronto Films." In Toronto on Film , by Geoff Pevere. Edited by Steve Gravestock and Kate Lawrie Van de Ven. Toronto: Toronto International Film Festival, 2009. (pp. 145-147)
Yue, Audrey. "Interface: Reflections of an Ethnic Toygirl." In Multicultural Queer: Australian Narratives, edited by Peter A. Jackson and Gerard Sullivan. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press, 1999. (pp. 126-131)

Journal Articles

Ménard, Julie. "Le cinéma lesbien : l'émergence d'une prise de parole." Québec français, no. 124 (Winter 2001-2002): 43-45. [in French]
Nadeau, Chantal. "Sexualité et espace public : visibilité lesbienne dans le cinéma récent." Sociologie et sociétés 29, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 113-127. [in French]

Brief Sections of Journal Articles

Berenstein, Rhona J. "Where the Girls Are." Review of When Night Is Falling. GLQ 3, no. 1 (1997). (pp. 127, 128, 133)

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Defoy, Michel. "Trop d'accrocs qui font décrocher." Review of When Night Is Falling. Le Droit (Ottawa), May 6, 1995. [in French]
Elley, Derek. "When Night Is Falling." Review of When Night Is Falling. Variety, February 20, 1995.
Gravel, Jean-Philippe. "Amour propre." Review of When Night Is Falling. Ciné-Bulles, Autumn 1995. [in French]
Gray, Louise. "When Night Is Falling." Review of When Night Is Falling. Sight & Sound, November 1995.
Groen, Rick. "Send in the clowns." Review of When Night Is Falling. Globe and Mail, May 5, 1995.
Holden, Stephen. "Of a circus, church and lesbian love." Review of When Night Is Falling. New York Times, November 17, 1995.
Johnston, Trevor. "Night moves." Interview with Patricia Rozema. Time Out, November 8, 1995.
Lypchuk, Donna. "When Night is Falling." Review of When Night Is Falling. Matriart, vol. 5, no. 4, 1995.
McPherson, Sandra. "When dykes are stalking." Review of When Night Is Falling. Kinesis, July-August 1995.
Perreault, Luc. "Enfer bleu, ciel rouge : Quand tombe la nuit." Review of When Night Is Falling. La Presse, June 10, 1995. [in French]
Perreault, Luc. "Quand tombe la nuit : Patricia Rozema s'attaque à un des derniers tabous féminins." Interview with Patricia Rozema. La Presse, June 10, 1995. [in French]
Siclier, Jacques. "Jeudi 22 octobre 23.40 Canal + : Camille et Petra, un conte d'amour." Review of When Night Is Falling. Le Monde, October 19, 1998. [in French]
Sicotte, Louise-Véronique. "When Night Is Falling : Quand les contraires s'attirent." Review of When Night Is Falling. Séquences, July-August 1995. [in French]
Tremblay, Odile. "Le grand cirque lunaire de Patricia Rozema : Avec When the Night is Falling, la cinéaste fait le pari de l'amour et de la magie." Interview with Patricia Rozema. Le Devoir, June 10, 1995. [in French]

Dissertations

Failler, Angela Dawn. "'Which One of You Is the Man?': Accommodation and Resistance in Lesbian Texts." M.A. diss., Dalhousie University, 1997.

Dissertation Chapters

Ménard, Julie. "Analyse de contenu du film Quand tombe la nuit." In "La représentation de la réalité lesbienne au cinéma à partir d'un univers symbolique subjectif," 37-53. M.A. diss., Université de Sherbrooke, 2002. [in French]

Web Sites about When Night Is Falling

"IMDb: When Night Is Falling." Internet Movie Database, Inc. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114916/combined.