The Wake

Réalisé par Norma Bailey

Canada, 1986 (fiction, 58 minutes, couleurs, anglais)

Autre titre : « Veillée funèbre »

Image : © Office national du film du Canada

Description du film :
« Une histoire d'amour entre un officier de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada et une femme d'origine métisse vivant avec les siens en Alberta. Cette idylle créera-t-elle un précédent dans les coutumes de la société très fermée des Métis? »
-- Office national du film du Canada (source)

Générique (partiel) :
Scénario :	Sharon Riis
Produit par :	Norma Bailey, Ches Yetman
Interprètes principaux :	Frank Adamson, Bill Alcorn, Cynthia Alcorn, Ken Charlette, Diane Debassige, Linda Migwans, Jean Paul, Victoria Snow, Michelle Thrush, Timothy Webber
Images :	Ian Elkin
Montage images :	Lara Mazur
Musique :	Ron Halldorson
Société de production :	National Film Board of Canada / Office national du film du Canada

(sources)

Notes sur The Wake

Fait partie de la série Daughters of the Country.

(sources)

Citation de la réalisatrice [en anglais]

« [For the Daughters of the Country series of films about Métis women] I developed the ideas from reading the history. [...] I said, OK, I'll make these fictitious people and this is what they're going to do. I did very little research with people. It was secondary to reading all the books that are around. There were four women who wrote the scripts for me, and I developed the material with them. [...] They wanted to do it because of what I wanted to do, which is focus on women. [...] Well, for the performers, I'm just scouring reserves, everywhere, looking for Indians who can act. The whites for the film I get through regular agencies—go to Toronto and do a casting. That's pretty straightforward. But the Indians, you've just got to hunt around, in Calgary, Manitoba, Alberta, and some from Ontario. The crew I've got from Manitoba are all freelance. The NFB doesn't have a staff crew in the regions. »
-- Norma Bailey (source)

Citation sur The Wake [en anglais]

« [In The Wake, Norma] Bailey and [Sharon] Riis deploy the conventions of the Western, melodrama, and romance genres to render visible white complicity in the colonial oppression of Indigenous peoples. Bailey constructs white complicity in the figure of Jim, the RCMP officer. In many ways, Jim functions as the contemporary version of the lone Western hero, a cop substituting for a cowboy. Jim's partner, Officer Crawford, a racist bully, is the bad guy who obsessively patrols the roads, seemingly looking for opportunities to harass and beat up on Indians. Bailey and Riis are evoking the sympathetic or pro-Indian Western in which the viewer empathizes with Indigenous peoples. The difference here is that there will be no white male hero riding to the rescue, as epitomized in Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves (1990). Most Western narratives are driven by the good guy/bad guy dichotomy, but Bailey dismantles such binaries. Though Jim is positioned as the good cop to Crawford's bad cop, he is part of the problem, representing colonial oppressive power as an RCMP officer. »
-- Kathleen Cummins (source)

Bibliographie sur The Wake

Chapitres de livres

DOYLE, Judith. « Norma Bailey » , entretien avec Norma Bailey, dans In a Different Voice: Conversations with Women Artists and Filmmakers, Toronto, Funnel Experimental Film Theatre, 1986, pp. 21-23. [en anglais] [catalogue d'exposition]

Brèves parties de livres

CUMMINS, Kathleen. Herstories on Screen: Feminist Subversions of Frontier Myths, New York, Wallflower, 2020. [en anglais] (pp. 91-94, 133-138, 203-208)

Sites Web sur The Wake

NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA. « NFB -- The Wake », National Film Board of Canada, http://onf-nfb.gc.ca/en/our-collection/?idfilm=16800. [en anglais]
OFFICE NATIONAL DU FILM DU CANADA. « ONF -- Veillée funèbre », Office national du film du Canada, http://onf-nfb.gc.ca/fr/notre-collection/?idfilm=4891.