Claude Jutra: Filmmaker

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

The author’s purpose in writing this study of Québécois filmmaker
Claude Jutra, was to “provoke discussion about the films themselves,
about how people respond to films, and about why Canadian critics
responded to Jutra’s films in the way they did.” Leach uses as a
framework for the book the concept of the filmmaker’s “biographical
legend,” a theoretical construct developed by Russian critic Boris
Tomashevsky in the 1920s. Using this concept, Leach sets out “to
situate [ Jutra’s] work in film history by studying the persona
created by the artist in his public pronouncements, in his writings, and
in his dealings with the film industry.”

Having established the biographical details of Jutra’s life, Leach
moves on to a discussion of the major influences on Jutra (Norman
McLaren and Claude Rouch) and a meticulous analytical reading of several
of Jutra’s more important films, among them A tout prendre, Wow,
Kamouraska, Pour le meilleur et pour le pire, Ada, Dreamspeaker,
Surfacing, By Design, La Dame en coleurs, and of his most famous film of
all, Mon oncle Antoine.

This solidly researched and persuasively argued book is a valuable
contribution to the growing literature on Canadian films and filmmakers.
A filmography, extensive endnotes, and a useful bibliography are
included.