"Many Canadians believe that their story is dull and boring compared to the same Americans who experienced the revolution and civil war. Their story is presented as an epic, "says Starowicz .
To achieve Canada: A People's History it was essential to obtain the cooperation of the two networks, Radio-Canada and CBC . When Mark Starowicz present his project to Claude St. Lawrence , the director general of information Radio-Canada , he first proposes to create two sets, one for the Quebec public and another for English Canada. Mr. St. Lawrence refuses: "For once, I wanted that one tells the same story for Quebecers and English Canadians. This meant that we have one producer and mixed teams in Montreal and Toronto. "
Draft Mark Starowicz became the largest ever undertaken by co Radio-Canada and CBC . An experienced team is coordinating the project under his direction: two Executive Producer Hubert Gendron Montreal and Gordon Henderson in Toronto, two editors, Louis Martin and Gene Allen , and an editorial adviser, Mario Cardinal. Fifteen teams of production are in place in Montreal and Toronto, each to produce, in French and English, a two-hour episode. The total project cost is 25 million.
The main goal of this series is to tell a story of Canada close to people, regardless of their language or origin. To meet this challenge, the team decides to give voice to people who lived it. These are their comments, their comments reflect their experience.
"All the actors are saying is true and comes from diaries, letters and official documents of the time," explains Hubert Gendron Executive Producer . "We wanted the public has the impression of that era. We hear the impressions of the characters, their opinions, their prejudices. We have not rewritten, or cleaned history. "
Yet, in thirty hours, it is not possible to tell the story of Canada in its detail. Each province has its history, its myths and its vision of Canada. According to Gordon Henderson , Executive Producer , the only way to tell this story without taking sides is to take a journalistic approach. "As a journalist, we have no political objectives," said Henderson . "We selected the most interesting historical aspects on the human level. "
Francophones and Anglophones are part of the same production team, and before taking a decision, we discussed at length to arrive at a consensus. "The discussions were held with the utmost mutual respect, the facts and their importance for the ultimate reference," says Mario Cardinal, editorial adviser.
Expertise three prominent Canadian historians, Ramsay Cook , Jean-Claude Robert and Olive P. Dickason was solicited throughout the project.
Jean Claude Robert, Director, Department of History, University of Quebec at Montreal and principal adviser to the series, believes that the goal was achieved. "In Canada, there are at least three visions of historiography: that of English, the French-speaking and American Indians. Soon there will be that of immigrants, those who are neither French nor English, nor American Indians. This is to account for these different interpretations. I think that one is able to reconcile at least two of the main points of view and it is a success. "
Source: Radio-Canada
This super-production recess was announced with fanfare expected to firm up by journalists whose home was often warm and sometimes downright vitriolic. Excerpts:
" The problem is not history is the treatment, the canonical approach, the tone of the homily and adopted rytme indolent but not numb the story. This way of avoquer the past through speech sanitized of historical figures, to film in wide shots anonymous, depersonalized and especially non-compromising, seize neutral landscapes to fill the void, to show us bits of wood, snowshoes sinew , canoes coming down the rivers, all this is a painful consumed.
(...) It's a series that states, even proud, to have deliberately excluded any judgments about the past. Created a series of good unifying intentions and ambitions of a former president of Radio-Canada CBC who, after a period of crisis and cutbacks by the government, wanted to show that public television was still a role to play in this country. A series broadcast in English and French, who claims to one and the same vision of history [1] . "
" Dans l’Histoire populaire du Canada, il n’y a pas d’auteurs. Il n’y a qu ’un comité de journalistes qui tentent de dessiner un pays qui finit par ressembler à un chameau. Le problème de ces gens-là , c’est qu ’ils n’ont aucun point de vue sinon celui du rouleau compresseur. Aussi nous livrent-ils tous les évènements monotone in the same way, without relief, any roughness or highlights. Everything is so like everything eventually vanish [2] "
" Advisor to the Editor series Canada: A People's History Mario Cardinal, wrote a straight face ("Sick of imputing motives", La Presse, Montreal, February 12 2001, p. A13) that the series has not been found wanting on the content, objectivity has been at the heart of the process of its architects. Really? What choice objective as not to show in the crucial episode 4 of the Conquest, the benevolent side of British power against Anciens Canadiens, once finished the horrors of war! During a radio show to CBC , November 4, the historian Jean-Pierre Wallot , former president Royal Society of Canada, admitted that it was not normal that you do not touch the word of the Proclamation of 1763 in this episode on the Conquest. Another historian, Donald Fyson , Laval University, wrote on November 22 in Le Devoir that the series could be accused of presenting a vision truncated history Canada's [3] .
The editorial adviser of the series took offense to certain words, and the debate was launched by the papers. Stress nonetheless that some supporters of the series, as the novelist Micheline Lachance expressed themselves well. Excerpts:
" Canada: A History People, this is not cinema. It's a documentary. Journalism. (...) Without detracting from the merit and quality of that has done Gilles Carle , we chose instead to avoid expressions of personal views. It was just a way for us to respect the principle of journalistic objectivity.
In addition, there are no trials that of intent that annoy. It is really, in fact, the silence of writers around the television series. The 60-hour broadcast television, 30 hours in each network is in itself a media event. An investment of 25 million with a very large part from public funds. The technology uses a television special, hitherto little used. Dozens of comedians who put themselves in the skin of historical figures. Journalists and historians who decide to try, together, an adventure that did not seen anywhere in the world so far: tell the story of a television countries from beginning to end. The challenge of co-production between two networks that do not speak the same language, which does not usually draw the same sources, in a political context which we know the pitfalls ...
None of this has concerned the mainstream press. A single article worthy of the name: the Paul Cauchon Le Devoir, in early September. Clean the rest, silence, apart from the scratches we get from time to time and which are more acrimony than critical thinking. [4] "
" Rather friendly initiatives of amateur historians are lashing on Radio Canada and its ambitious series of 35 million. The reason? State television gave this achievement to its journalists rather than historians, relegated to consultants. "We were hiding and it is hurtful," said Denis Vaughn, who deplores the lack of analysis. It's good to quote the text of a merchant, but no historian to make sense, we do not understand. "(...) This feud chapel does not reach the general public. On average, 600,000 viewers have watched each of the Francophone episodes shown so far, which is double the usual audience Sunday evening at the CBC when presenting a case. In English Canada, the ratings are reaching record highs. Certainly, the Acadians would have preferred more about the deportation and complain that Quebec has "forgotten" D'Iberville but everyone has made discoveries.
(...) The chain has multiplied Historica surveys to profile the homo-loving televisus history. Two out of three, he is a man. Aged 25 to 54 years, he is highly educated and have higher incomes than average, but admits not knowing his past . [5] "
[2] Cardinal, Mario, « Ras le bol des procès d’intention », La Presse, Montréal, 12 février 2001, p. A13.
[3] Dufour, Christian, « La foi inébranlable de Mario Cardinal », La Presse , Montréal, 19 février 2001.
[4] Petrowski, Nathalie, « Recherche désespérément Mel Gibson », La Presse , Montréal, 16 janvier 2001, p. 03.
[5] Nuovo, Franco, « Le Canada : histoire plate », Le journal de Montréal , 11 janvier 2001.
Link to the website devoted to the series: http://www.radio-canada.ca/histoire
