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-Father Marc Gervais
Sunday 6 May 2001
Last of the Jesuits at Concordia roasted
We're shocked and appalled. They roasted a Jesuit the other night. We assumed such practices went out with the Inquisition centuries ago.
The good news is that the Jesuit survived, and gave his tormentors a bit of a basting back.
No surprise there, because Father Marc Gervais is one tough and cunning Jesuit. To mark a milestone for most men of the cloth, organizers would likely stage a decidedly low-key dinner. But Father Marc, 71 going on 31, is no ordinary man of the cloth.
He teaches film and communication studies at Concordia University. He is a renowned scholar, author and critic. He is considered by many to be the world's foremost authority on Swedish directing legend Ingmar Bergman, who is the subject of his latest book, Ingmar Bergman: Magician and Prophet. He has been a consultant on such flicks as Agnes of God, Black Robe and the Mission. He was the founding director of the board of the Loyola Institute for Studies in International Peace. He was a commissioner with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission from 1981 to 1986.
He is one devious tennis player. He has nasty elbows, as anyone who has crossed his path on the hockey rink will attest. He is a world-class schmoozer. He is a fixture on the Croisette at Cannes, where he goes annually to participate in the town's film fest and to pontificate on the state of the motion-picture art; and where he is invariably surrounded by a bevy of admiring Scandinavian thesps.
Hears Confessions
Oh yes, Father Marc, who might not be anyone's notion of a traditional priest, says mass, performs baptisms, marriages and funerals. And he hears confessions, even from those outside his flock. (It took time, but the good Father did eventually forgive me the cardinal sin of trashing one of Bergman's lesser oeuvres, the Serpent's Egg.)
So to mark his 50th anniversary as a Jesuit, friends and colleagues opted not for the standard milquetoast tribute but instead roasted and sliced and diced the man at the austere St. James Club. You thought that the Survivor finale was grueling?
But Father Marc, who when not in Cannes lives a relatively more spartan existence at the Jesuit residence on Concordia's Loyola campus, gives as good as he gets. He would only acknowledge that the roasters got away with soft sautee.
John Kent Harrison, a former student, paid homage and took shots with a short film. Harrison did, however, concede that it was Father Marc who was able to dissuade him from becoming a TV game-show host and to focus on a career as a film director. Harrison went on to shoot Beautiful Dreamers, one of the most lyrical films ever to come out of Canada.
Among former students of Father Marc are director Denys Arcand and broadcaster Hanna Gartner. They weren't in attendance for the roast, but another ex-student, producer Kevin Tierney, was and he didn't hold back: "What's to lose? A few more years in purgatory won't kill me, right Father?"
With that, Tierney offered this critique of his prof: "Three classes in and it was clear to me the man was more into Bibi Anderson than old Ingmar. He even brought her to class - his version of show-and-tell. I started having second thoughts about the priesthood. He was having a better time than me."
Ruffles Feathers
Donat Taddeo, a one-time teaching colleague and now the executive director of the McGill University Hospital Centre Foundation, couldn't help but note the many similarities between Father Marc and another character also born in Sherbrooke: "They both have interesting hair. They both speak so passionately and emphatically, but yet they're never there when you need them."
Still, Taddeo admitted he never had to track Quebec Liberal leader Jean Charest down in Cannes - where Father Marc happened to be holding court with actress Ursula Andress - to get him to submit the final grades of his students.
Father Eric MacLean, principal of Loyola High School and boss of the "Jez Rez," recalled how his charge, Father Marc, liked to ruffle feathers. But he felt Father Marc really outdid himself in 1968, when as president of the International Catholic Film Jury at the Venice Film Festival, he named Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema the Catholic movie of the year. Teorema is a fable about a modern-day Christ figure who comes into a family and seduces the mother, father, daughter, son, maid and perhaps even a few pets. Religious allegory or not, a most unamused Vatican went on to condemn the flick and take back the award.
Father Marc took it all smiling, and then he rebutted: "They told me this was going to be a roast. I'm thinking roast turkey. But then I realized it was just a bunch of turkeys roasting me."
But the man they call the last of the Jesuits - for he is indeed the last full-time teaching Jesuit at Concordia - was quick to note that far from closing him off to the world, his calling has allowed him to live a life, and then some: "I just hope that others appreciate this is not a meaningless world we live in. There can be meaning, and we must remember to address that always."
see Wednesday-Night.com/Wed922Gervais
Wed922 Nov 3, 1999 Father Marc Gervais, S.J. published Ingmar Bergman-s Magician Art ..Herb Bercovitz ..Yvette Biondi, introduced her son Frédéric Laurin.. THE BUDGET SURPLUS cut the 576-billion national debt ..Cda growth = 4% to 5% .. Sony TRV 510
Nov 4, 1999
Passion for Ingmar Bergman yields book
"He is a figure in cinema who revealed to us that film
can be a voice in culture, like any great art. It is more than
just the latest action blockbuster; how can we talk about theatre
and not mention Shakespeare?"
Gervais' passion for Bergman has yielded a Concordia course on
the Swedish film legend, Bergman and the Scandanavians, and a
book, Ingmar Bergman: Magician of the Cinema and Prophet of our
Times.
The literature on Bergman is even more voluminous than the
great man's film output, which includes such classics as The
Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Smiles of a Summer Night, and
Cries and Whispers. Gervais, in his book, pays less attention to
the classic Bergman themes than the way that the director put
cinema in the forefront of culture, not just entertainment.
"There have been a lot of psychological analyses of his
characters, but I don't think anyone else has revealed how
Bergman has been right at the heart of the great cultural flow,
the great cultural questions that writers and philosophers have
been concerned about," Gervais said in an interview.
Gervais reveals his game plan right off the bat, in the book's
preface. As a result, thanks to his high art aspirations and
achievements, Bergman changed how all movies are viewed and
analyzed, not just his own.
"There certainly were admirable film directors before
Bergman hit the international scene in the late 1950s. Certain
writers on film did insist on treating the cinema as a serious
aspect of the culture. But, for whatever reason, very few have
been the film directors who succeeded in doing what certain other
artists, especially writers, have taken for granted through the
centuries: to engage explicitly in the great conversation of the
time."
In the book, Gervais also delves into Bergman's movie magic,
an elusive quality that saves his movies from being sterile
philosophical or intellectual exercises.
"Surprisingly few authors have tried to explain how
Bergman has enthralled audiences -- albeit a select audience --
over the years. It is vital to show the power of his films, how
he has grabbed us emotionally while exploring universal
ideas."
In other words, the master knows how to sell his intellectual
musings to an audience. Because he married his themes -- love,
the silence of God, the meaning of life and death -- with
cinematic magic, Bergman showed the world that movies can be
edifying and enthralling at the same time. Ever since, the
relatively new medium has been taken more seriously and held up
to a higher standard.
"The breakthrough came with Bergman," Gervais said.
"Because of Bergman, more than any other director, people
today look for meaning in movies. It is much more commonly known
as an art form today, even though most movies today are made as
consumer objects. People expect more from movies, thanks to
him."
Gervais teaches his course on Bergman every four years; he
will next teach it in 2002. Next term, Gervais will teach a
course on the American director John Ford, director of classic
westerns like Stagecoach.
Father Marc Gervais (Photo by Andrew Dobrowolskyj)
The atmosphere was charged as 140 Loyola family and
friends met May 3 at Montreal’s St. James’s Club to roast
Father Marc Gervais, L BA 50, in honour of his 50th year as a
Jesuit. Father Marc is a respected teacher and humanist, a film consultant
and probably the world’s foremost authority on Ingmar Bergman,
the subject of his latest book.
The Loyola Club organized the event, which featured roasters such
as former students Kevin Tiernay and John Kent Harrison — whose
short film took some shots at Father Marc — Donat Taddeo, a former
colleague and now the executive director of the McGill University
Hospital Centre Foundation, and the inimitable Father Eric Maclean,
principal of Loyola High School and boss of the “Jez Rez.”
Father Marc took the torment with style and grace, responding: “They
told me this was going to be a roast. I’m thinking roast turkey.
But then I realized it was a bunch of turkeys roasting me!”
The Loyola spirit was omnipresent during the evening. While Father
Gervais played an active role in the creation of Concordia University,
he has remained a strong voice in preserving the integrity of the
historic Loyola Campus. The last teaching Jesuit at Concordia has
held up the torch to future generations, and as the Loyola Alumni
Association makes plans to celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2006,
that torch will be carried with commitment and passion.
— Elizabeth McIninch, L BA 67, S MA 68.
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