Rene gets the treatment

Miniseries traces the life of Rene Levesque, warts and all. The star is a little abashed at playing the revered icon - in English and in French

BRENDAN KELLY, The Gazette Monday, September 04, 2006

Find on W-N | flickr | albums | clusty

videos Are you a separatist or not? | 6 cbc videos

2006

Thur Sept 7 for 3 weeks 8:00 CBC René Lévesque Movie in English Sep 14 in French

Rene and his women

For CBC's three-part series, it's the first one that's a charm

Rob McKenzie, National Post

Published: Thursday, September 07, 2006

As in the life of many a man, the new TV biography of Rene Levesque is most interesting when a woman shares the stage.

The three-part mini-series that bears Levesque's name starts tonight on CBC, and the first image we see of the adult Rene is him having an early-evening roll in the sack with an actress, which was not the profession of his wife at the time -- she being the respectable daughter of the editor of l'Action Catholique, a newspaper which, we're guessing, did not take a benign view of such shenanigans.

Rene and his lover are then interrupted by a cry from the next room, where their illegitimate daughter is in her crib.

The Tommy Douglas Story this isn't.

Starring Emmanuel Bilodeau in the title role, Rene Levesque covers the man's life from 1958 to 1970, and when it works best (and tonight's instalment is the best of the three) it has the feel of a teleroman, a soapy melodrama chronicling the highs and lows of a passionate, erratic man, the brand of show that has been a staple of Quebec television since La famille Plouffe arrived on the airwaves in 1953.

The Plouffes were still squabbling when Levesque became a Quebec television star. But after Levesque alienated his paymasters with his partisanship during the 1959 producers' strike at Radio-Canada (the French CBC), the province's Liberal party snagged him as a star candidate for its campaign against the Union Nationale. Levesque won and was awarded a Cabinet seat.

But that's just a backdrop for the domestic drama of Levesque's life. Pascale Bussieres as his wife, Louise L'Heureux, conveys the heartbreak and the emergence of sharp-eyed, tight-lipped bitterness in a wife who still hopes her marriage can work, even as her husband neglects her in order to chase power and skirts. Louise makes Rene's dinner and feeds his children, and he looks right through her.

Finally, having reached her limit, she hires a private eye, who reveals the illegitimate child. Louise tells Rene to end the dalliance or else, and he complies, prompting a strong scene in which his mistress begs him to stay, then screams at him to get lost.

Toward the end of tonight's episode, Levesque heads off to Quebec City as a rookie legislator. As he embarks on the drive, his kittenish secretary leans forward from the back seat to fuss with his collar. His wife watches from the window, knowing full well where this is going.

It's a good moment, and more involving than anything in episodes two (provincial economists manfully calculating the cost of nationalizing the hydro grid) and three (stormy confrontations at Liberal party meetings).

The women are a mere backdrop in episode two (and for sheer drama, who can compete with hydro?). Louise grows more bitter, while the worshipful secretary (Evelyne Rompre) is perkily delighted to be bonked regularly by her boss at the Hotel Clarendon. When he tells her he could never live with her because she thinks like a man, she chuckles warmly at this bon mot of rejection. Oh, that Rene!

Things heat up again in episode three. Rene's marriage is in shreds as he busies himself with building the Parti Quebecois. And then, one day at a rally, he sees doe-eyed Corinne Cote (played by a fairly ravishing Lucie Laurier) across the room. His attraction to her appears to have three elements:

www.flickr.com More of davidnicholson's photos tagged with Rene Levesque Movie

1. She's hot.

2. Did we mention she's hot?

3. H-o-t, hot.

Though still married, Rene moves into full horndog mode and writes Corinne puppy-dog love letters. Finally she acquiesces, leading to what I suspect is the first "nipple shot" in Canadian political biography.

Here is a sample of their love talk, while considering a commentary article Levesque has written for the Journal de Montreal newspaper:

Her: "I think it's stronger when you talk about the PQ and clearly disassociate it from the FLQ."

Him: "I love you."

Corinne urges Rene to leave Louise.

My daughter needs, me, Rene replies.

The kid will be fine, Corinne argues, she's already 14!

Nice.

Louise, meanwhile, has turned vengefully federalist, making it easier for Rene to eventually decamp and move in with Corinne, who promptly cries hot tears of home-wrecker happiness. They would marry in 1978, and she would be his wife and widow.

There's currently a teleroman, on the TVA network, called Annie et ses hommes; think of this series as Rene et ses femmes.

Overall, Bilodeau does a good Levesque impersonation, so that in the end it doesn't matter that their resemblance is sketchy. He talks with his hands, shrugs, wears a droopy smile -- it works. Bilodeau benefits from first-hand knowledge of the man, having interviewed him in July of 1987 while an intern at Montreal newspaper La Presse, four months before Levesque died.

Alas, there was one bad glitch in the credits of the advance copy I watched, and which hopefully has been fixed by airtime: Pierre Berton is rendered as Pierre Burton.

And there's one bright touch of screenwriting. At the start of each episode, we see Levesque as a boy diving off a cliff and nearly drowning. It's a good metaphor for the man, a high diver who cannot resist taking the plunge, and damn the consequences. Which is perhaps less admirable when you're dragging your spouse down with you.

The mini-series was produced by Cine Tele Action in conjunction with the CBC and Radio-Canada.

- Rene Levesque airs at 8 p.m. on CBC in two-hour instalments tonight and the next two Thursdays. It starts on Radio-Canada on Sept. 14.

rmckenzie@nationalpost.com

© National Post 2006

 

 

Tuesday Sep 5, 2006 CBC show gets Lévesque right
When Bernard Landry was hired to work for René Lévesque as a political aide, in 1962, a secretary apologized for the state of the table put into his office. The glass top was cracked: Lévesque, Quebec's minister of natural resources, had banged it in fury during a tense meeting with the top executives of Shawinigan Heat, Light and Power.

Tuesday Sep 5, 2006 "René Lévesque" New TV miniseries on Rene Levesque shows sovereigntist icon, flaws and all

---

A new Montreal-made TV biography of Rene Levesque (1922-1987) does not shy away from chronicling some of the less pleasant moments in the personal life of the Parti Quebecois founder, and that suits actor Emmanuel Bilodeau just fine.

"I'm not sure people will like Rene Levesque after seeing the first episode," said Bilodeau, who plays the popular late Quebec politician in the miniseries.

"It's a warts-and-all portrait. We're not trying to pretend that he didn't have a lot of extramarital love affairs. That would be like doing Bill Clinton's biography and ignoring the Monica Lewinsky incident. Women were very important in the life of Rene Levesque."

Rene Levesque, a six-hour miniseries, premieres on CBC Thursday and continues with two more two-hour instalments Sept. 14 and Sept. 21. The production was shot simultaneously in English and French and is also set to air on Radio-Canada Sept. 14, 21 and 28 under the title Rene.

The first episode paints a far from flattering picture of Levesque circa 1958 when he was one of the province's most famous journalists thanks to his role as host of the hit Radio-Canada current-affairs TV show, Point de mire.

One focus in the first two hours is his unhappy home life at the time. His wife, Louise L'Heureux, portrayed with real force by Pascale Bussieres, discovers not only that her husband has many mistresses but that he has fathered a child with one of them.

But Levesque, who is beginning his political career with the Quebec Liberal Party, is forbidden by party leader Jean Lesage (Gilles Renaud) to seek a divorce because it would ruin Levesque's public image.

Based on Pierre Godin's biography of Levesque, the drama explores the public and private lives of one of the most influential politicians in Canada over the past 50 years.

The miniseries covers the years 1958 to 1970, ending with the murder of Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte during the October Crisis. The story focuses on the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, when Lesage's government, with Levesque as a cabinet minister, inaugurated a series of political and social reforms that reshaped Quebec society.

The cast includes Pierre Gendron as Levesque's nemesis, Pierre Trudeau; Pierre Brassard as Robert Bourassa, who succeeded Lesage as Liberal leader; and Lucie Laurier as Levesque's second wife, Corinne Cote. It is produced by Claudio Luca and directed by Giles Walker.

For Bilodeau, it was probably the toughest job he has ever had. First off, he was terrorized by the idea of playing someone loved by millions of Quebecers. The last actor to play Levesque in a major TV production was Denis Bouchard and he was universally panned for his portrayal in the dud of a miniseries that ran on TVA in 1994.

Then there were the practical hurdles of shooting each and every scene in French and English. This was not simple for an actor who says he is not fluently bilingual.

"For me, the difficulty was learning large chunks of dialogue in both languages," Bilodeau said in an interview at a Bernard Ave. cafe. "I've hardly ever acted in English. So that was an enormous challenge."

the set click to enlarge 1590x476 CBC TV Are you a separatist or not? | more pans

The challenge facing the folks making the miniseries was to deliver a biography of a separatist politician that would please both English and French Canadians, a not so obvious concept, given that the two audiences generally have radically different views of the man and his politics.

Bilodeau thinks it could click with viewers on both sides of the linguistic divide because the miniseries does not try to hammer home a political message.

"People will see the same thing in French and English - they'll get to know a man and they'll see other aspects of Rene Levesque, not just his politics."

Bilodeau said he believes people in the rest of Canada have fonder feelings for Levesque than for any other sovereignist politician.

"Whether or not they are in agreement with his ideas, people in English Canada respect Rene Levesque for his democratic principles," Bilodeau said.

But he's still not sure the series will be a hit on CBC.

"I wonder how English Canadians will react to a bunch of francophone actors speaking in English with big Quebecois accents."

Rene Levesque airs on CBC this Thursday, and Sept. 14 and 21, at 8 p.m. Rene, the French-language version, airs on Radio-Canada Sept. 14, 21, and 28, also at 8 p.m.

bkelly@thegazette.canwest.com

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2006

---

A whitewashed view of Levesque

CBC miniseries on former premier lacks the political context of Quebec at the time

DON MACPHERSON, The Gazette

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Canada loves its failed, French-speaking rebels, once they are dead so that they cannot object to being embraced as builders of the country they opposed. And nobody is as eager to embrace them as the CBC.

It took Louis Riel nearly a century after the Northwest Rebellion to become the subject of a sympathetic dramatic television miniseries on the CBC.

Now it's Rene Levesque's turn for similar treatment, but in a much shorter lapse of time since his defeat in the first sovereignty referendum in 1980.

And that's one of the problems with the six-hour, three-part miniseries on Levesque that debuts next Thursday on the CBC, and a week later in French on Radio-Canada: There has not been enough time for memories to fade or history to be rewritten. There are too many people still alive who remember the characters and period depicted.

Even these people will learn something from the first two hours, which were screened in French for the press in Montreal this week, about Levesque's extramarital womanizing; when he ran for Jean Lesage's Liberals in 1960, Lesage ordered Levesque to end his relationship with the mistress by whom he had fathered a daughter and stay with his wife and their three children.

Pascale Bussieres, as the wife whom Levesque repeatedly deceived and humiliated, turns in the best performance of the first two hours. But while it was easy for actor Emmanuel Bilodeau, who plays Levesque, to affect the unkempt appearance that appealed to maternal instincts, he lacks the charisma that made Levesque so seductive, in spite of the latter's diminutive stature and homeliness.

And while Levesque was the first great communicator of French-language television, Bilodeau speaks so rapidly as to be unintelligible at times.

As with last year's film on another icon, Maurice Richard, there is a key character largely missing from the first two hours of the Levesque miniseries: the social context of pre-Quiet-Revolution Quebec.

The electoral strongarm tactics of the Union Nationale regime are shown. But otherwise, one is left with the impression that the Quiet Revolution started only because Radio-Canada, where Levesque was a star journalist, wouldn't negotiate with its producers.

Except for a federal minister who dismisses the "little problem" of a delegation of the striking producers, there is no mention of English-Canadians or of linguistic grievances in the Quebec in which Levesque came of age. It's as if Spike Lee's film on Malcolm X avoided mentioning race.

The only villains who are seen are French-speaking - Union Nationale organizers and goons, and the police who stand by without interfering with the goons. The only others who are mentioned are the Americans to whom the UN has sold out Quebec's resources.

The French and English versions of the miniseries are identical except for language and title (the formal Rene Levesque in English, the familiar Rene in French). And Quebec's history might have been watered down to avoid irritating English-speaking viewers who long ago got over being guilt-tripped about the bad old days.

the set click to enlarge 1590x476 6 Dec 1964 movie CBC TV Are you a separatist or not? | more pans

In the press notes distributed at the screening, several of the francophones involved in the production expressed apparent apprehension about the reaction of anglophones to the miniseries. And the notes emphasized Levesque's defence of English minority rights within the Parti Quebecois, making the miniseries sound like an extended Heritage Minute of linguistic bonne entente, though Levesque had a love-hate relationship with anglophones.

The miniseries was to have been aired last January, but the broadcast was postponed because of the federal election. So fortunately for current political leaders, they did not have to suffer comparison with Levesque during the campaign. And recent poll results make either a federal or a provincial election unlikely until long after the Levesque miniseries is over.

But can a CBC miniseries on Lucien Bouchard be far behind?

dmacpher@thegazette.canwest.com

The first two-hour part of Rene Levesque airs Thursday at

8 p.m. on the CBC. The French version, Rene, debuts a week later, at 8 p.m. on Sept. 14.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2006

Sunday Oct 30, 2005 ts Lévesque bio reveals sad end to bitter life
MONTREAL—It was no secret that René Lévesque's political career ended badly. But until now, and Pierre Godin's latest book, only a small circle knew how bad the end was for the founder of the Parti Québécois.

A new kind of sovereignist
montreal It's closing in on 6 p.m. at Verre Bouteille and a steady stream of 20- and 30-somethings is flowing into the smoky, dark-ceilinged room, seeking refuge from the fall chill.

CREDIT: PHIL CARPENTER, Director Giles Walker (left) with actor Emmanuel Bilodeau, who plays Rene Levesque, during shooting last week.

Rene Levesque Movie slides René Lévesque, one of the most influential and charismatic politicians in Canadian history, is the focus of a six-hour drama series currently in production in Montreal.

RENÉ LÉVESQUE opens in 1958, when Lévesque was one of television’s most respected journalists, and closes with the October Crisis of 1970 and the murder of Pierre Laporte. The mini-series explores his tumultuous relationship with Jean Lesage and the Quebec Liberal Party, as the province moved out of the darkness of the Duplessis era and into its Quiet Revolution; his brilliance in nationalizing the hydro-electric sector; his commitment to social reform; his growing bitterness towards the federal government; and finally, the founding of the Parti Québécois. The series also looks at Levesque’s on-going struggle with Pierre Trudeau. A passionate man, Lévesque’s personal life was full of complication and contradiction. The private side of the public man is also examined.

Filming in both French and English, the series is produced by award-winning Claudio Luca (Il Duce Canadese, The Last Chapter I and II, The Duplessis Orphans, The Boys of St. Vincent) and directed by the acclaimed Giles Walker (Il Duce Canadese, Blind Terror, Princes in Exile).

One of Quebec’s most exciting actors, Emmanuel Bilodeau, stars as Lévesque. Among the actors playing the women in his life are Pascale Bussières (Louise L’Heureux, his first wife), Lucie Laurier (Corinne Côté, his great love) and Marie Tifo (his mother). The mini-series also features Gilles Renaud (Jean Lesage), Pierre Gendron (Pierre Elliot Trudeau), Pierre Brassard (Robert Bourassa), Frank Schorpion (Eric Kierans), Roc Lafortune (Gérard Pelletier), Roger Léger (Jean Marchand) and Patrice Godin (Jacques Parizeau).

www.flickr.com More of davidnicholson's photos tagged with ReneLevesqueMovie

Playing the title role in the Rene Levesque miniseries is anything but just another gig for Emmanuel Bilodeau.

In an interview last week on the set of the CBC/Radio-Canada production, the Montreal actor said it's both thrilling and a little scary portraying the Parti Quebecois founder and nationalist icon.

"When I was young, I had posters of him on my wall at home," Bilodeau said during a break from shooting at a church hall on Fairmount Ave. in Outremont.

"He was my childhood idol. There were 12 kids in our family, we were all sovereignists at the time and we loved Rene Levesque. When I was 21, I was working as an intern at La Presse, and I met Rene Levesque. It was a few weeks before his death. We talked for an hour and a half. It was quite a trip for me given that he was my idol. It was a very intense moment for me.

"Also, while studying law, I had worked as an intern for Bernard Landry, who was Minister of International Relations at the time. Levesque was premier then. So I was there for the resignation of Levesque and the ensuing PQ leadership race. That was in '85.

"All of which makes this the first time that I feel I have a specific background that helps me to play a role. To have met the man, to have worked within a PQ government, it gives me a sense that I know something about this person and his life. That makes this a very emotional role for me. It's a bunch of different things at the same time. It's tough, it's great and it's also a bit frightening."

The $11.3-million, six-hour miniseries, simply titled Rene Levesque, is being shot simultaneously in French and English for Radio-Canada and CBC. It is produced by Claudio Luca (The Last Chapter), directed by Giles Walker and based on the definitive three-volume Levesque biography by Pierre Godin.

It covers the years 1959 to 1970, mainly focusing on his years as a prominent cabinet minister in Jean Lesage's provincial Liberal government during the heady days of the Quiet Revolution.

Pascale Bussieres plays his first wife, Louise L'Heureux, Lucie Laurier is his second wife, Corinne Cote, and Gilles Renaud plays Lesage.

On this day of shooting, the Outremont church hall is standing in for an auditorium at the University of Saskatchewan in 1970, where Levesque is giving a talk to students during a cross-country tour. Based on an actual incident, one of the students asks Levesque whether, if he loses the next election in Quebec, he would consider coming back to Saskatchewan to become premier.

Screenwriter Genevieve Lefebvre says that student's comment underlines English-Canadians' ambivalent feelings about the man who was intent on breaking up Canada.

"For a lot of English-Canadians, he's the man you hate to love," said Lefebvre, over coffees at a nearby cafe. "They can't help it. He was adorable."

She says the miniseries is about the man more than about his politics.

"I tried to stay true to Levesque," said Lefebvre. "I think you'll see that he didn't try to break up Canada. He was a true democrat."

While writing the script, Lefebvre met Cote, Levesque's second wife, and Lefebvre said she got some great advice from Cote.

"When we first met, she said: 'Please don't make a saint out of him' and she said that with all the love she had for him," said Lefebvre.

So the miniseries will show the real Levesque, both the good and the bad, the personal and the political.

"Whenever the personal touched the political, we tried to show it," said Lefebvre.

Luca, the producer, hopes both French and English-Canadians will see another side of this legendary political leader.

"I'd like to think people will discover the real Rene Levesque," said Luca. "Even here in Quebec, we don't remember the Rene Levesque of the 1960s and I don't think English-Canadians even realize he was a Liberal cabinet minister."

Shooting wraps on Rene Levesque on Dec. 9 and it will air sometime during the 2005-06 season on CBC and Radio-

Canada.