Head in the Clouds
Encyclopedia
Head in the Clouds is a 2004 drama film written and directed by John Duigan
. The original screenplay
focuses on the choices young lovers must make as they find themselves surrounded by increasing political unrest in late-1930s Europe
.
, young Gilda Bessé (Charlize Theron
), the daughter of a French
aristocrat and an emotionally unstable American
mother, reluctantly is told the life line on her palm
doesn't extend past the age of 34 by a fortune teller
. Fast forward to a rainy night in 1933, when she stumbles into the room of Guy Malyon, an Irishman
who is a first-year student on scholarship
at Cambridge University. She has had a lover's quarrel with one of the dons
, and rather than turn her out into the storm, Guy gallantly allows her to spend the night. Later, they become lovers, but the two are separated when Gilda's mother dies and she opts to leave England
. Several years later, Guy sees her as an extra
in a Hollywood film, and shortly after he coincidentally receives a letter from her inviting him to visit her in Paris
, where she's working as a photographer
.
He discovers she is living with the Spanish-born
nursing student/model Mia and has a lover, whom she quickly discards when Guy moves in. The trio are enjoying their unusual living arrangement, but world events are beginning to affect their existence. It is the height of the Spanish Civil War
, and idealistic Guy, a long-time supporter of the army of the Second Spanish Republic
, is determined to do what he can to help them as Francisco Franco
's fascists
gain strength. Mia, too, is anxious to come to the aid of her native land. Gilda, however, has no interest in politics or anything else that might disrupt her life of luxury, and pleads with the two to ignore the conflict, but they feel compelled to act and depart for Spain.
Guy becomes a soldier, while Mia tends to the wounded. They cross paths one night and, before sleeping with Guy, Mia confesses she was Gilda's lover. In the morning, her ambulance is destroyed by a land mine
, and after laying her to rest, Guy returns to Paris, where he is ignored by Gilda, who feels his abandonment of her was a form of betrayal.
Six years later, Guy is working as a spy with the underground in occupied Paris under the auspices of British intelligence. He learns Gilda has taken Nazi
Major Franz Bietrich as a lover and visits her in their old apartment, where the two make love. The following morning she tells him their affair is over and the two never can see each other again. D-Day
is approaching, and Guy throws himself into his work. One day he arrives at a café to meet a contact, but instead is approached by Gilda, who has overheard her German lover's plotting a trap and has come to help him escape in cleric's clothing she has concealed in the restaurant's washroom
. That night, he and his associates destroy a rail station, but only Guy manages to elude the German soldiers.
Guy returns to London
, where he discovers Gilda joined the Resistance
a few years earlier. With the occupation of Paris having come to an end, he realizes the locals, who long regarded Gilda as a Nazi sympathizer and traitor
, will seek revenge. As he returns to Paris to find her, Guy is unaware Bietrich has been killed in Gilda's apartment and she has been taken captive by a mob intent on avenging the deaths of their loved ones.She is finally killed by a local youth to avenge the death of his sister. The movie ends with Guy reading the last letter written by Gilda.
, Montreal
, and Paris.
The soundtrack
included "Parlez-moi d'amour" by Jean Lenoir, "Blue Drag" by Josef Myrow
, "Minor Swing
" by Stéphane Grappelli
and Django Reinhardt
, "Big Jim Blues" by Harry Lawson
and Mary Lou Williams
, "La rumba d'amour" by Simon Rodriguez
, "Vous qui passez sans me voir" by Charles Trenet
and Jean Sablon
, "My Girl's Pussy
" by Harry Roy
and performed by John Duigan
and "La litanie à la vierge" by Francis Poulenc
.
The film featured John Jorgenson
as Django Reinhardt
, who was discovered by the film's music coordinator and consultant, Scottpatrick Sellitto. His reproduction of Django's playing was applauded throughout the world by many critics and the media. This led to the formation of The John Jorgenson Quintet. The score done by Terry Frewer and won best score in the 2005 Genie Awards.
The film opened on ten screens in the United States and earned $46,133 its opening weekend. It grossed a total of $398,278 in the US and Canada and $3,112,327 in other markets for a total worldwide box office of $3,510,605.
cliché
s" and added, "Could it be that Hollywood's six decades of replaying the Good War has left us with nobility fatigue? At least Head in the Clouds is not the debacle of Charlotte Gray
and other epic-manqués. But if World War II is to continue to mean anything anymore, it has to be reimagined as a real event, not a deluxe, romantically spiced-up newsreel."
Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
said the film "is silly and the plot is preposterous, but it labors under no delusions otherwise. It wants to be a hard-panting melodrama
, with spies and sex and love and death, and there are times when a movie like this is exactly what you feel like indulging."
In the San Francisco Chronicle
, Walter Addiego called it "a glossy, stiff melodrama . . . a mixture of Casablanca
and Cabaret
, or possibly Hemingway
and Henry Miller
, and finally, it doesn't work, in part because the erotic content seems self-conscious and force-fit. In fact, if not for the presence of Charlize Theron, it's hard to imagine this film would have attracted anywhere near the kind of attention it's gotten . . . she's not at all bad, but her role as a young American heiress and libertine feels recycled from scores of other movies."
Peter Travers
of Rolling Stone
awarded it one out of a possible four stars and described it as "a World War II melodrama of epic silliness and supreme vapidity . . . This spark-free film has no place to go on [the cast's] resumes except under the heading of Cringing Embarrassment."
John Duigan
John Duigan, is an Australian film director.Duigan emigrated to Australia in 1961, having been born to an Australian father...
. The original screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
focuses on the choices young lovers must make as they find themselves surrounded by increasing political unrest in late-1930s Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
.
Plot synopsis
In a prologuePrologue
A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...
, young Gilda Bessé (Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron is a South African actress, film producer and former fashion model.She rose to fame in the late 1990s following her roles in 2 Days in the Valley, Mighty Joe Young, The Devil's Advocate and The Cider House Rules...
), the daughter of a French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
aristocrat and an emotionally unstable American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mother, reluctantly is told the life line on her palm
Chiromancy
Palmistry or chiromancy , is the art of characterization and foretelling the future through the study of the palm, also known as palm reading, or chirology. The practice is found all over the world, with numerous cultural variations...
doesn't extend past the age of 34 by a fortune teller
Fortune-telling
Fortune-telling is the practice of predicting information about a person's life. The scope of fortune-telling is in principle identical with the practice of divination...
. Fast forward to a rainy night in 1933, when she stumbles into the room of Guy Malyon, an Irishman
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
who is a first-year student on scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
at Cambridge University. She has had a lover's quarrel with one of the dons
University don
A don is a fellow or tutor of a college or university, especially traditional collegiate universities such as Oxford and Cambridge in England.The term — similar to the title still used for Catholic priests — is a historical remnant of Oxford and Cambridge having started as ecclesiastical...
, and rather than turn her out into the storm, Guy gallantly allows her to spend the night. Later, they become lovers, but the two are separated when Gilda's mother dies and she opts to leave England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Several years later, Guy sees her as an extra
Extra (actor)
A background actor or extra is a performer in a film, television show, stage, musical, opera or ballet production, who appears in a nonspeaking, nonsinging or nondancing capacity, usually in the background...
in a Hollywood film, and shortly after he coincidentally receives a letter from her inviting him to visit her in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where she's working as a photographer
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
.
He discovers she is living with the Spanish-born
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
nursing student/model Mia and has a lover, whom she quickly discards when Guy moves in. The trio are enjoying their unusual living arrangement, but world events are beginning to affect their existence. It is the height of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
, and idealistic Guy, a long-time supporter of the army of the Second Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
, is determined to do what he can to help them as Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
's fascists
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
gain strength. Mia, too, is anxious to come to the aid of her native land. Gilda, however, has no interest in politics or anything else that might disrupt her life of luxury, and pleads with the two to ignore the conflict, but they feel compelled to act and depart for Spain.
Guy becomes a soldier, while Mia tends to the wounded. They cross paths one night and, before sleeping with Guy, Mia confesses she was Gilda's lover. In the morning, her ambulance is destroyed by a land mine
Land mine
A land mine is usually a weight-triggered explosive device which is intended to damage a target—either human or inanimate—by means of a blast and/or fragment impact....
, and after laying her to rest, Guy returns to Paris, where he is ignored by Gilda, who feels his abandonment of her was a form of betrayal.
Six years later, Guy is working as a spy with the underground in occupied Paris under the auspices of British intelligence. He learns Gilda has taken Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
Major Franz Bietrich as a lover and visits her in their old apartment, where the two make love. The following morning she tells him their affair is over and the two never can see each other again. D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
is approaching, and Guy throws himself into his work. One day he arrives at a café to meet a contact, but instead is approached by Gilda, who has overheard her German lover's plotting a trap and has come to help him escape in cleric's clothing she has concealed in the restaurant's washroom
Washroom
A public toilet is a room or small building containing one or more toilets and possibly also urinals which is available for use by the general public, or in a broader meaning of "public", by customers of other...
. That night, he and his associates destroy a rail station, but only Guy manages to elude the German soldiers.
Guy returns to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where he discovers Gilda joined the Resistance
Resistance during World War II
Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
a few years earlier. With the occupation of Paris having come to an end, he realizes the locals, who long regarded Gilda as a Nazi sympathizer and traitor
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
, will seek revenge. As he returns to Paris to find her, Guy is unaware Bietrich has been killed in Gilda's apartment and she has been taken captive by a mob intent on avenging the deaths of their loved ones.She is finally killed by a local youth to avenge the death of his sister. The movie ends with Guy reading the last letter written by Gilda.
Production notes
The film was shot in London, CambridgeCambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, and Paris.
The soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
included "Parlez-moi d'amour" by Jean Lenoir, "Blue Drag" by Josef Myrow
Josef Myrow
Josef Myrow was a Russian-born composer known for his work in film scores in the 1940s and 50s. He was nominated for an Academy Award twice: in 1947 for the song "You Do" from the film Mother Wore Tights and in 1950 for "Wilhelmina" from the film Wabash Avenue...
, "Minor Swing
Minor Swing (song)
"Minor Swing" is a popular Gypsy jazz tune by Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli. It was first recorded by The Quintet of the Hot Club of France in 1937...
" by Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....
and Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
, "Big Jim Blues" by Harry Lawson
Harry Lawson
Sir Harry Sutherland Wightman Lawson KCMG , Australian politician, was the 27th Premier of Victoria.Lawson was born in Dunolly, the son of a Presbyterian clergyman of Scottish descent. He was educated at a local school and then briefly Scotch College in Melbourne. He was a noted Australian rules...
and Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. Williams wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements, and recorded more than one hundred records...
, "La rumba d'amour" by Simon Rodriguez
Simón Rodríguez
Simón Rodríguez , known during his exile from Spanish America as Samuel Robinson, was a South American philosopher and educator, notably Simón Bolívar's tutor and mentor....
, "Vous qui passez sans me voir" by Charles Trenet
Charles Trenet
Charles Trenet was a French singer and songwriter, most famous for his recordings from the late 1930s until the mid-1950s, though his career continued through the 1990s...
and Jean Sablon
Jean Sablon
Jean Sablon was a popular French singer and actor.The son of a composer, with brothers and sisters who had successful careers of their own in musical entertainment, Jean Sablon studied piano at the Lyceé Charlemagne in Paris...
, "My Girl's Pussy
My Girl's Pussy
"My Girl's Pussy" is a song by the British bandleader and clarinetist Harry Roy. The song was recorded in 1931 by Harry Roy and His Bat Club Boys.-Lyrics:"My Girl's Pussy" is a song by the British bandleader and clarinetist Harry Roy...
" by Harry Roy
Harry Roy
Harry Roy was a British dance band leader and clarinet player from the 1920s until the 1960s.-Life and career:...
and performed by John Duigan
John Duigan
John Duigan, is an Australian film director.Duigan emigrated to Australia in 1961, having been born to an Australian father...
and "La litanie à la vierge" by Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and a member of the French group Les six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music...
.
The film featured John Jorgenson
John Jorgenson
John Jorgenson is a US musician. Although best known for his guitar work with bands such as the Desert Rose Band and The Hellecasters, Jorgenson is also proficient in the mandolin, mandocello, Dobro, pedal steel, piano, upright bass, clarinet, bassoon and saxophone...
as Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
, who was discovered by the film's music coordinator and consultant, Scottpatrick Sellitto. His reproduction of Django's playing was applauded throughout the world by many critics and the media. This led to the formation of The John Jorgenson Quintet. The score done by Terry Frewer and won best score in the 2005 Genie Awards.
The film opened on ten screens in the United States and earned $46,133 its opening weekend. It grossed a total of $398,278 in the US and Canada and $3,112,327 in other markets for a total worldwide box office of $3,510,605.
Cast
- Charlize TheronCharlize TheronCharlize Theron is a South African actress, film producer and former fashion model.She rose to fame in the late 1990s following her roles in 2 Days in the Valley, Mighty Joe Young, The Devil's Advocate and The Cider House Rules...
... Gilda Bessé - Penélope CruzPenélope CruzPenélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...
... Mia - Stuart TownsendStuart TownsendStuart Townsend is an Irish actor and director. His most notable portrayals are of the characters Lestat de Lioncourt in the 2002 film adaptation of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned, and Dorian Gray in the 2003 film adaptation of Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.-Early life and...
... Guy Malyon - Thomas KretschmannThomas KretschmannThomas Kretschmann is a German actor best known for playing Leutnant Hans Von Witzland in the 1993 film Stalingrad, Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld in The Pianist, Hermann Fegelein in Der Untergang, and Captain Englehorn in the 2005 remake of King Kong.-Early life:Kretschmann was born in Dessau, former...
... Maj. Franz Bietrich - Steven BerkoffSteven BerkoffSteven Berkoff is an English actor, writer and director. Best known for his performance as General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, he is typically cast in villanous roles, such as Lt...
... Charles Bessé - David La HayeDavid La HayeDavid La Haye is a Canadian actor. He won the 1996 Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Water Baby.- Filmography :* 1989 Dans le ventre du dragon Lou...
... Lucien - Karine VanasseKarine VanasseKarine Vanasse is a French Canadian actress. She currently appears in the role of Colette in the ABC TV series Pan Am. Vanasse is the daughter of council worker Conrad Vanasse and Renée Gamache, who was her manager at the beginning of her career.-Life and career:Vanasse was born in Drummondville,...
... Lisette - Gabriel HoganGabriel HoganGabriel Hogan is a Canadian actor.Hogan is best known for his continuing roles on Canadian hit dramas Traders and The Associates.- Background :...
... Julian Elsworth
Critical reception
In his review in the New York Times, Stephen Holden said, "The strength of [Charlize Theron's] go-for-broke performance only underlines the weaknesses of the film . . . [which] plays like an entertaining compilation of Hollywood's favorite World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
s" and added, "Could it be that Hollywood's six decades of replaying the Good War has left us with nobility fatigue? At least Head in the Clouds is not the debacle of Charlotte Gray
Charlotte Gray (film)
Charlotte Gray is a 2001 British-Australian-German feature film directed by Gillian Armstrong, based on the novel of the same name by Sebastian Faulks...
and other epic-manqués. But if World War II is to continue to mean anything anymore, it has to be reimagined as a real event, not a deluxe, romantically spiced-up newsreel."
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
said the film "is silly and the plot is preposterous, but it labors under no delusions otherwise. It wants to be a hard-panting melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
, with spies and sex and love and death, and there are times when a movie like this is exactly what you feel like indulging."
In the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, Walter Addiego called it "a glossy, stiff melodrama . . . a mixture of Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
and Cabaret
Cabaret (film)
Cabaret is a 1972 musical film directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York and Joel Grey. The film is set in Berlin during the Weimar Republic in 1931, under the ominous presence of the growing National Socialist Party....
, or possibly Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
and Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
, and finally, it doesn't work, in part because the erotic content seems self-conscious and force-fit. In fact, if not for the presence of Charlize Theron, it's hard to imagine this film would have attracted anywhere near the kind of attention it's gotten . . . she's not at all bad, but her role as a young American heiress and libertine feels recycled from scores of other movies."
Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
awarded it one out of a possible four stars and described it as "a World War II melodrama of epic silliness and supreme vapidity . . . This spark-free film has no place to go on [the cast's] resumes except under the heading of Cringing Embarrassment."
Awards and nominations
- Genie Award for Best Achievement in CinematographyGenie Award for Best Achievement in CinematographyThe Genie Award for Best Achievement in Cinematography is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian film cinematography.-16th Genie Awards:* Thomas Burstyn, Magic in the Water* Alain Dostie, Le Confessional...
(Paul Sarossy, winner) - Genie Award for Best Achievement in Costume DesignGenie Award for Best Achievement in Costume DesignThe Genie Award for Best Achievement in Costume Design is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian costume designer.-16th Genie Awards:* Nicolette Massone, Margaret's Museum* Michele Hamel, Eldorado...
(Mario Davignon, winner) - Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original ScoreGenie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original ScoreThe Genie Award for Best Achievement in Music - Original Score is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian original score.-1st Genie Awards:* Carl Zittrer, Paul Zaza,Murder By Decree...
(Terry Frewer, winner) - Genie Award for Best Achievement in EditingGenie Award for Best Achievement in EditingThe Genie Award for Best Achievement in Editing is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian film editor.-1st Genie Awards:* Stan Cole, Murder By Decree* Jean Beaudin, Cordelia* Ron Wisman, Fish Hawk...
(Dominique Fortin, winner) - Genie Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production DesignGenie Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production DesignThe Genie Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian film art direction/production design.-16th Genie Awards:* François Laplante, Le Confessionnal...
(Jonathan Lee and Gilles Aird, nominees) - Genie Award for Best Achievement in Overall SoundGenie Award for Best Achievement in Overall SoundThe Genie Award for Best Achievement in Overall Sound is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian sound designer.-1st Genie Awards:* Karl Scherer, Austin Grimaldi, Dino Pigat, Joe Grimaldi, The Changeling...
(Pierre Blain, Michel Descombes, Gavin Fernandes, and Marcel Pothier, nominees) - Genie Award for Best Achievement in Sound EditingGenie Award for Best Achievement in Sound EditingThe Genie Award for Best Achievement in Sound Editing is awarded by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to the best Canadian sound editor.-16th Genie Awards:...
(Guy Pelletier, Marcel Pothier, Guy Francoeur, Antoine Morin, and Natalie Fleurant, nominees) - Canadian Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography in a Theatrical Feature (Sarossy, winner)
- Jutra AwardJutra AwardThe Jutra Award is a Canadian annual cinema award that recognizes talent and achievement in the mainly francophone feature film industry in the province of Quebec...
for Best Costume Design (Davignon, nominee) - Milan International Film Festival Award for Best Film (winner)