Moving out of the Background: Québec Women Filmmakers and the American Roads

Karine Bertrand; Claire Gray

doi:10.31178/INTER.13.27.7

Autori

Karine Bertrand Queen’s University Autor
Claire Gray Dalhousie University Autor

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31178/INTER.13.27.7

Cuvinte cheie:

road movie, Québécois documentary filmmaking, American roads, women and mobility

Rezumat

In the American tradition of the road movie, female characters have often been relegated to being sex workers, third wheels, or background characters who can only be foils to the journeys of male characters on the road. This study examines how two Québécois documentaries, Hotel Chronicles (Léa Pool, 1990) and L.A. Tea Time (Sophie Bédard-Marcotte, 2019) comment on and subvert these expectations of women by placing them simultaneously behind the camera and behind the steering wheel as they travel these American roads. In completing close analysis of scenes from both films and comparing it with texts in feminist studies and Québécois cultural history, this study will reveal the fabricated nature of the American road as well as attest how Québécois women find their place on it.

Biografii autori

Karine Bertrand, Queen’s University

Karine Bertrand is an Associate Professor in the Film and Media Department of Queen’s University and co-director of the international research group EPIC. Her research focuses on Quebec and Indigenous Cinemas as well as on women’s mobility on the road. Her latest publications include, through the co-editing of Nouvelles Vues, an article on intercultural relationships in Québécois cinema (2023), a book chapter on the (Inuit) Arnait Video collective (Gott and Schilt, 2024, Liverpool University Press) a book chapter on resurgence in Indigenous women’s cinema (Winton and Claxton, 2023) and an on women’s mobility in the television series Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman (Astrolabe, 2023).
Claire Gray, Dalhousie University

Dr. Claire Gray is an assistant professor in Cinema and Media Studies at Dalhousie University. Her research examines the role of sound and music in contemporary cinema and how they represent national and political shifts, such as the questions over Québécois identity or the Brexit movement. She has also previously worked on projects relating to Indigenous cinema across the Americas with Queen’s University Professor Karine Bertrand, such as the creation of a database of Indigenous women filmmakers and the remediation of the Arnait Video Productions archive. As a member of the Esthétique et politique de l’image cinématographique (or EPIC) group, she is currently co-editing an anthology on diverse and everyday heroisms in contemporary cinema.