Michel Brault

Camera

Michel Brault

Born — Died

1928-06-25 — 2013-09-21

Place of birth

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Known for

Camera

Credits

40 titles

Michel Brault (25 June 1928 – 21 September 2013) was a Canadian cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He was a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s. Brault was a pioneer of the hand-held camera aesthetic.

Known for

Film credits

2000s · 5 titles

Series credits

Behind the camera

Orders poster
7.3

A fact-based account of ordinary citizens who found themselves arrested and imprisoned without charge for weeks during the October Crisis in 1970 Quebec.

Orders

1974

Orders poster
7.3

A fact-based account of ordinary citizens who found themselves arrested and imprisoned without charge for weeks during the October Crisis in 1970 Quebec.

Orders

1974

The Snowshoers poster
5.7

This short documentary records the celebration and ritual surrounding a snowshoe competition in Sherbrooke in the late 1950s. The film marked the beginning of a new approach to reality in documentary and prefigures the trademark style of the NFB's newly formed French Unit. Today, "Les raquetteurs" is considered a precursor to the birth of direct cinema.

The Snowshoers

1958

Wrestling poster
6.8

A candid-camera view of professional wrestling as seen in the Montréal Forum, where some of the biggest bouts are staged, and in back-street wrestling parlours where the warriors practice their art.

Wrestling

1961

Children of Silence poster
7.0

This film looks at the world of children with hearing loss and the importance of early diagnosis. With its straightforward, rigorous cinematic style and intimate approach to the subject, the film focuses on the human rather than the technical side of the problem of hearing impairment.

Children of Silence

1962

Geneviève poster
6.6

Two teenage girls go to winter carnival in Quebec City for the first time. Their ambiguous, tentative relation with a young boy brings both of them the sweet intensity and disillusionment of first love. One of four film sketches on the problems of adolescents facing the adult world in the 1960s included in the anthology film That Tender Age (La fleur de l'âge, ou Les adolescentes). The three other sketches were directed by Jean Rouch, Hiroshi Teshigahara, and Gian Vittorio Baldi.

Geneviève

1964

A Paper Wedding poster
4.5

A woman agrees to a marriage of convenience with a refugee.

A Paper Wedding

1989

The Long Winter poster
7.4

In 1838, François-Xavier Bouchard fights beside his Québec countrymen and the English minority.

The Long Winter

1999

The Long Winter poster
7.4

In 1838, François-Xavier Bouchard fights beside his Québec countrymen and the English minority.

The Long Winter

1999

Perpetual Movement poster
8.0

An experimental short film shot in slow motion and set to Ottokar Nováček's violin composition Perpetuum mobile, the film depicts a love triangle between two men and a woman.

Perpetual Movement

1949

Happiness Bound poster
2.0

Poetry and cinema merge as 11 filmmakers bring to life 21 poems by Québécois poets.

Happiness Bound

2007

Acadia Acadia?!? poster
7.2

In the late 1960s, with the triumph of bilingualism and biculturalism, New Brunswick's Université de Moncton became the setting for the awakening of Acadian nationalism after centuries of defeatism and resignation. Although 40% of the province's population spoke French, they had been unable to make their voices heard. The movement started with students-sit-ins, demonstrations against Parliament, run-ins with the police - and soon spread to a majority of Acadians. The film captures the behind-the-scenes action and the students' determination to bring about change. An invaluable document of the rebirth of a people.

Acadia Acadia?!?

1971

Les enfants de Néant poster
6.2

Morbihan is one of the poorest regions in Brittany. Joseph, a 33-year-old farmer, can no longer live off the land. He is hired at the fancy new plant that has just opened where he enters a world of rote work. Fortunately he can go home to his farm every evening, far from the large urban centers where workers must usually live.

Les enfants de Néant

1968

That Tender Age poster
7.0

A film in four episodes presenting teenage girls chosen as representative of their country and our time, in Italy, France, Japan and Canada. In spite of the stylistic peculiarities of the filmmakers, we find in each of them the same desire not to affirm anything, not to judge, but to quite simply show.

That Tender Age

1964

Between Sweet and Salt Water poster
6.0

A young singer-songwriter abandons his life in his hometown and moves to the city to make it big. He achieves fame, but it comes at a price.

Between Sweet and Salt Water

1967

Between Sweet and Salt Water poster
6.0

A young singer-songwriter abandons his life in his hometown and moves to the city to make it big. He achieves fame, but it comes at a price.

Between Sweet and Salt Water

1967

The End of Summer poster
6.4

A 16 year old girl recalls the last moments of her summer vacation, spent with friends in the Laurentians north of Montreal. She reminisces about their talks on life, death, love, and God. Shot in direct cinema style, working from a script that left room for the teenagers to improvise and express their own thoughts, the film sought to capture the immediacy of the youths presence their bodies, their language, their environment.

The End of Summer

1964

Le son des français d'Amérique poster
NR

27 shorts films about francophone traditional music in America.

Le son des français d'Amérique

1974

Mon amie Max poster
5.7

Catherine, a concert pianist, is surprised one night by the arrival of her best friend from childhood, Marie-Alexandrine (Max), whom she hasn't seen for 25 years. Catherine and Max were Québec's most promising young pianists in the mid-1960's when the adventurous Max gets pregnant. She wants to keep the child, but her mother forces her to give him up for adoption; afterwards, Max leaves Québec and music. Now, years later, she returns, obsessed with finding her son. She locates the adoption records, and social services contacts her son to ask if he wants to see her. He refuses, but she keeps trying. Is a relationship with him possible? And what about her musical talent?

Mon amie Max

1994

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

La Révolution du Dansage

1976

Montreal Stories poster
5.0

Six stories about Montreal. 1: A young housewife from Toronto samples the nightlife using basic French. 2: The tale of a painting of Montreal's first mayor, Jacques Viger. 3: During a hockey game, Madeleine tries to tell Roger she wants a divorce after forty years of marriage. 4: A visitor to a conference on pictographs arrives at the airport, where the female customs officer steals a momento from each person. 5: As she is being driven to the hospital in an ambulance after an auto accident, Sarah recalls her life. 6: At a diplomatic reception, an older woman reminisces about her grand love in Montreal.

Montreal Stories

1991

Montreal Stories poster
5.0

Six stories about Montreal. 1: A young housewife from Toronto samples the nightlife using basic French. 2: The tale of a painting of Montreal's first mayor, Jacques Viger. 3: During a hockey game, Madeleine tries to tell Roger she wants a divorce after forty years of marriage. 4: A visitor to a conference on pictographs arrives at the airport, where the female customs officer steals a momento from each person. 5: As she is being driven to the hospital in an ambulance after an auto accident, Sarah recalls her life. 6: At a diplomatic reception, an older woman reminisces about her grand love in Montreal.

Montreal Stories

1991

Visit to a Foreign Country poster
7.3

They come in high-powered convertibles, with cameras and curiosity, to look at French Canada and French-Canadians. Their usual objective is Québec City, where they can soak up a bit of French culture without a trip to France. With an eye for humour, VISIT TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY shows the people of Québec taking a look at American tourists who have come to Québec to take a look at them.

Visit to a Foreign Country

1962

The Lever and the River poster
NR

In the film, produced for the series "Young Scientists", for the CBC, a group of young people on vacation share the discovery of the application of the lever in some applications of everyday life.

The Lever and the River

1973

Éloge du chiac poster
6.2

Set in New Brunswick, "Éloge du chiac" takes the form of an open discussion between a young French-language teacher and her students in Moncton. Through their exchanges, Michel Brault examines the challenges of preserving French in a bilingual region where English predominates, and explores the contested status of Chiac, a local French dialect shaped by centuries of linguistic contact.

Éloge du chiac

1969

Of Whales, the Moon, and Men poster
7.5

At the instigation of the filmmakers, the young men of the Ile-aux-Coudres in the middle of the St-Lawrence River try as a memorial to their ancestors to revive the fishing of the belugas interrupted in 1924.

Of Whales, the Moon, and Men

1963

Of Whales, the Moon, and Men poster
7.5

At the instigation of the filmmakers, the young men of the Ile-aux-Coudres in the middle of the St-Lawrence River try as a memorial to their ancestors to revive the fishing of the belugas interrupted in 1924.

Of Whales, the Moon, and Men

1963

No artwork available
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

Ozias Leduc, comme l'espace et le temps

1996

Shabbot Shalom! poster
10.0

The mayor of a suburban town must try to deal with cultural clashes with the local hassidic jewish community, while trying to mend his relation to his emotionally-distant son.

Shabbot Shalom!

1992

Beluga Days poster
8.0

From the lower St. Lawrence, a picture of whale hunting that looks more like a round-up, with a corral, whale-boys and all. In 1534, when he stopped at the island he named l'Île-aux-Coudres, Jacques Cartier saw how the Indians captured the little white beluga whales by setting a fence of saplings into off-shore mud. In the film, the islanders show that the old method still works, thanks to the trusting 'sea-pigs,' the same old tide, and a little magic.

Beluga Days

1968

No artwork available
9.0

A compilation of seven shorts made for the National Film Board of Canada. Features the NFBC shorts, "Nahanni," "Le Merle," "A Chairy Tale," "The Cars in Your Life," "Corral," "Wrestling," and "Neighbors."

Seven Surprizes

1963