The Canadian Book of the Dead
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Jean-Claude Lauzon, Quebec's "terrible child" (that's English for "enfant terrible"), was born today in 1953. He only directed two feature films before his tragic death in 1997, but one of them is the best Canadian film you've never heard of.
Sep 30, 2018 at 12:58amWeb
Show threadThe Canadian Book of the DeadSep 30, 2018
Lauzon came from a working-class Montreal family that had a history of mental illness. A dropout at 16, he would likely have ended up in a life of crime, but a creative writing assignment of his found its way to André Petrowski, head of French film distribution at the NFB. After some short films and TV commercial work, Lauzon achieved international fame with "Un zoo la nuit" (1987), a cross between a crime film and a story of reconciliation between a father and son.
Show threadThe Canadian Book of the DeadSep 30, 2018
His second film, "Léolo" (1992), is a surrealistic fantasy about 12-year-old Leo, a creative boy growing up in a dysfunctional family in working-class Montreal. "Léolo" appears on TIME Magazine's 2005 list of the 100 Best Films of All Time. Rumour has it "Léolo" was on-track to win the Cannes Palme D'Or until Lauzon disparaged Jamie Lee Curtis and got into a fistfight with a juror. In 1997, Lauzon and his girlfriend, Marie Tougas, died when their Cessna crashed. He was 43.