Cinema Canada (May 1976)

10 ladies of the night, showing off their finery in Les corps célestes Cinema Canada: How did it happen that you were art director on Eliza’s Horoscope when your previous film work was limited to costume design? Barbeau: When I was hired I was supposed to be the assistant to Piero Gherardi and that’s why I accepted to do the film. He’s dead now, unfortunately; he was the art director on many of Felini’s films (La Dolce Vita, 8'2, Juliet of the Spirits). Cinema Canada: And he was coming to Canada to work? Barbeau: Do you know Gordon Sheppard? Well, when he decided to do the film he wanted everything to be the best. He want to Rome a couple of times to talk with Gherardi, who was interested but whose health was failing. The negotiations dragged on for months. Finally Gherardi didn’t come and he was replaced by a Russian (Kugene Laurier) who had worked with Renoir. He was a great technician. I think he was doing monster films in Hollywood when Sheppard contracted him for six weeks on Eliza’s Horoscope. When he left, one week into shooting, Sheppard asked me to take over the art direction. I knew the script pretty well because I’d done all the costumes. Cinema Canada: Usually the art director’s work is largely completed when a film starts shooting... Barbeau: I found it depends with whom you’re working. Sheppard would come in every morning and tell us what he had planned for the day. We couldn’t prepare ahead because everything was improvised. Sometimes it nearly drove us mad... you know, when you have 55 extras dressed you'd like the director to use them. Sheppard did his film like a poet would write a book or a musician would compose. It was very stimulating for the art direction and costume crew because we had the impression we were creating something. Not just like a store, where the director wants this or that. Cinema Canada: Have you seen the finished film? Barbeau: I saw six or seven versions of it but I haven’t seen the final one. And I haven’t heard from Sheppard since last year when he phoned to say I won an Etrog for art direction on the film. Cinema Canada: What were you trying to achieve in Eliza’s Horoscope? Barbeau: The thing that interests me in film is to create atmosphere and feeling. A room, a chair or a bucket could ” means more than 300 words, but it has to be the right one. A kitchen scene in Lies My Father Told "Me, a film made up of rags and old memories The art director is trying to create the surroundings which bring out the feeling of the action. I’m not an expert but I think some of the scenes in Eliza’s Horoscope are right. The same thing for Kamouraska. Cinema Canada: Where did your ideas for Kamouraska come from? Barbeau: I’d read the book several years before I was asked to do the film. The book is so beautiful that it was easy to see things in it and those images came back to me when | started working on the film. We went back to the villages around Kamouraska and when we saw the houses there, we knew we’d found what we needed. I had quite a few people working with me then and we rebuilt the interior of those houses. When I think about Kamouraska now the only things left are the images, not the dramatic movement or the action; of course, I worked on the film — so my perspective is perhaps different. To me the film is like a picture book. I tried to do the costumes and everything quite simply. Very few things, no detail, flat. Like a Lemieux painting with all that snow. Cinema Canada: Did Jutra work closely with you on it? Barbeau: Well, he wrote the script so he knew what he wanted. But once he hired me he let me work pretty much on my own, with corrections from him. There was a question of a white fur coat in one scene. I thought the white fur against the snow would be too much, but he wanted to put blood all over it for the contrast. I think he was right there because it did lend a certain madness to the character and that character was one of the best. The lady who played the mother-inlaw was incredibly good too. Cinema Canada: You seem to remember the actors; is it because they wear your costumes? Barbeau: A film is like a puzzle. Everything fits together. I remember faces because they bring something to the screen. In Kamouraska there’s a marvelous scene when the ladies come to take Elizabeth from prison. They’re all dressed in black with veils, the carriage is black, the wall is black... When you see them shrouded like that, you don’t forget the faces. Cinema Canada: Your next film was Lies Uy Father Told Me. Did you feel somehow closer to Kamouraska than to Lies because of your nationality? May/27