Jean-Marc Vallée is one of the most iconic directors of Canadian cinema of the last thirty years, and has touched many hearts and heads – both internationally and in Quebec. Known for his films(C.R.A.Z.Y., Dallas Buyers Club, Wild, among others) and TV series(Big Little Lies, Sharp Objects), his work is recognizable for its depiction of emotions – strong, universal and everyday – not least through his exceptional soundtracks … Just over three years after his sudden death, this exhibition opens in his native Montreal.
His son Alex has been working for almost two years with the Phi Center to create an exhibition mixing testimonies, videos, family memories and film footage that presents an intimate portrait of the artist and pays tribute to the man who loved making mixtapes.
The exhibition opens at the Phi Center on February 13, and we got a sneak preview…
Emotional!
Jean-Marc Vallée’s cinematic language is multifaceted, but recognizable in its effectiveness in translating emotion through sound. It’s not just music that we listen to and that accompanies the images, it’s a mix between the voice, the breathing of the character on screen, wordless songs, hits from the 70s…
Actress Laura Dern, in a short interview to be listened to sitting -almost studiously- at a small mixer, talks about the director’s ability to use his cinematography (the visual) and his music (the audio) in tandem as “messengers of emotion”. Vanessa Paradis, in another track on the mixtape, refers to it as a “heartbeat”.
Actors, collaborators and family members of Jean-Marc Vallée talk about the director through anecdotes and feelings, and all use the same element to talk about him: music.
Music Lover
In the first room of the exhibition, large screens show excerpts from Jean-Marc Vallée’s films, chosen for their pop music, strong emotions and beauty. Before we become engrossed in the image and sound, the voice of Alex Vallée, the director’s son, echoes in the dark. He speaks of his childhood and the Vallée home in Rosemont, of his family’s deep love of music, of car journeys spent listening to songs – sometimes without words, sometimes with.
The director’s father was a discotheque owner (now called a dj) for a radio station, and Vallée was a kind of emotional dj, always choosing the right moment, the right song, to transmit it to those who saw his work in the cinema. Marc-André Grondin levitates in a church, Reese Witherspoon howls in a canyon, screens flash. The videos come thick and fast, and our hearts beat in rhythm, because that’s the magic of the director’s work.
The mixtape
The show is almost hard to describe, but we recommend it to anyone who obsessively creates playlists of different emotions – joy, sadness, exhaustion, hysteria, or when you’re in love – and for those who only cry in the darkened rooms of a cinema.
Of course, it’s also for lovers of the director’s work, who want to get to know him better and celebrate his work, and for all music lovers. With a smile, his son Alex says, “You haven’t heard the last of Jean-Marc Vallée! “
We’re not going to tell you everything, and we advise you to get there as soon as possible. The exhibition lasts about an hour if you want to take your time, stopping to watch some of Jean-Marc Vallée’s early short films and sitting for a while in a room full of poufs to listen to the voices of the director’s collaborators and – of course – music.
From February 13 to the end of May, it’s free, but reservations are required! For info, click here.