Louis-Joseph Papineau and the small screen : Louis-Georges Carrier’s Le demi-dieu (1961)
On June 17th 1961, the television service of Radio-Canada presented the first episode of the series Artisans de notre histoire (The History Makers on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), which proposed to recreate and explain Canadian political history from the 1830s to the advent of Confederation in 1867. The series began with the broadcast of an episode entitled Le demi-dieu, which dealt with Louis-Joseph Papineau. Two currents in particular powerfully influenced the film’s conception. First, the historical revisionism underway since the early 1950s and associated with Québec historian Fernand Ouellet directly influenced the script written by Guy Dufresne. Further, the film was produced in the context of turmoil within the National Film Board notably the efforts of French-Canadian directors and creators to affirm their autonomy and defy some of the norms imposed by English Canadian managers, most notably by using the production of short dramatic films to innovate and acquire new skills.