Projecting the past

To tell the 400-year history of Quebec City, his birthplace, theatre prodigy Robert Lepage has done the spectacular: he has transformed 81 working grain silos into the world’s largest video screen. Lepage’s $6 million narrative is titled The Image Mill,and uses the Bunge of Canada Ltd. silos in Quebec’s port — one of the most important grain storage facilities in Canada — as its canvas.

Thanks to 27 projectors and 238 spotlights, Lepage has given the 30-metre-high concrete silos chameleonic powers. One moment, they display a glimmering, starry sky, and the next, they show the undulating waves of the Atlantic that transported Samuel de Champlain’s boat to "Kebek" in 1608. Then suddenly, a stained-glass image of Mary and Jesus appears, surrounded by giant blazing church candles. The aural backdrop to all this includes the oppressive whine of insects, the haunting clunk of heavy sea ships and the winds of the St. Lawrence River blasting across the Plains of Abraham — local sounds collected by Quebec musician René Lussier. The 40-minute show, which airs nightly at 10 p.m., has wowed tens of thousands of visitors since it opened June 20. (It runs until Sept. 7.)

"I wanted to show a different side of the city and how controversial was its past. It was put to fire and sword," Lepage told reporters at the installation’s launch this summer, the only interview he gave about the show.

The Image Mill demonstrates Lepage’s technical genius and his command of all things visual. Yet despite the spectacle, the display lacks soul. Watching it is like taking in an expensive fireworks show: it’s breathtaking while you’re there, but with the exception of a few powerful images, it’s hard to remember anything specific afterwards. As well, at times, it seems as though Lepage’s creative team was trying to whitewash the past to avoid controversy. The Image Mill doesn’t quite communicate the essence of Quebec City, which has spilled much blood on its journey to becoming the capital of French-speaking North America.

Lepage and his team decided early on that they would tell the city’s history using the sounds and artistic media of each period, which may be why the first bit of The Image Mill seems a little flat.

"For the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, we could have done a reenactment, but we wanted to stay true to the forms of expression that existed at the time," explains Image Mill co-creator and image designer Steve Blanchet. The city’s first centuries are depicted through sketches, drawings and paintings; the infamous 1759 battle on the Plains of Abraham is illustrated with etchings coloured blue and red to represent the British and French empires. To reflect the technological progress through the years, the narrative begins to incorporate photographs, film and video.

Disappointingly, The Image Mill takes the standard European point of view — namely that Canada didn’t exist until France discovered it. While there are a few passing images of aboriginal people, the overall impression is that it was the industrious French-Canadians that gave the area form. While we see the mortal wounding of General Montcalm, there is no reference to armed settlers killing the Iroquois or other aboriginal people — a glaring omission, particularly since the Champlain settlement was such an ambitious one. The so-called "Father of New France" is largely responsible for opening up the Canadian fur trade, which was hardly a peaceful endeavour.

"The presence of aboriginal people in the installation depends on your perspective," says Blanchet, adding that there is an image of Champlain meeting aboriginal chiefs when he lands on Quebec’s shores. "Some observers remarked that we gave too much space to aboriginal people."

Still, the harshness and violence experienced by those living through the early days of New France just doesn’t come across, particularly the suffering inflicted by the natural element that continues to torment us: winter. With the exception of a few images of Bon Homme Carnival and shattering ice, the cold months are absent in Lepage’s history — which is surprising given that Gilles Vigneault’s song Mon Pays ("My country is not a country, it’s winter") is practically a national anthem here. Blanchet says winter was sidelined a bit because historically, nothing much happened then. "We didn’t do much in the winter. Battles were in the summer. Crops were planted in the summer."

What The Image Mill does communicate is the oppressiveness of the Catholic Church, which has dominated the province for much of its history. There is eerie black-and-white footage of nuns moving through Quebec streets, their black habits billowing in the wind, and an incredible sequence where the faces of giant nuns loom over the Port of Quebec.

Lepage also weaves the history of technological progress through his narrative, beginning with the boat and the horse, then moving to images of railroads and factories and finally to the ages of air travel and computers. At one point, the silos become enormous three-dimensional cigarettes churned out at a local tobacco factory.

As the history of Quebec moves into modern times, the show begins to take risks and feels more like art and less like a history lesson. The name of Pierre Laporte – who was kidnapped and murdered by the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) in 1971 – flashes on the screen in red, and a rapid-fire montage of contemporary images (including computers and urban graffiti) evoke the complexity and speed of modern Quebec life.

The most thought-provoking sequence projects a shot of Denis Lortie, the former Canadian army corporal who stormed Quebec’s National Assembly in 1984, killing three people. Lortie, clad in army fatigues, shoots his gun at the cameras recording him that day. What follows is a distinctive break as the bleeping green line of a heart monitor flashes on the silos.

"Lortie represents contemporary violence," says Blanchet. "It’s as if we shut the lights and take a break for a moment. He broke something in the collective spirit of the city. He made people feel insecure."

Lepage’s decision to tell Quebec City’s history in this fashion was inspired. After all, moving pictures are a focal point of modern Quebec culture — Quebecers have broken world TV-watching records and they adore their homegrown films and vedettes (stars). By communicating common values and references, Quebec film and TV screens reinforce the province’s identity in a media landscape saturated with all things American. It’s on the screen, rather than in books, that this province’s stories have been told. But Lepage has also left out some uncomfortable truths. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t use his command of this powerful medium to add a more compelling chapter to his culture’s narrative.

The Image Mill runs in Quebec City until Sept. 7. The accompanying book, Le moulin a images - The Image Mill, is in stores now.

Patricia Bailey is a writer and broadcaster based in Montreal.