Charles Gagnon
Directing
Biography
Charles Gagnon was born in Montreal in 1934 and studied art in New York City from 1954 to 1960. A resident during the heyday of abstract expressionism, Gagnon admired the dramatic effects of a reduced palette, gestural application of paint and simplified structure in the work of artists such as Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell. Returning to Montreal in 1960, Gagnon – who was also a photographer and a film maker – worked with a variety of media. “Media are to be used”, he has said. “I don’t see any difference between film and photography and sculpture and painting and thinking and farming…It’s life that interests me”. He died in Montreal in 2003.
Known For
This feature documentary tells the stories of 5 asylum seekers who flee their native countries to escape homophobic violence. They face hurdles integrating into Canada, fear deportation and anxiously await a decision that will change their lives forever.
Last Chance
Documentary about Charles Gagnon, Québécois politician, FLQ member and communist leader.
Charles Gagnon
"The film systematically shows man destroying man. It is about war and inhumanity. Largely assembled from newsclips and elaborate montage of still photographs. While working on the film, I came to realize that the strongest thing about violence and the most abstract thing about violence is its sequential nature, that war has never stopped, and that it is just the leading of one conflict into another conflict. I could keep this film going forever...." —Charles Gagnon
The Eighth Day
16mm, b/w, silent
The Sound of Space
Pierre Mercure 1927-1966 is composed of a three-minute montage filmed by Gagnon at Mercure's funeral and burial, which is looped 11 times and processed using colour filters and optical printing techniques that reverse and double the image.