The Apprentice
1971 · Canada · 81 min
- Director
- Larry Kent
- Producer
- Donald Brittain
Cast
What it is about
Jean-Pierre is a working-class young Francophone from Montreal who, under the guidance of his best friend Dock, a con man and bank robber, gets drawn into his criminal schemes. While taking one menial job after another, he meets Elizabeth, an Anglophone model, on a commercial shoot, and the two become lovers. At the same time he is seeing Dock's sister, who is active in the Quebec separatist movement. Differences of language, class and conviction increasingly strain his relationships.
How it was made
Directed by Larry Kent and produced by Donald Brittain, the film was shot in both English and French, with the dialogue dubbed for each audience, an unusual approach for Canadian cinema. The original French title, Fleur bleue, translates literally as Blue Flower, but in English it is known as The Apprentice, a rendering that better captures the idiom behind the title. The cast includes Susan Sarandon, Carole Laure, Paul Berval, Steve Fiset and Gerard Parkes.
Reception and legacy
It is considered one of the very few films to explore relations between Anglophones and Francophones in Montreal in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a context of linguistic segregation and economic inequality. It was made shortly after department stores such as Eaton's required their Francophone clerks to serve customers in English only. Today its main interest lies in its value as a document of that period.
Stills
Trivia
Dual-language version
The film was shot in English and French, with dialogue dubbed for each audience. It is one of the few Canadian films that works as a functionally bilingual production.
A title with two meanings
The French title literally means Blue Flower, but the English version, The Apprentice, is closer to the sense of the idiom used in the original title.
Original Cinematopedia text based on Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.