Jean-Marc Vallée Exhibit Mixtape brings a tribute to the music of the films and TV shows of the deceased director

It is difficult to introduce a gallery exhibition about a filmmaker other than Jean-Marc Vallée who would center in a room without silent or moving images-all audio.

But when you pull one of the films or television series of the Late Quebec director in the screening room of your mind, it is just as likely that you first hear music as an image in your head.

Remember his HIT HBO series Big Little LiesFor example, and it is impossible not to call that cool “oohs” first From the memorable title series, Michael Kiwanuka’s Cold heart Playing like Reese Witherspoon and the other Californian mothers of the Dark Mystery Miniseries drive their children to school.

Of het nu overlevende van seksuele aanvallen Jane Chapman (Shailene Woodley) op het strand jogde en probeerde haar trauma te ontslaan, met haar koptelefoon die de B-52’s schiet, of de vroegrijpe zesjarige Chloe (Darby Camp) die PJ Harvey van de achterbank van de achterbank van de achterbank van de achterbank van de achterbank had om te overstemmen, muziek was een integraal deel van de teld About that stepped tale; His characters made soundtracks for their own lives in a way that distinguishes the distinction between digetic and non-diegetically faded.

Jean-Marc Vallée: mixtape-a bilingual, compelling tribute to the director of films such as Wild And Dallas Buyers ClubNext in Le Diamant in Quebec City from July 23 to August 31 – investigates the unique ways in which the director, whose father was a DJ, integrated numbers in his work, both on the screen and behind the scenes before his death at 58 in 2021.

It is co-cursive by Phoebe Greenberg, who was first approached by the son of Vallée, Alex, with the prospect of creating an exhibition with the participation of the family, and her colleague Sylvain Dumais-Biden Werken in Center Phi, a contemporary artificial gallery that currently spread over three buildings in Old Mandreal. (That is where Mixtape originated and I saw it earlier this year.)

“Other directors use music in an interesting way – or have a good soundtrack – but it is never so embedded in the story and in the script in the very, whole, very, very much starting like with Vallée,” Dumais said In an interview.

Incendiary Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée, dead at the age of 58, had just started

MixTape starts in a dark room with a small lit model from Vallé’s Montreal Childhood Home – Shades of Robert Lepage’s Autographic Stage Show 887. Vallée’s son, Alex, can be heard talking about how his father grew up in a house that constantly buzzes with music.

Film clips of the Matthew Herbert number Café De Flore Magically bridging timelines in the film 2011 with the same name and the character of Jake Gyllenhaal wears headphones and dancing on Mr. Big by free in 2015 Demolition are seen on screens spread on the walls.

But the creatively designed center of Mixtape is a separate room with a table full of mixing boards and headphones with which you can listen to an interactive playlist of eight songs that have meaning in the life of Vallée and Oeuvre.

Visitors can move slider up and down to cover original audio interviews (with subtitles in English or French) freshly recorded with many of the director’s employees about how he used music on the set, to build relationships and characters, and as a narrative device.

In essence, you can edit your own radio documentary from Clips with the memories of international stars such as Witherspoon, Vanessa Paradis and Matthew McConaughey, as well as Quebec agents and employees such as actor Marc-Enré Grondin and fellow filmmaker Denis Dissingen.

Villeneuve, for his part, talks about being fascinated by Vallée’s breakthrough of 2005 CRAZY – Another film that takes his title from a song, from Patsy Cline. The film is about a gay teenager named Zac (Grondin) who became Quebec in the 1960s and 1970s.

He emphasizes the striking scene that takes place on midnight mass, where ZAC, high on marijuana, is imagining that it is floating above the choir and the congregation as they sing along to the “ooh, oohs” of the rolling stones Sympathy for the devil.

“I Think of the aesthetic shock, the feeling that I witnessed the rise of an unrestrained voice, from someone who completely embraced their American, who was completely in harmony with what happened outside of Quebec, “says Villeneuve in French.” An extremely québécois film that had something universal. “

Push another slider and instead you can hear producer Pierre talking about photographing that scene, involving 100 extras. The production had not yet drawn up the rights for the Stones number – and there was no money to re -shot it if that was not the case. “It is the song that gave me the most gray hair,” it even recalls.

Only six months later did the rights come through.

Dumais did not include this piece in the exhibition – but he says that Vallée then had to find the money to pay for the number. “He might have gone and asked for more money on his house on his mortgage to get money for the music, or he used a part of his director to get the money for the music he wanted,” says the curator. “There are a number of different stories.”

The history of Vallée’s career as a director is still written and gets a rough design in this exhibition. Laura Dern and Witherspoon talk about how he used Simon and Garfunkel’s El Cóndor Pasaa song he has associated with his own mother, To call up the deceased mother of the main character in Wild, And about how seriously he took the Karaoke evenings during filming Big Little Lies. (Images of him who sing karaoke is the last thing you see in mixtape before you leave.)

But while Vallée used songs to help his actors build their characters and their emotional histories, he was not always open to those who walked their own musical processes.

In a very funny part of the mixtape on the music of the remedy, McConaughey tells about his conviction that Ron Woodroof, the character he played Dallas Buyers Club, Who did not smuggle good -approved AIDS medication to Texas in the 1980s would have listened to ZZ TOP. McConaughey tells how he was standing while filming a scene in which his character was driving, always singing one of the songs of ZZ Top.

Vallée continued to ask him to make a recording without singing – and McConaughey continued to refuse stubbornly.

When the actor finally saw the film, he realized that Vallée had found a way to cut his singing around. “I just don’t think so perfect it was, and it was absolutely perfect, ZZ Top would ever be on a Jean-Marc Vallée soundtrack of his film,” he says with a big smile.

Vallée shared mixtapes – cassette tires and then playlists – his entire life to build relationships. “We contaminate each other as music lovers, you know how to make playlists for each other,” he can be heard in Archive audio.

The Mixtape Greenberg and Dumais have lovingly compiled about Vallée promises to live a long life – after his Stint in Quebec City, a mobile version is sent to film festivals around the world, starting with the Geneva International Film Festival this fall.