Le chat dans le sac or John Coltrane on Quebec Nationalism

On this day, 46 years ago, John Coltrane entered the Rudy Van Gelder studio to record new material for Gilles Groulx’s first feature length film. Le chat dans le sac was released in August of 1964 to great acclaim both here and abroad. Strangely, Coltrane’s contribution went almost unnoticed when the film was first released but this did not prevent Le chat dans le sac from earning its place in the canon of Canadian cinema.

This National Film Board of Canada production was supposed to be a short documentary film about winter but Groulx – eager to bridge the chasm between documentary and fiction films – skillfully appropriated the project and created one of the most important feature length films ever made in Quebec. Not surprisingly, Le chat dans le sac was awarded First Prize at the 1964 Canadian Film Festival held in Montreal.

The film revolves around the doomed relationship of two people. Claude (a young French Canadian journalist) and Barbara (an Anglophone aspiring actress of Jewish origins) “vivent les derniers jours de leur intimité.” Claude is preoccupied with the socio-economic and political fate of his people. He needs to find himself before he can determine what course of action he must follow. Barbara cannot accompany him on this quest. Bill Marshall, in Quebec National Cinema, notes that the film “steers some sort of path for the (interpellated, nation-recognizing) spectator, primarily through its attempt to privilege the discourse of Claude over that of Barbara.” Indeed, Le chat dans le sac – in both form and content – contributes to discourses about Quebec identity and nation-building.

During the 1950s and 1960s, a number of Quebec artists drew (questionable) parallels between their situation and that of African Americans.

Le cri du QUÉBEC est analogue à celui de la négritude. d’où cette accointance avec le jazz. le cri que je lance en public est jazzistique dans l’intention et dans le fait. il est la transe de mon être. il comporte une décantation des rythmes folkloriques. la gigue. le rigodon. par nostalgie du future de la race. comme le jazz à l’origine. mon poème est un chant de révolte. un cri d’esclave. c’est le cri jaillissant du tréfonds de l’individu québécois aliéné (Raoul Luoar Yaugud Duguay)

In Le chat dans le sac, jazz is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities. But Coltrane’s music is also partly used as a means of validating Claude’s quest for self-affirmation.

Considering the nationalistic undertones of the film, it is interesting to note that the Coltrane quartet session took place on the day Quebecers celebrate La Fête de la Saint-Jean (Quebec’s National Holiday). Was this a mere coincidence?

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Recorded June 24, 1964 (Studio Rudy Van Gelder)

Personnel:
- John Coltrane (tenor saxophone)
- McCoy Tyner (piano)
- Jimmy Garrison (bass)
- Elvin Jones (drums)

Songs performed:
- “Naima” *
- “Village Blues” *
- “Out of This World” *

* Studio and live versions of the above compositions appear on several albums – Giant Steps (1960), Coltrane Jazz (1961), Coltrane (1962) and Live! At The Village Vanguard (1961) to name but a few.
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