Introduction
Black Robe is a movie made in the Canadian province of New France, commonly known as Quebec. It was shot in 1991, but the setting of the movie was the 17th century, which detailed France’s exploration and settlement into medieval Canada. The movie is an adaptation of Brian Moore’s novel that had the same title (Amazon.com 1997).
The story revolves around an ancient Jesuit priest from France who, in 1634, begins an expedition to bring Christianity to the Indian natives of what is present day Quebec, Canada. The film chronicles a difficult, brutal, and dangerous 1500-mile journey to a mission outpost of Ihonatiria, with the sole aim of converting the natives to catholic faith. It is a thoughtful depiction of the travelers’ encounters with the natives throughout the journey and brings to light the historical elements of the native Indians’ first interactions with foreigners (Variety 1990). The Hurons, the target of the expedition by the French lived in the various territories West of the Lake Huron, bordered by their nomadic Indian kin. The mission lasted 20 years before finally being abandoned. The film, therefore, is largely devoted to this epic journey.
Background:
Cultural and religious clashes take up the vast majority of the sources for global conflicts. Colonialism, superiority complexes, and even racism have been some of the notable consequences of the clashes. Black Robe is a near-perfect depiction of this scenario which at that particular period characterized the first contacts between people from different cultures. In this case, the Jesuits from France come into contact with the Indians with an aim to convert them into Catholics.
Black Robe captured this spiritual journey with as much drama as possible, including considerably successful attempts to reproduce the harsh weather conditions that were experienced by members of the expedition 350 years ago. The movie is shot in striking and exclusive locations, in Canada. These aspects of the film provide credibility for the accuracy of the events as well as the historical background of the communities at the time. In so doing, it is also an important overview of the early contact between Europeans (the French in particular) and the natives in early 17th century ‘New France’. The movie bears an overarching intent to a lens, in the context of the period in question, through which one may analyze the complex nature of interactions between the Europeans and natives of New France. It is an artistic endeavor to bring to light the cultural clashes of the time, and this may be seen in the representation of various cultures portrayed in the characters (Canby 1991).
Historical authenticity and accuracy:
Black Robe, the movie, has been lauded as a magnificent work of beauty and artistic integrity, largely because of its thoughtful depiction of its central theme: the White/Indian interactions of the 17th century. The accuracy and historical authenticity of the movie is, therefore, of central importance to modern day student, scholar, and even historian. Luckily, there exist detailed historical accounts of this particular period of world history as a whole and more so because this is the formative phase of European colonialism in the America. Therefore, the movie is expressly intent in providing a ‘how-it-was’ impression on its viewers.
Many aspects of the movies help to achieve this accuracy and historical authenticity for instance, the use of actual Indians taken from the local villages to capture the indigenous people of the time. There is tremendous use of the local languages and the reconstruction of the Mohawk and Huron villages is quite accurate. This has made the movie to be acclaimed as an honest and historically sound film by analysts and historians. The journalistic tone, to be contrasted with the more common moralistic one, with which the film is handled covers up for even the minor frail elements lacking in the movie. One such element was the Cree language and words that are spoken throughout the film. This language was never spoken by any of the Indians to whom it is attributable to in the film (Scott 1996).
The anthropological detachment with which, especially the Indians, are portrayed reinforces the thoughtful approach of the movie as a true and accurate “exploration of North American aboriginal history” rather than a mere account of one of the European colonialist endeavors. The film offers a historical peek for instance, on the traditional Indian and early Canadian realities and leads its viewers into unknown territories of the 17th century Canada, and specifically the New France region (Scott 1996).
The novel itself, from which the movie is based, is also considered on a certain level as a historical adventure story but at the same time a study of cultural differences. The movie, therefore, gives the viewer a graphical depiction of the cultural and religious differences between the French and the Jesuits. It provides a lens through which the two cultures view each other. The religious differences are more pronounced which the movie captures brilliantly. Brian Moore, the writer of the novel, is in fact, and on many occasions referred to as a ‘Catholic novelist’ due to his propensity to color many of his novels with a religious, and particularly Catholic, theme (Amazon.com 1997).
Father Laforgue, one of the main characters in the film, plays the role of Noel Chabanel, a real life young Jesuit priest who was canonized in the 1930’s and thereafter sent to convert the Huron Indians in to Catholicism. The naturalistic aestheticism which captures the period in detail aims, with considerable success, at portraying the closest approximation to the real ‘past’. Black Robe, therefore, provides its viewers with a clear ‘window’ of the Europeans and natives’ early contact in the 17th century(Schultz 2007).
Conclusion:
Black Robe is, therefore, considered to be more than a movie but also an important tool for understanding the Canadian social history. It was as much a work of history as it was a work of art. The film is regarded as a credible piece of Canadian history by the fact that it was not just the result of Brian Moore’s remarkable ingenuity or imagination, but it was a distillation of an important historical document called ‘Relations’. This particular document was a collection of reports by missionaries of the Jesuit order sent to their superiors in France.
However, the attempt to bring out the graphic detail of the contents of the ‘Relations’ is far from perfect, and this may be seen by the deliberate and clear representation of the differing cultures and languages with a great deal of sensitivity. This has been one of the most prominent points of the film’s inadequacies, and consequently the focal point of much of the criticism it has received. Black Robe is, therefore, an authentic visual material that is part of Canadian history and a particularly useful guide into the history of early 17th Century New France.
Works Cited
Amazon.com. Black Robe: A Novel. 1997. http://www.amazon.com/Black-Robe-Novel-Brian-Moore/dp/0452278651 (accessed January 24, 2014).
Canby, Vincent. "Review/Film; Saving the Huron Indians: A Disaster for Both Sides: Black Robe (1991)." The New York Times. October 30, 1991. http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D0CE1DC1E3EF933A05753C1A967958260 (accessed January 24, 2014).
Schultz, Deanne. "Black Robe (1991)." In Filmography of World History, by Deanne Schultz, 20-21. Westport: Greenwood Pres, 2007.
Scott, Jay. "And they Did it like Dogs in the Dirt." In From a Native Son: Selected Essays in Indigenism, 1985-1995, by Ward Churchill, 425-427. Cambridge: South End Press, 1996.
Variety. Review: Black Robe. December 31, 1990. http://variety.com/1990/film/reviews/black-robe-1200428991/ (accessed January 24, 2014).
