| The Decline of the American Empire | |
|---|---|
 French-language film poster | |
| French | Le Déclin de l'empire américain |
| Directed by | Denys Arcand |
| Written by | Denys Arcand |
| Produced by | Roger Frappier René Malo |
| Starring | Dominique Michel Dorothée Berryman Rémy Girard Pierre Curzi Louise Portal Yves Jacques Geneviève Rioux Daniel Brière Gabriel Arcand |
| Cinematography | Guy Dufaux |
| Edited by | Monique Fortier |
| Music by | François Dompierre |
| Distributed by | Malofilms |
Release date |
|
Running time | 101 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Languages | French English |
| Budget | $1.8 million[1] |
| Box office | $30 million[2] |
The Decline of the American Empire (French:Le Déclin de l'empire Américain) is a 1986 Canadiansex comedy-drama film directed byDenys Arcand and starringRémy Girard,Pierre Curzi andDorothée Berryman. The film follows a group of intellectual friends from theUniversity of Montreal history department as they engage in a long dialogue about their sexual affairs, touching on issues ofadultery,homosexuality,group sex,BDSM andprostitution. A number of characters associate self-indulgence with societal decline.
The film was a box office success in Canada and internationally and received good reviews. It won theFIPRESCI Prize at theCannes Film Festival, nineGenie Awards, includingBest Motion Picture, and was the first Canadian film nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film won thePeople's Choice Award at the11th Toronto International Film Festival. It was followed by two sequels,The Barbarian Invasions in 2003 andDays of Darkness in 2007.
In an interview withRadio-Canada,Université de Montréal History Professor Dominique St. Arnaud tells Diane about her new book,Variations on the Idea of Happiness, which discusses her thesis that modern society's fixation on self-indulgence is indicative of its decline, predicting a collapse in the "American Empire", of whichQuebec is on the periphery. Several of Dominique and Diane's friends, mostly intellectual history professors at the university, prepare for a dinner later in the day, with the men at work in the kitchen while the women work out at the gym.
As the dinner draws nearer, the men and women mainly talk about their sex lives, with the men being open about theiradulteries, including Rémy, who is married to Louise. Most of the women in the circle of friends have had sex with Rémy, though he is not attractive, but they conceal this from Louise to spare her feelings. Louise has been to anorgy with Rémy, but believes he is generally faithful to her in Montreal. The friends are also accepting of their homosexual friend Claude, who speaks about pursuing men reckless of fear ofSTDs, while secretly being fearful of having one. During the dinner party, the friends listen to Dominique's theories about the decline of society, with Louise expressing skepticism. To retaliate against Louise, Dominique reveals she has had sex with Rémy and their friend Pierre, causing her to have an emotional meltdown. By morning, relationships have gone back to normal.
In the wake of the1980 Quebec referendum, directorDenys Arcand felt Quebec's interests had shifted from politics to "individual pleasures", and with a budget of $800,000 for his next project, envisioned a dialogue-heavy film likeLouis Malle's 1981 filmMy Dinner with Andre. Arcand viewed sex as the most likely topic that could sustain audience interest for an entire film.[4] He worked on the screenplay throughout the summer of 1984, under the working titleConversations scabreuses.[4] He chose tenured university professors as his subject matter because he felt that such people had less of a Quebecois accent, which would make the film more accessible to French-speaking audiences around the world. He avoided naming local places for the same reason, even though this went against the wishes of theNational Film Board of Canada, which co-sponsored the film.[5]
As Arcand worked on the script, producerRoger Frappier saw the story as promising and lobbiedRené Malo to co-produce, allowing for a bigger budget.[6] Frappier and Malo raised $1.8 million, allowing for more settings depicted in the film.[1] Most of the funding came from the governments of Canada and Quebec.[7]
Arcand hadRémy Girard andYves Jacques in mind for principal roles after working with them onThe Crime of Ovide Plouffe (Le Crime d'Ovide Plouffe) (1984), and named the main character Rémy after Girard. Nevertheless, their lack of celebrity meant Girard had to audition for the part named for him, to satisfy producers.[1]
Filming began inMontreal in August 1985, and moved toLake Memphremagog in September, finishing in October.[8] FilmmakerJacques Leduc is given credit for photographing the nature scenes in the film.[9]
In filmingsex scenes, Arcand felt visual depictions were overused, which is why he focused on the verbal aspect. He also felt the sex scenes were challenging because of actors' modesty, and sought to place the camera in novel positions.[10]
The film was screened at the1986 Cannes Film Festival, where it received a 20-minute standing ovation, after which distribution to 60 countries was assured.[11] In Canada, the film premiered in Montreal on 20 June, and opened across the country in September and October.[11]
The film was screened for months inMontreal andParis and was the highest-grossing film ever in Quebec,[12] making $2.2 million in the province alone.[13] Outside Quebec, the film made $1 million in Canada.[11] InFrance, it drew an audience of 1,236,322 people, the highest for aQuebec film ever.[14] The film ultimately made $30 million.[2]
The Decline of the American Empire has an approval rating of 86% onreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, based on 14 reviews, and an average rating of 7.3/10.[15]Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 60 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[16]
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars, saying that despite the sexual dialogue, "the real subject is wit", and comparing it toMy Dinner with Andre.[17]Vincent Canby ofThe New York Times wrote "Not sinceAlain Tanner'sJonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 has there been a comedy that so entertainingly and successfully expresses itself through intelligent characters defined entirely in their talk", and called the cast, includingRémy Girard andPierre Curzi, "excellent".[18] Rita Kempley ofThe Washington Post found most characters unlikable but wrote "The Decline of the American Empire is certainly the year's most intellectual work, a frequently funny, unrepressed meditation on midnight in North America".[19] Peter Keough of theChicago Reader wrote "The laughs come easy inDecline, but also a bit guiltily when you recognize that this hip sex comedy is actually a reactionary tract", given what he saw as the ending's victory for "traditional heterosexuality" while the homosexual character had an STD.[20]David Denby ofNew York magazine panned the film, calling it "pompous and tiresome".[21] In France, many critics highlighted the film's use of Quebec's natural landscape.[22]
TheToronto International Film Festival ranked it in theTop 10 Canadian Films of All Time twice, in 1993 and 2004.[23] Shortly after the release of the sequelThe Barbarian Invasions in 2003, theBritish Film Institute calledThe Decline of the American Empire "a witty and provocative look at the battle of the sexes".[24] In 2011, marking the 25th anniversary of the film, Isabelle Houde of the Montreal-basedLa Presse remarked the film was daring for 1986 in portraying homosexuality as normal.[25]
In 2023, Barry Hertz ofThe Globe and Mail named the film as one of the 23 best Canadian comedy films ever made.[26]
The film won nineGenie Awards in 1987, includingBest Motion Picture andBest Director andBest Original Screenplay for Arcand. It also received theFIPRESCI Prize at theCannes Film Festival.[27]
The film was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the59th Academy Awards,[28] the first Canadian film so honoured.[12]Garth Drabinsky, who handled the distribution of the film in the United States, hired Renee Furst to promote the film's Oscar nomination.Telefilm Canada contributed $50,000, under the stipulation that it would only be repaid if the film won an Oscar.[29]The Assault fromthe Netherlands would eventually win he award.[30][31]The Decline of the American Empire's sequel,The Barbarian Invasions (Les Invasions barbares), would go on to win Canada's first Oscar in the categoryin 2003.[32]
Paramount Pictures purchased the rights to remake the film in English.David Giler was hired to write the script.Charles Champlin stated that Giler was an "art vandal" for being involved.[34]
The Barbarian Invasions, released in 2003, uses the same characters asThe Decline of the American Empire and presents an aftermath to the ending of the first film, having Rémy's marriage end, and is thus a sequel.[35] Before 2007, critics called the two films, along with Arcand's 1989 filmJesus of Montreal, the "Montreal trilogy" because of their shared setting and allegory.[36] There are also characters fromJesus of Montreal inThe Barbarian Invasions.[37]
In 2007, Arcand's filmDays of Darkness was released. This film, along withThe Decline of the American Empire andThe Barbarian Invasions, was considered to complete a trilogy "about where Western civilization stands in the run-up to and the aftermath of the new millennium".[38] TheDecline character Pierre, played by Pierre Curzi, also appears inDays of Darkness to update his story fromThe Barbarian Invasions.[39] Arcand's 2018 film,The Fall of the American Empire, continued themes of money degrading civilization, although it was not a direct sequel toThe Decline of the American Empire apart from its similar name.[40]
