''Black Robe'' is a 1991

historical drama film A historical drama (also period drama, costume drama, and period piece) is a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television. Historical drama includes historical fiction and romances, adventure films, and swa ...

directed by

Bruce Beresford Bruce Beresford (; born 16 August 1940) is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States. Beresford's notable films he has directed include '' B ...

, adapted by Brian Moore from his 1985 novel of the same name. Set in the 17th century, it depicts the adventures of a

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

tasked with founding a

mission Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

New France New France (french: Nouvelle-France) was the area colonized by France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Great Britain and Spa ...

. To do so, he must traverse 1500 miles of harsh wilderness with the help of a group of

Algonquins The Algonquin people are an Indigenous people who now live in Eastern Canada. They speak the Algonquin language, which is part of the Algonquian language family. Culturally and linguistically, they are closely related to the Odawa, Potawatomi ...

, facing danger from both the unfamiliar environment and rival tribes. The title refers to the nickname given to the Jesuits by the Algonquins, referring to his black

cassock The cassock or soutane is a Christian clerical clothing coat used by the clergy and male religious of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, in addition to some clergy in certain Protestant denom ...

. The film stars Lothaire Bluteau in the title role, with other cast members including

Aden Young Aden Young (born 30 November 1971) is a Canadian-Australian actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Daniel Holden in the SundanceTV drama ''Rectify'', for which he was twice nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor ...

Sandrine Holt Sandrine Claire Holt (born Sandrine Vanessa Ho; 19 November 1972) is a British-born Canadian model and actress. Early life Holt was born Sandrine Vanessa Ho in Croydon. Her middle name was later changed to Claire. Her father, Man Shun ("Horace" ...

Tantoo Cardinal Tantoo Cardinal CM (born Rose Marie Cardinal; July 20, 1950) is a Canadian actress of Cree and Métis heritage. In 2009, she was made a member of the Order of Canada "for her contributions to the growth and development of Aboriginal performing a ...

August Schellenberg August Werner Schellenberg (July 25, 1936 – August 15, 2013) was a Canadian actor. He played Randolph in the first three installments of the ''Free Willy'' film series (1993–1997) as well as characters in ''Black Robe'' (1991), '' The New Wor ...

Gordon Tootoosis Gordon Tootoosis, (October 25, 1941 – July 5, 2011) was a First Nations actor of Cree and Stoney descent. Tootoosis was a descendant of Yellow Mud Blanket, brother of the famous Cree leader Pîhtokahanapiwiyin. He was acclaimed for his comm ...

and Raoul Trujillo. It was the first official co-production between a Canadian film team and an

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

n one. It was shot mostly in the Canadian province of

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...

. It was Young and Holt's film debut. ''Black Robe'' premiered at the

1991 Toronto International Film Festival The 16th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 5 and September 14, 1991. Jodie Foster's directorial debut film Little Man Tate, premiered in the ''Gala Presentation'' at the festival. ...

and was given a wide release on 6 October, becoming the highest-grossing Canadian film of 1991. It received generally positive reviews and won several accolades. It was nominated for ten

Genie Awards The Genie Awards were given out annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to recognize the best of Canadian cinema from 1980–2012. They succeeded the Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978; also known as the "Etrog Awards," for scul ...

and won six, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director (Beresford),

Best Adapted Screenplay This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

(Moore), and Best Supporting Actor (Schellenberg). It was also nominated for ten

AACTA Awards The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards, known as the AACTA Awards, are presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA). The awards recognise excellence in the film and television industr ...

, with Peter James winning Best Cinematography.

Plot

Set in

in 1634 (in the period of conflicts known as the

Beaver Wars The Beaver Wars ( moh, Tsianì kayonkwere), also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars (french: Guerres franco-iroquoises) were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout t ...

), the film begins in the settlement that will one day become

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

missionaries are trying to encourage the local

Algonquin Algonquin or Algonquian—and the variation Algonki(a)n—may refer to: Languages and peoples *Algonquian languages, a large subfamily of Native American languages in a wide swath of eastern North America from Canada to Virginia **Algonquin la ...

Indians to embrace Christianity, with thus far only limited results.

Samuel de Champlain Samuel de Champlain (; Fichier OrigineFor a detailed analysis of his baptismal record, see RitchThe baptism act does not contain information about the age of Samuel, neither his birth date nor his place of birth. – 25 December 1635) was a Fr ...

, founder of the settlement, sends Father LaForgue, a young

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

priest, to found a Catholic mission in a distant

Huron Huron may refer to: People * Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America * Wyandot language, spoken by them * Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec * Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawato ...

village. With winter approaching, the journey will be difficult and cover as much as 1500 miles (2414 kilometers). LaForgue is accompanied on his journey by a non-Jesuit assistant, Daniel, and a group of

Indians whom Champlain has charged with guiding him to the Huron village. This group includes Chomina – an older, experienced traveller who has clairvoyant dreams; his wife; and Annuka, their daughter. As they journey across the lakes and forests, Daniel and Annuka fall in love, to the discomfort of the celibate LaForgue. The group meet with a band of Montagnais, First Nations people who have never met Frenchmen before. The Montagnais

shaman Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spir ...

, Mestigoit, is suspicious (and implicitly jealous) of LaForgue's influence over the Algonquins. He accuses him of being a demon. He encourages Chomina and the other Algonquins to abandon the two Frenchmen and travel instead to a winter hunting lodge. This they do, paddling away from the Frenchmen. LaForgue accepts his fate, but Daniel is determined to stay with Annuka and follows the Indians as they march across the forest. When one Indian tries to shoot Daniel, Chomina is consumed by guilt at having betrayed Champlain's trust. He and a few other members of the Algonquin tribe return with Daniel to try to find LaForgue. As they recover LaForgue, a party of

Mohawk Mohawk may refer to: Related to Native Americans * Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York) *Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people * Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Indigenous confederations in North America, confederacy of First Nations in Canada, First Natio ...

attack them, killing most of the Algonquin, amongst them Chomina's wife, and taking the rest captive. They are taken to an Iroquois fortress, where they are forced to

run the gauntlet Run(s) or RUN may refer to: Places * Run (island), one of the Banda Islands in Indonesia * Run (stream), a stream in the Dutch province of North Brabant People * Run (rapper), Joseph Simmons, now known as "Reverend Run", from the hip-hop group ...

, watch Chomina's young son be killed, and are told they will be slowly tortured to death the next day. That night Annuka seduces their guard, allowing him to engage in coitus with her. When this distracts him she strikes him with a caribou hoof, rendering him unconscious and allowing them to escape. Chomina, dying of a wound from his capture, sees a small grove he has dreamed of many times before, and realizes it is the place he is destined to die. LaForgue tries, unsuccessfully, to persuade Chomina to embrace Christ before he dies. As Chomina freezes to death in the snow, he sees the '' She-Manitou'' appearing to him. As the weather grows colder, Annuka and Daniel take LaForgue to the outskirts of the Huron settlement, but leave him to enter it alone, because Chomina had dreamed that this must happen. LaForgue finds all but one of the French inhabitants dead, murdered by the Hurons who blamed them for a

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...

epidemic. The leader of the last survivors tells LaForgue that the Hurons are dying, and he should offer to save them by

baptizing Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...

them. LaForgue confronts the Hurons. When their leader asks LaForgue if he loves them, LaForgue thinks of the faces of all the Indians he has met on his journey, and answers "Yes". The leader then asks him to baptize them, and the Hurons receive his baptism. The film ends with a golden sunrise. An intertitle states that fifteen years later, the Hurons, having accepted Christianity, were routed and killed by their enemies the Iroquois; the Jesuit mission to the Hurons was abandoned and the Jesuits returned to Quebec.

Cast

Production

had wanted to make a film out of Brian Moore's novel ever since it was first published. The rights had been acquired by Canada's

Alliance Films Alliance Films (formerly Alliance Entertainment, Alliance Communications, Alliance Atlantis Releasing Ltd, Motion Picture Distribution LP and also known as Alliance Vivafilm in Quebec and also known simply as Alliance) was a Canadian motion pictur ...

, which had signed another director. That person fell out, as did another director, before the job was given to Beresford.Andrew Urban, "Black Robe", ''Cinema Papers'', March 1991 p6-12 Beresford stated:

I think that, even if you have no religious faith whatever or, even if you despised the Jesuits, you would still find it an interesting story. It's a wonderful study of obsession and love. And it is a wonderful adventure of the spirit and of the body. What those people did, going to a country where winters were far more severe than anything they had known in Europe, meeting people who were far more fierce than anyone they had ever encountered... Having to deal with these people shows us something of humanity at its greatest. It's the equivalent of today's people getting into space shuttles and going off into space. It takes unbelievable courage to do this.

The film remained in

development hell Development hell, development purgatory, and development limbo are Media industry, media and Software industry, software industry jargon for a project, concept, or idea that remains in development for an especially long time, often moving between d ...

for over four years due to no major American studio willing to finance the project. Beresford was only able to convince Alliance Films to hire him after his previous film, ''

Driving Miss Daisy '' Driving Miss Daisy'' is a 1989 American comedy-drama film directed by Bruce Beresford and written by Alfred Uhry, based on his 1987 play of the same name. The film stars Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, and Dan Aykroyd. Freeman reprised his r ...

'', won the

Academy Award for Best Picture The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only categ ...

. The success of ''

Dances with Wolves ''Dances with Wolves'' is a 1990 American epic western film starring, directed, and produced by Kevin Costner in his feature directorial debut. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 novel '' Dances with Wolves'' by Michael Blake that tells the ...

'', a film with similar themes released the prior year, also convinced Alliance of the project's viability. Funds were raised under a co-production treaty between Canada and Australia. The production needed 30% Australian financing, and the

Film Finance Corporation The Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) was the government agency responsible for funding commercial productions of Australian film, documentary, and television from 1988 to 2008. Unlike other publicly funded organisations responsible for f ...

investment had to be spent on Australian elements, such as an Australian crew and two Australian actors."Interview with Bruce Beresford"
''Signet'', 7 December 1991 accessed 13 June 2019 The film was shot primarily on-location in

, in the

Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean (, ) is a region in Quebec, Canada. It contains the Saguenay Fjord, the estuary of the Saguenay River, stretching through much of the region. It is also known as Sagamie in French, from the first part of "Saguenay" and t ...

region. Additional scenes were shot in

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the region of Normandy and the department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe, the population ...

in northern

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. The entire film was shot in-sequence.

Release

''Black Robe'' opened in Canada on 4 October 1991 and then had a exclusive opening in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago on 1 November 1991 before expanding on 22 November to a further 222 theaters.

Reception

''Black Robe'' was praised as a "magnificently staged combination of top talents delivering a gripping and tragic story", and has been rated one of the most meticulously researched representations of

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

life put on film. Notably, the film includes dialogue in the

Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations. In Canada, over 350,000 people are Cree o ...

, and

languages. The French characters speak

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

in the film.

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

is used for Catholic prayers. Political activist

Ward Churchill Ward LeRoy Churchill (born 1947) is an American author and political activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado Boulder from 1990 until 2007.

, after highly praising the film-making, criticized historical inaccuracies. He said he thought the film vilified the Mohawks as part of a theme that Indian resistance to European culture was evil.

Box office

''Black Robe'' grossed $1.1 million in Canada in its first four weeks before opening in the United States. Expanding to 55 screens it grossed $179,467 for the weekend of 3 November 1991. It expanded on the weekend of 22 November to 282 screens, grossing $882,300 for the weekend, finishing 11th in the United States and Canada for the weekend. In Canada, it won the Golden Reel Award, indicating the highest box-office performance of any Canadian film that year. In

English Canada Canada comprises that part of the population within Canada, whether of British origin or otherwise, that speaks English. The term ''English Canada'' can also be used for one of the following: #Describing all the provinces of Canada tha ...

, it was among only three Canadian films to gross over $500,000 between 1987 and 1990, along with ''

Jesus of Montreal ''Jesus of Montreal'' (french: Jésus de Montréal) is a 1989 French Canadian comedy-drama film written and directed by Denys Arcand, and starring Lothaire Bluteau, Catherine Wilkening and Johanne-Marie Tremblay. The film tells the story of a g ...

'' and '' Dead Ringers''. ''Black Robe'' grossed $2,036,056 at the box office in Australia, the third highest-grossing Australian film of the year behind '' Strictly Ballroom'' and ''

Romper Stomper ''Romper Stomper'' is a 1992 Australian drama film written and directed by Geoffrey Wright in his feature film directorial debut. The film stars Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie, Tony Le-Nguyen and Colin Chin. The film tells ...

''.

Awards and nominations

Genie Award The Genie Awards were given out annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to recognize the best of Canadian cinema from 1980–2012. They succeeded the Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978; also known as the "Etrog Awards," for sc ...

AACTA Award The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards, known as the AACTA Awards, are presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA). The awards recognise excellence in the film and television industry, ...

Other awards

References

External links

*
''Black Robe''
''Canadian Film Encyclopedia''
Black Robe details
National Film and Sound Archive
''Black Robe''
at Oz movies {{DEFAULTSORT:Black Robe (Film) Canadian epic films 1991 films 1991 drama films 1991 independent films 1990s historical drama films Algonquin-language films Alliance Atlantis films Australian adventure drama films Australian historical drama films Australian independent films Best Picture Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners Canadian adventure drama films Canadian historical drama films Canadian independent films Canadian survival films Cree-language films English-language Canadian films Latin-language films Mohawk-language films Films about Catholic priests Films based on Canadian novels Films based on historical novels Films based on novels by Brian Moore Films directed by Bruce Beresford Films scored by Georges Delerue Films set in the 1630s Films set in Ontario Films set in Quebec First Nations films Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean in fiction Works by Brian Moore (novelist) 1990s Canadian films

Plot

Cast

Production

Release

Reception

Box office

Awards and nominations

Genie Award The Genie Awards were given out annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to recognize the best of Canadian cinema from 1980–2012. They succeeded the Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978; also known as the "Etrog Awards," for sc ...

AACTA Award The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards, known as the AACTA Awards, are presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA). The awards recognise excellence in the film and television industry, ...

Other awards

See also

References

External links