Making Movie History: Michel Brault
2013 · 7m · Canada
Directed by Denys Desjardins
Genres: biography, documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative
Michel Brault pioneers Direct Cinema and the walking camera at the NFB, collaborating on Pour la suite du monde and directing Les ordres.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A seven-minute essay genuflecting at the altar of Direct Cinema and the NFB canon—technically proficient but so reverential it forgets to ask whether Brault's legacy actually needs defending, or just contexualizing.
Desjardins positions Brault within the genealogy of modern documentary practice with real formal intelligence, using archival material and essay structure to argue for the walking camera as both technique and philosophy—the kind of lineage work that rewards close viewing.
The decision to let Brault's own footage do the theorizing, rather than overlay talking heads, trusts the viewer to feel the innovation; it's a small structural choice that transforms hagiography into something closer to film criticism.