St. Lawrence: Stairway to the Sea
In this spectacular feature-length documentary, oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and an NFB crew sail up the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes on board the specially equipped vessel, the _Calypso_. They explore the countryside from their helicopter and plumb the depths of the waters in their diving saucer. They encounter shipwrecks, the Manicouagan power dam, Niagara Falls, the locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway and an underwater chase with caribou.
| Directors | Jacques Gagné, Jacques-Yves Cousteau |
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The next chapter in our river odyssey is a piece plucked from the corpus of one the most illustrious oceanographer-cinematographers of all time: Jacques-Yves, “The Commandant”, Cousteau. 72 years old and still aboard the famous Calypso, he is seen here paddling through St. Lawrence River alongside his son Jean-Michel, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The old-fashioned tone of the narration and the simultaneous translations are guaranteed to make you smile, but it won’t be long before you find yourself swept away by the adventurous and exploratory spirit of the production. For it is indeed an adventure documentary, at once scientific and historical, to which Cousteau and his team invite us. This spirit of exploration awakens the child within us, the one who wants to travel and discover the world. Cousteau, a pioneer of underwater filming techniques, develops a language in which the camera flies like a helicopter, and sails on the waves before eventually diving underwater. We certainly are not in the presence of his many imitators and emulators, but of the master himself, and it is well worth it. The soundtrack is as epic and as powerful as one can imagine, yet it is also of unparalleled efficacy when it comes to evoking the mysteries of the deep, those of The Silent World (1956) and World Without Sun (1964), which influenced the history of world cinema. An eco-film, before the genre was in vogue, that willingly adopts the perspective of a nature superior to man, and whose accounts of shipwrecks have been a boundless source of storytelling.
Jean-Philippe Catellier
Programming and Broascasting Manager
Paraloeil
Presented in collaboration with
-
Français
1h36
Language: Français -
English
1h36
Language: English
- Année 1982
- Pays Quebec, Canada
- Durée 96
- Producteur Cousteau Society
- Langue French, English
- Résumé court Captain Cousteau and his team explore what has changed on the coast and under the water of the St.Lawrence river after four centuries of intensive human occupation.
The next chapter in our river odyssey is a piece plucked from the corpus of one the most illustrious oceanographer-cinematographers of all time: Jacques-Yves, “The Commandant”, Cousteau. 72 years old and still aboard the famous Calypso, he is seen here paddling through St. Lawrence River alongside his son Jean-Michel, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The old-fashioned tone of the narration and the simultaneous translations are guaranteed to make you smile, but it won’t be long before you find yourself swept away by the adventurous and exploratory spirit of the production. For it is indeed an adventure documentary, at once scientific and historical, to which Cousteau and his team invite us. This spirit of exploration awakens the child within us, the one who wants to travel and discover the world. Cousteau, a pioneer of underwater filming techniques, develops a language in which the camera flies like a helicopter, and sails on the waves before eventually diving underwater. We certainly are not in the presence of his many imitators and emulators, but of the master himself, and it is well worth it. The soundtrack is as epic and as powerful as one can imagine, yet it is also of unparalleled efficacy when it comes to evoking the mysteries of the deep, those of The Silent World (1956) and World Without Sun (1964), which influenced the history of world cinema. An eco-film, before the genre was in vogue, that willingly adopts the perspective of a nature superior to man, and whose accounts of shipwrecks have been a boundless source of storytelling.
Jean-Philippe Catellier
Programming and Broascasting Manager
Paraloeil
Presented in collaboration with
-
Français
Duration: 1h36Language: Français1h36 -
English
Duration: 1h36Language: English1h36
- Année 1982
- Pays Quebec, Canada
- Durée 96
- Producteur Cousteau Society
- Langue French, English
- Résumé court Captain Cousteau and his team explore what has changed on the coast and under the water of the St.Lawrence river after four centuries of intensive human occupation.
