Black Robe

BLACK ROBE (PG)
D: Bruce Beresford
Samuel Goldwyn/Alliance/Samson (Robert Lantos, Stephane Reichel & Sue Milliken)
Canada/Australia 🇨🇦 🇦🇺 1991
100 mins

Historical/Drama

W: Brian Moore [based on his novel]
DP: Peter James
Ed: Tim Wellburn
Mus: Georges Delerue

Lothaire Bluteau (LaForgue), Aden Young (Daniel), Sandrine Holt (Annuka), August Schellenberg (Chomina), Tantoo Cardinal (Chomina's Wife), Frank Wilson (Father Jerome)

Canada's answer to Dances With Wolves (qv), starring Lothaire Blutheau as a Jesuit priest who travels through 17th century Quebec to convert the natives to religion.
This historical picture is beautifully filmed and well acted, but takes a very pedestrian approach to its subject matter which will more than likely bore than it would provoke interest.
The comparisons between this and Dances With Wolves are slim to none, while Kevin Costner's 1990 epic is, by far, a more superior film.
6/10

Black Robe
Black Robe
Did You Know:
It took over four years to find financing for the film. No American studio was interested in doing it because its themes were about religion, so eventually the finance was drummed up from European and Canadian sources. Even with Oscar nominee Bruce Beresford expressing a desire to be at the helm, the Canadian investors were still very hard to convince until Beresford's previous film, Driving Miss Daisy, won the 1989 Oscar for Best Film. The success of Dances with Wolves in 1990 was also instrumental in helping the film to get made.