Looking for Yves

Looking for Yves
© Viv
Not to be reproduced, in part or whole, without permission.

Last year I spent a considerable amount of time and effort in Montreal …. looking for Yves of Being at Home with Claude. Or rather the places associated with Yves, and the trail of his panicked flight the night of the killing. Sick? Maybe. Or perhaps it was just a homage to an awesome film which brought together a stunning combination of gifted people - playwright, director, cinematographer, composer, supporting actor, and, of course, our favourite male lead, Roy Dupuis. For anyone else of a like mind, here are my notes to give you a head start :

Reality bites
The first thing you have to understand is which version of reality you want to operate in. There is (1) the text of the original play by René-Daniel Dubois and (2) director Jean Beaudin’s visual reality of the film (location shots in park, station etc.) with the surprisingly helpful verbal clues of the dialogue. Below are details translated from the Leméac edition (1986) of the play, along with some actual film locations that we found. Please note that a downtown (centre-ville) map of Montreal doesn’t extend far enough north or east to include all the locations.

Timing :
The action takes place in Montreal, early in July 1967 (Notes, p14)

The film is set in Montreal in the early 90’s during the Jazz Festival. Filming actually took place over a six week period in 1991.

Parc du Portugal

THE bench

The bandstand

The Square :
The place where Yves plied his trade is referred to as Carré Dominion (p38) which backs on to Peel (p84). There are 3 parks on the map that border on Peel - Dorchester, Place du Canada (Peel & Bvd Rene Levesque) and Chaboillez (Peel & St Jacques). The film version is none of these.

In the film it is referred to as ‘Portugal’. If you walk up Boulevard St-Laurent as far as the 4300’s (corner of Rue Marie-Anne), you’ll find Parc du Portugal which is indeed the film location. It’s a beautiful little square, very atmospheric, and a perfect situation for someone of Yves’ sensitivities.

An aside : Continue east on Rue Marie-Anne for a couple of blocks to Avenue Coloniale and you’ll come across architect Pierre’s house from J’en Suis.

A back door of the real Palais de Justice

The Judge’s Office :
This is supposed to be in the Palais de Justice (set instructions p11) which is located downtown on St-Laurent and Rue Notre-Dame. The exterior is seen only in the garden scene (presumably outside a back or side door) but the stonework of the real building differs, and no such garden exists.

The interior is, like all interiors in the film, a studio set. (Ref. Jean Beaudin interview in Sequences, March 1992).

Claude's address in the play

Claude’s Address :
8544 Casgrain is at the northernmost end at Liège (pp34, 41). This is a ground floor apartment and thus is not the film version.

The film dialogue gives the address as 8574, but this is where things get really spooky. Number 8574 no longer exists. The building appears to have been remodelled, and the upstairs apartment no longer has an outside entrance. Following #8570 and 8572 (see photo), the next block has 8576 and 8578. So we shall never know …

Yves’ home :
He lives in a ‘taudis’ (hovel, slum) on St-Dominique, between De Montigny and Ontario (p44). This appears in the film only as an interior and is therefore a studio set.

The Flight, Thursday 1^st July :
Yves says he caught the metro at Jarry (p20), so that’s where you have to go to do the pacing and fingernail-biting. I’m pretty sure that’s not where it was filmed because the (unreadable) station name appears to be at least 10 characters long, but it is much more difficult to establish which station was used.

He takes the metro to Bonaventure, then goes towards the dock, but veers off to the west and ends up at Westmount after walking for an hour ("maybe more, I don’t know, I don’t have a watch")

The play refers to Yves sitting on a ‘clôture’ - fence, enclosure - watching the rich people inside their houses. This is not a remarkable structure because the Inspector later asks the stenographer to verify that there is a green wooden fence on Lansdowne between Sherbrooke and St-Antoine (p56).

In the film this location is called ‘the ‘look-out’ (belvédère). There is a grand stone construction marked on the map called Belvédère Westmount on the edge of Parc Summit, which gives views out over the city as seen in the flashback. The walls are a different style though. I suspect the real location might be in this area, along one of the roads named ‘Belvédère’. (Check the stonework on the film before making the trip, and bear in mind that the lamp may have been a prop.)

Eventually he comes down via Lansdowne, and then goes east to the Forum (on Attwater & Ste-Catherine, former home of the Montréal Canadiens hockey team) by an unknown route (perhaps Sherbrooke or Ste-Catherine).

In the film Yves does run past the Forum as it looked in 1991. Unfortunately it closed on March 11^th, 1996 so it doesn’t look too impressive now. In the picture you can just make out the marks where the name was spelled out in lights.

When he couldn’t phone from the Forum he went to a booth in the Place Alexis-Nihon (p75) which is just across the road. Then he goes east along Ste-Catherine, and after midnight is seen at several clubs - Lorelei, chez Bud’s, Tropicana, Taureau and Rocambole. (p41).

In the film, after the phone call he ends up in a deserted, indistinguishable part of the city.

IF ANYONE HAS ANY MORE SPECIFIC OR ACCURATE INFORMATION THEY WOULD LIKE TO SHARE, WE WOULD BE HAPPY TO INCLUDE IT.