Jean-Claude Lord

Jean-Claude Lord (6 June 1943 – 15 January 2022) was a Canadian film director and screenwriter. He was one of the most commercial of the Québécois directors in the 1970s, aiming his feature films at a mass audience and dealing with political themes in a mainstream, Hollywood style. Early life Lord was born in Montreal on 6 June 1943. He first worked as an assistant director and scriptwriter in the private sector. He was an apprentice to Pierre Patry at the company Coopératio. Career Lord's first feature was Délivrez-nous du mal, released in 1965. It depicted a gay couple, reportedly a first for a Québécois film and regarded as a breakthrough since the influence of the Catholic Church was still strong in Quebec. His 1974 film Bingo exploits the post-October Crisis, post-Watergate paranoia prevalent in North America at the time with considerable panache. It was the subject of an intensive critical debate about its credentials as a left-wing film. Lord directed his first English-language film, Visiting Hours, in 1982. The low-budget horror movie, which featured William Shatner and Michael Ironside, became a cult favourite. Four years later, Lord worked for the first time in television on the series Lance et Compte. It centred around a fictitious ice hockey team, whose uniforms were similar to the Quebec Nordiques, contending for the Stanley Cup and the World Cup of Hockey. The series – which ran from 1986 to 1989 – was credited with establishing a new benchmark for television shows in Quebec. It also aired in English on CBC as He Shoots, He Scores, and was shown in France in 1987. He won a Prix Gémeaux in 1987 for the series.