The Coffin Affair

The Coffin Affair (French: L'Affaire Coffin) is a Canadian drama film from Quebec, released in 1980.[1] Directed by Jean-Claude Labrecque, the film is a dramatization of the Coffin affair of 1953.

The Coffin Affair
FrenchL'Affaire Coffin
Directed byJean-Claude Labrecque
Written byJean-Claude Labrecque
Jacques Benoit
Jacques Hébert
Produced byRobert Ménard
StarringAugust Schellenberg
Gabriel Arcand
Micheline Lanctôt
Roger Lebel
CinematographyPierre Mignot
Edited byAndré Corriveau
Music byAnne Lauber
Release date
  • September 10, 1980 (1980-09-10)
Running time
107 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageFrench

The film stars August Schellenberg as Wilbert Coffin. The cast also includes Gabriel Arcand, Micheline Lanctôt, Roger Lebel, Aubert Pallascio, Yvon Dufour and Raymond Cloutier.

The film reignited the controversy over Coffin's conviction and execution. Jules Deschênes, the Quebec Superior Court judge who had presided over the 1964 inquiry into Coffin's conviction, publicly claimed that the filmmakers "twisted the facts to accommodate their personal convictions and thus present a slanderous portrait of the judicial system to the viewing public";[2] Jacques Hébert, the journalist who had initiated the original controversy with his 1963 book J'accuse les assassins de Coffin and had been a consultant on the film, responded with an open letter in La Presse in response to Deschênes' allegations.[3]

Critical response

The film received mostly favourable reviews, although Jay Scott criticized the English-language dubbing, saying that it sounded like it had been dubbed by news announcers: "August Schellenberg appears to give an extraordinary performance as the condemned Wilbert Coffin, but the quality of the film over all, thanks to disembodied Esperanto voices reading the script as if it were a speech by Ed Schreyer, is anyone's guess."[4]

Awards

The film garnered four Genie Award nominations at the 2nd Genie Awards in 1981:

References
  1. "Two films share theme, but miles apart in style". The Globe and Mail, September 30, 1980.
  2. "Old sores rubbed in Quebec press over Coffin affair". The Globe and Mail, October 13, 1980.
  3. "Journalist nails judge in new Coffin contest". The Globe and Mail, October 14, 1980.
  4. "Toronto's Quebec film test offers good, bad and superb". The Globe and Mail, April 18, 1981.


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