Reel Talk

Roger Frappier has been an extraordinary and relatively little-known success, working behind the scenes to produce nearly eighty movies since 1971. One of those films, The Power of the Dog (2021), earned its director, Jane Campion, an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe for Drama. The best known of his other films include Le confort et l’indifférence (1982) and Le déclin de l’empire américain (1986), both directed by Denys Arcand; and La grande séduction (2003) and its English-language remake The Grand Seduction (2013).

Born in Sorel, Quebec, in 1945, Frappier is the son of a welder and, more important, the nephew of a cashier at the local cinema. Aunt Gertrude let him slip into the movies during an era when children under sixteen were barred from cinemas in Quebec, following the 1927 Laurier Palace fire, which killed seventy-eight. As a teenager, Frappier insisted on taking a summer job on a cruise ship. He missed his...