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Continuons le Combat - 1971 Montreal wrestling documentary (w/English subtitles)


goc

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This is one of the best wrestling documentaries I have ever seen. It's in French but has English subtitles. It includes some footage of wrestling from Montreal with guys like Abdullah the Butcher, Gino Brito, Jos Leduc, Ed Carpentier, Johnny Rougeau, Andre the Giant, Yvon Robert Jr, Mad Dog & Butcher Vachon, Gilles Poisson and others. Heavily focused on wrestling's use of "good vs evil" and how it parallels society itself. I will warn that this includes footage of a live goat beheading in the early part of the film as they compare the "wrestling ritual" to rituals in other parts of the world.

 

"Continuons le combat is a structural analysis of the reasons for the popularity of professionnal wrestling in the province of Québec in the late '60s and early '70s. As an anthropologist, Pierre Falardeau draws a parallel between the situation of French Canadians with the fate of the "good" wrestler against the "bad" guy representing the English "aristocracy" who controlled the Québec economy until the mid '60s. Like the good wrestler who takes a beating but finally emerges victorious, the french Canadian lived under the economic domination of English Canada but started a "Quiet Revolution" (as that period of Québec history is called) in the early "60s, that revolution culminating in the creation of the separatist Parti Québécois."

 

 

I'm not sure this warrants it's own thread but I'm not sure where else it fits. I really think this is something that the vast majority of this board would enjoy watching, not just for the old footage of Montreal wrestling that you're not going to see anywhere else but for the way this documentary treats wrestling with respect from a non-fan point of view. I have no idea why I didn't put this on youtube months ago.

 

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Cool find. Thanks for sharing

Parv told me he was gonna do a Titans episode on this and the Titanes en el Ring movie I found so I was waiting until after that to upload it but it felt like that might not ever come so I went ahead and put it up on youtube.

 

I got this from khawk in a trade a few months ago, not sure how "rare" it is in the trading world.

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I remember there was a thread a while back where there was a discussion of what an academic book about pro wrestling structure would look like if it was done right. I have serious doubts that book would ever happen because I suspect the writer would want to try too hard to make sure he comes off as "above it all."

 

This movie is the closest thing that we'll probably ever get to that kind of book and it is done extremely well. It probably treats the subject matter with more respect than a lot of modern "fans" do.

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  • 2 months later...

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