Bruce Beresford is one of Australia’s most successful film directors. Among his more widely known movies are Breaker Morant and Driving Miss Daisy. But one of the most difficult films he has ever made was Black Robe. It told the story of French Jesuit missionaries working among the Indians of Quebec.
The bitterly cold winter weather of Saguenay-Lac St Jean created a logistics nightmare.
But Beresferd’s greatest challenge was not the weather nor accuracy of historical portrayal. It was in making the priest’s missionary obsession believable to film-goers today. According to Beresferd: “He had an obsession with getting people into heaven. This is a concept few people these days take seriously. My job was to convince an audience that this is important.”
Source: interview with Beresferd at signis.net