Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 - (Page 18)

www.hnoc.org Documenting Cajun Culture Glen Pitre by Rachel Like so many Cajuns, writer and filmmaker Glen Pitre knows how to tell a good story. A native of Cut Off, Louisiana, Pitre attended Harvard University but spent summers at home shrimping and making documentaries about life on the bayou. After graduation, Pitre returned to Cut Off and continued to make films. Acclaimed as the “father of the Cajun Cinema” and “a legendary American regional director,” he produces films, books, museum exhibits, and documentaries — often in conjunction with his wife, Michelle Benoit. Pitre will bring his experience and knowledge of Cajuns to his role as moderator of The Historic New Orleans Collection’s symposium on Acadian culture this January. The 14th Annual Williams Research Center Symposium, The Acadian Diaspora, will be held January 31, 2009, at the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Mark your calendars and join us for a memorable discussion. Until then, get to know symposium moderator Glen Pitre: An Interview with Filmmaker Gibbons, Publications Assistant I grew up here, in Cut Off, Louisiana. What got me into movies was hearing stories while I was growing up. I caught the tail end of that generation where it was all transmitted orally. The stories are not all that different today, but we have the technology to put them across, to share them with people who don’t live around the corner from us. What drives your career choices? Growing up, we used to go to the drive-in. [Hurricane] Betsy blew that over. That was how I first remember watching films, but to take the traditional tales — both the historically based and the fanciful ones — and convert them into the mass media seemed like a natural progression to me. Why film? Oh, God no. I was much better with the technology of catching shrimp and oysters. In high school, Channel 12 did a series where they’d show European films — things by Bergman, Fellini, Borrell. It was like, “Wow. These films were so different from the Hollywood movies I’d grown up with.” It opened my eyes to see that you could make different things. Those tales could themselves become the feedstock for films. Were you exposed to camera equipment growing up? Yes. I wrote a one-act play in high school, which the drama club performed. The night it opened, it snowed. Yep, I don’t remember too many times when it snowed in Cut Off, Louisiana. [Laughs.] No one came. Have you always been a writer? © CHARLES H. TRAUB AND DOUGLAS BAZ, 1974 18 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Winter 2008-09 For six months in 1974, Charles H. Traub and Douglas Baz lived in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, and photographed there and in the surrounding countryside. Their collective work encompasses many hundreds of images depicting the land, the people, and life patterns of Louisiana’s Cajuns. In conjunction with the 14th annual Williams Research Center Symposium, The Historic New Orleans Collection is presenting Cajun Document, 1974, an exhibition showcasing 30 images from Traub and Baz’s Cajun series. The exhibition is on view at the Williams Research Center from December 2, 2008, through February 20, 2009. The photographs featured in this layout, with the exception of the portrait of Glen Pitre (above), will be featured in the exhibition. http://www.hnoc.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 Contents Friends Editor's Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Prospect.1 New Orleans The Historic New Orleans Collection The Enduring Performance of Michael P. Smith Jazz Notes Louisiana Foodways Birds of a Feather: Windfowl Carvings in Southeast Louisiana Louisiana Association of Museums Louisiana Architecture O. Winston Link in Louisiana The Ogden Museum of Southern Art The Colfax Massacre Louisiana State Museum Unlocking the History of Greek Key Architecture Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

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