The Decline of the American Empire
The Decline of the American Empire is a 1986 Canadian sex comedy-drama film directed by Denys Arcand and starring Rémy Girard, Pierre Curzi and Dorothée Berryman. The film follows a group of intellectual friends from the Université de Montréal history department as they engage in a long dialogue about their sexual affairs, touching on issues of adultery, homosexuality, group sex, BDSM and prostitution. A number of characters associate self-indulgence with societal decline.
French-language film poster
Director Denys Arcand wrote the script influenced by a small budget and seeing an interest in personal pleasures as becoming predominant in society.
Filming took place near Lake Memphremagog in Quebec from September to October 1985.
Critics gave positive reviews to the cast, including Pierre Curzi, who was nominated for the Genie Award for Best Actor.
Georges-Henri Denys Arcand is a French Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer. His film The Barbarian Invasions won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2004. His films have also been nominated three further times, including two nominations in the same category for The Decline of the American Empire in 1986 and Jesus of Montreal in 1989, becoming the only French-Canadian director in history whose films have received this number of nominations and, subsequently, to have a film win the award. For The Barbarian Invasions, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay, losing to Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation.
Arcand at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Arcand's star on Canada's Walk of Fame.
