The Decline of the American Empire

This article is about a film by Denys Arcand. Not to be confused with American decline.

The Decline of the American Empire
French-language film poster
FrenchLe Déclin de l'empire américain
Directed byDenys Arcand
Written byDenys Arcand
Produced byRoger Frappier
René Malo
StarringDominique Michel
Dorothée Berryman
Rémy Girard
Pierre Curzi
Louise Portal
Yves Jacques
Geneviève Rioux
Daniel Brière
Gabriel Arcand
CinematographyGuy Dufaux
Edited byMonique Fortier
Music byFrançois Dompierre
Distributed byMalofilms (Canada)
Release date
  • June 19, 1986 (1986-06-19) (Quebec)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguagesFrench
English
Budget$1.8 million[1]
Box office$30 million[2]

The Decline of the American Empire (French: Le Déclin de l'empire Américain) 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 University of Montreal 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.

The film was a box office success in Canada and internationally and received good reviews. It won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, nine Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture, and was the first Canadian film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It was followed by two sequels, The Barbarian Invasions in 2003 and Days of Darkness in 2007.

  1. ^ Loiselle 2008, p. 22.
  2. ^ Rosenthal, Donna (22 July 1990). "THE PASSION OF DENYS ARCAND". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 August 2016.