up from the e by Peter Morrisuna An excerpt from the recently published DAVID CRONENBERG: A DELICATE BALANCE, a biography of David Cronenberg by Peter Morris, reprinted by permission of Ecw Pre„ Toronto. Watching David Cronenberg's first two short films today is to see barely a sketch of the themes and styles of his later films. Both Transfer and From the Drain are one-note films for two performers, somewhat sur- realist in tone but technically awkward. Both have the off-centre humour that we associate with Cronenberg. Both touch on issues of science: Transfer is a dialogue between a from straight narrative to experimental because of a seminude sex scene. psychiatrist and an obsessive former works inspired by the New York under- Screenings at McMaster and Carleton patient; From the Drain is a dialogue set ground. Many of them focus on the lives universities were halted by university in the future between two fully clothed and loves of young people. Others officials, and the print was later seized by men in a bathtub discussing biological emphasized experimental imagery. Many the Ontario Censor Board. However, mutations when a plant emerges from broke sexual taboos and ran afoul of the receipts from the screenings enabled the drain and kills one of them. This provincial censor boards. Some of the Kent to finance a second feature, Sweet later latter film contains elements of filmmakers involved went on to careers Substitute, in 1964. The film won critical Emergent Evolutionism' and hints at a in film, and a few are now well-known praise, was shown at several festivals, and similar use of bathtub drains in Shivers. names. had a theatrical release. Kent went on to In Transfer there is perhaps a trace of The first such student film was made make several more stylized, expressionis- comparable obsessive relationships that in 1962 at L'Universite de Montreal. tic features. occur in later films such as The Brood. The feature length Seul ou avec d'autres In Ontario, student film activity was If neither of these films is little more was directed by Denys Arcand and centred at the University of Toronto and than a sketch for Cronenberg's later Denis Heroux and involved many who, McMaster University (though artists in work, they do reflect their time and are like the directors, were to play leading London, including Jack Chambers and similar to other student-made films. The roles in the developing Quebec cinema. Greg Curnoe, also began making films sixties witnesses a boom in underground At the University of British Columbia in in the mid-sixties). First was David films, and, in Canada, many of them 1963, Larry Kent, a fourth-year student, Secter, a fourth-year English student at were made by university students. made the feature The Bitter Ash for the University of Toronto, who began Fuelled by a contemporary passion for $5,000 and launched the film on cam- filming a feature, Winter Kept Us Warm, film, and in the (perhaps felicitous) pus screenings across the country. late in 1964. Secter had written a scath- absence of university film courses, stu- Although screenings at UBC and McGill ing review of The Bitter Ash for the dents set about making their own inde- University were sold out, the film there- Toronto Daily Star but was undoubted- pendent films. These ranged in approach after ran into censorship difficulties ly inspired by Kent's example to make a 32 TAKE ONE DAVID CRONENBERG, circa 1966 narrative feature film on a low budget. than the others, was undoubtedly the sexual memoir?) written by an anony- Initial financing was provided by the stu- inspirational voice. He also wrote a five- mous Victorian author. The producers dent council, and the cast and crew were part series of articles, "Revolution in were Reitman and Goldberg. Hofsess's all students. Although shooting was Canadian Film," for the University of aim was to make a liberating film about completed by the summer of 1965, edit- Toronto student newspaper that sexuality in a visual, sensuous style. At its ing was delayed because of lack of funds, undoubtedly influenced developments first screening (a private one at and the film was only completed in 1965 there. Hofsess directed Redpath 25 in McMaster), the film was seized by after it was invited to the Common- 1966, a true underground film with psy- police, and Hofsess, Reitman, and wealth Film Festival. It was subsequently chedelic, sensuous images, split screen, Goldberg were charged with making and selected for several other festivals and and a sexual theme. He followed it a year exhibiting an obscene film. At their trial, received a warm critical reception. Its later with a sequel, Black Zero, in which Hofsess was acquitted on a technicality; story about a short but intense friend- Cronenberg appears briefly in a nude Reitman and Goldberg were found ship between two male students was scene. The two films comprised Palace of guilty but fined only a token amount given added bite by implying a homo- Pleasure, in which two images were and placed on probation. However, by sexual attraction between the two. In ret- simultaneously projected on a single then Reitman had sold the rights to a rospect, its appeal lies as much in its screen. Peter Rowe began an active film U.S. distributor who added new footage honest, unpretentious approach as in its and theatre career with a 1967 under- and reedited it for release as My Secret authentic sense of campus life in the ground film, Buffalo Airport Visions, and Life. The original film (which, like mid-sixties. Secter made one more continued with a feature film in 1970, Palace of Pleasure, was dual projection) (unsuccessful) feature the following year The Neon Palace, a nostalgic tribute to has never been shown in public. But as before dropping out of filmmaking. the popular culture of the fifties and six- one of those who saw it at a private By late 1966, film activity in Toronto ties. Ivan Reitman, now a well-estab- screening, I can testify that it was a lus- and Hamilton was reaching unprece- lished Hollywood producer and director ciously beautiful, sophisticated, almost dented levels. At McMaster University, of films such as Ghostbusters, Legal Eagles meditative work. Although replete with regular screenings of underground films and Twins, also began his career in 1967 erotic imagery, it was totally unexploita- began in 1965, and the McMaster Film with the McMaster Film Board by tive. Had it been released, it would have Board was created. Those involved directing short films. He later produced been one of the highlights of the period included Peter Rowe, Ivan Reitman, and and directed several low-budget features of underground filmmaking. founder John Hofsess, a "drop-in" non- in Canada and was Cronenberg's pro- Film activity at the University of student. Others involved included future ducer for Shivers. Toronto in the mid-sixties was no less comedian, Eugene Levy, and Dan Hofsess also turned to feature film- prolific, even though fewer career film- Goldberg, who would be sound supervi- making in 1969 when he wrote and makers emerged from the liveliness. sor for Shivers and later a Hollywood directed the ambitious The Columbus of Screenings of underground films began screenwriter. Hofsess, somewhat older Sex, based on My Secret Life, a novel (or in 1965, and a film production club was Cronenberg recalls that it was Secter's fr* rri.1 rn whrofw kept fic Warm, that most impressed him left, DAVID SECTER's Winter Kept Us Warm; right, LARRY KENT's Sweet Sutall*. set up. In the summer of 1966, Bob "you didn't have to carry someone else's formers and, in January 1966, set about Fothergill, Sam Gupta, and Glenn [film] cans around for twenty years" filming Transfer. He did his own 16mm McCauley made their first short films. before making your own film. "That was colour cinematography and editing; two It was to this atmosphere of cinematic the beginning of my awareness of film as friends played the roles of psychiatrist ferment that Cronenberg returned from something that I could do, something and patient while others (including Europe. He recalls that it was Secter's that I had access to." Margaret Hindson, his future wife) han- feature, Winter Kept Us Warm, that most When he discovered film, David dled the sound recording. In the manner impressed him, but it is impossible that Cronenberg felt liberated from the liter- of numerous underground films, it was a he was unaware of the swirl of film activ- ary influences that had stultified his surrealist-influenced tale. In it a patient ity in the region that was about to peak novel-writing ambitions. He became obsessed by his psychiatrist pursues him when he returned. What struck him aware, he told Rodley, that "There was everywhere because he feels that the rela- about Secter's film was not that he knew something about the medium of film tionship is the only significant one he the director (he didn't) but that it fea- that just fitted my temperament like a has had. Much of the film shows the two tured actors who were his friends. (They glove." Characteristically, given his well- characters eating at a table in the middle included Janet Amos, Iain Ewing, Joy established pre-occupation with figuring of a snowy field with no explanation Teperman, Henry Tarvainen, and Jack out how things work, he began with the offered as to why they are there. Again in Messinger, all of whom went on to vari- technical aspects of filmmaking He felt the manner of other underground films, ous careers in the arts and two of whom that writing a script would be the easy it avoids straight narrative and plays with appeared in Cronenberg's films.) It also part.