Inside the Pleasure Dome Fringe Film in Canada
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Everybody loves the movies. But what of movies made about the colour blue, or an isolated mountain range, or a man grown so thin the world floats through his perfect transparency? “You know what would be really great — to make a two-hour movie about Taylor Mead’s ass.” So said Andy Warhol, the most notorious fringe filmer of them all. Welcome to the strange and wonderful microverse of fringe cinema, where the only rules left unbroken are the ones that have been forgotten. Long before MTV, these artists were bending light to make a strange, first-person possible. This new edition features never-before-heard raps from Ellie Epp, Ann Marie Fleming, Chris Gallagher, Anna Gronau, Rick Hancox, John Kneller, Deirdre Logue, David Rimmer and Kika Thorne. They join fellow fringers Mike Snow, Carl Brown, Patricia Gruben, Barbara Sternberg, Al Razutis, Penelope Buitenhuis, Fumiko Kiyooka, Peter Lipskis, Wrik Mead, Annette Mangaard, Steve Sanguedolce, Gary Popovich, Philip Hoffman, Gariné Torossian, Richard Kerr, and Mike Cartmell. Twenty-five interviews with Canada’s finest underdogs lay it all down like a road, ready to take you through the vanishing point of personality. This is cinema made one frame at a time, truth twenty-four times a second, as one wag would have it, a cinema that is earned and lived before being bigged up into the projector light. These lives have each developed an eccentric attention, a way of seeing the world that is able to transform something you walk past every day into something strange and terrifying. For any who wondered what lay beyond the McCinemas, the monotone of multiplex occupations, here are the stars of a different kind of night. INSIDE THE PLEASURE DOME FRINGE FILM IN CANADA MIKE HOOLBOOM Coach House Books, Toronto Text copyright © 2001 Michael Hoolboom First edition 1997 Second edition 2001 NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA Hoolboom, Michael Inside the pleasure dome: fringe film in Canada Rev. ed. ISBN 1-55245-099-6 1. Experimental films — Canada — History and criticism. 2. Motion picture producers and directors — Canada — Interviews. I. Title. II. Title: Fringe film in Canada PN1995.9.E96H64 2001 791.43'0971 C2001-903087-8 Front cover photo: Kika Thorne Back cover photo: Carl Brown “White Museum” and “Imagine Yourself” photos: Mike Hoolboom Published with the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Manufactured in Canada by Coach House Printing. Revised Edition 2001 This book would not have been possible without the contributions of so many, but most especially: Karen Hanson, Marc Glassman, Alex Mackenzie, Darren Wershler-Henry, Alana Wilcox, Jason McBride, Rick/Simon, Ian McInnis, Stan Bevington, Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, Richard Holden, the Writing and Publishing Division of the Canada Council, Canada Council Media Arts, the Literature Office of the Ontario Arts Council, and all of the filmmakers who gave generously of their time, their insights, and their ideals. Foreword by ATOM EGOYAN 1 Introduction: UPON LEAVING THE THEATRE 3 MICHAEL SNOW 6 Machines of Cinema CARL BROWN 24 Painting the Light Fantastic PATRICIA GRUBEN 34 Sifted Evidence BARBARA STERNBERG 46 Transitions AL RAZUTIS 56 CONTENTS Three Decades of Rage PENELOPE BUITENHUIS 74 Guns, Girls and Guerrillas FUMIKO KIYOOKA 82 The Place with Many Rooms Is the Body PETER LIPSKIS 90 I Was a Teenage Personality Crisis! WRIK MEAD 100 Out of the Closet ANNETTE MANGAARD 110 Her Soil is Gold STEVE SANGUEDOLCE 120 Sex, Madness and the Church GARY POPOVICH 128 Lies My Father Told Me PHILIP HOFFMAN 138 Pictures of Home GARINÉ TOROSSIAN 148 Girl From Moush RICHARD KERR 156 Last Days of Living MIKE CARTMELL 170 Watching Death at Work RICK HANCOX 182 There’s a Future in Our Past DEIRDRE LOGUE 194 Transformer Toy ANN MARIE FLEMING 200 Queen of Disaster CHRIS GALLAGHER 212 Terminal City DAVID RIMMER 222 Fringe Royalty ELLIE EPP 234 Notes in Origin JOHN KNELLER 244 The Church of Film ANNA GRONAU 252 The Dead Are Not Powerless KIKA THORNE 264 What Is To Be Done? FOREWORD Why am I writing the foreword to this book? What does my No other art form has been so immediately and comprehen- sensibility and creative orientation have to do with the work sively bound by such an orthodox and rigid system. discussed here? Where does my world (commercially conceived and distributed feature films) meet the visions and Why did this happen? Was it because of a latent terror that ideas of the experimental filmmakers discussed in this seized us when we discovered a medium so close to our collection? dreams? Or, more to the point, is the traditional grammar of cinema a direct expression of how we dream? Do we dream The answer might be in the imaginary audience we both in multi-angle coverage, with static masters, close-ups, share. I’ve been deeply inspired by artists like Michael Snow, tracking shots, and pans? Do we never cross the magical David Rimmer, Phil Hoffman, Peter Mettler, Michael axis, except when we wake out of our sleep in terror? Is this Hoolboom, Barbara Sternberg, and Bruce Elder — not why the language of early cinema came so quickly — simply because of the extraordinary quality of their work, because we’ve been playing it inside our heads forever? but also, and perhaps more profoundly, because of the cease- lessly curious and completely trusting nature of the audience I ask these questions because the films discussed in this book they’ve had to imagine for their creative efforts. come from a different perspective. They are truly revolu- tionary; not simply because they defy conventional rules of These filmmakers taught me that there is nothing more industrial cinema, but because they confront the very nature exhilarating than to feel self-conscious in front of a screen. of what we need to see. We are driven as much by narrative The viewer did not have to lose themselves into an image, as by impulse, yet mainstream cinema is almost completely but could actually observe it, and create a dialogue about concerned with giving expression to ego-based storytelling. that process. This dialogue could be meditative, amusing, and provocative. By watching these films, I learned how to Fringe films are id-based. They address, liberated from the respect and indulge the intelligence of my audience. moderating influence of narrative, our purest sense of impulse — the way we see. To treat these films as marginal We dream in moving pictures. Every night, images are is to marginalize some integral part of ourselves. conjured in our minds, induced by mysterious and primal needs for sub-conscious expression. I’ve always found it Atom Egoyan fascinating that the serious attempt to articulate and find meaning to these dreams paralleled the discovery and devel- opment of cinema. It’s also fascinating that the essential grammar of mainstream cinema has remained relatively unchanged since the art form’s inception. From the first films, it became evident that there were certain places you could put a camera, and certain places where you couldn’t. INTRODUCTION This volume is a machine for turning pictures into words. This book, like so many of the films described within it, the venues dedicated to showing it, and the distributors who This machine is marked, like any, by celebration and make this work available, have been made possible by the sadness. Its appearance is a joy and a puzzle, not because arts councils in this country. While others are searching for a like Groucho Marx I could never join any club that would national culture, they are busy funding it. accept people like me, but because most of my efforts, most of the work of my friends and community, are invisible. And The list presented here is hardly definitive, nor are these as strange as it is to say, this invisibility is something that filmers to be taken as the largest, greatest, or grandest of brings us happiness. them all. Something in their work touched me, showed me there was another way to fall in love, to speak with a friend, The terrific thing about being an artist who works in film is to touch. All of them, or so I’d like to imagine, have moved that movies are important to everyone; they are the stories towards everything that gives them pleasure, and turned that we tell each other or the stories we ourselves are living. In embrace into a shared flicker of light. All have staged the our best moments and our worst, they are the way we small hole of personality that admits the world, insistently imagine ourselves. presenting not just what they’re seeing but the act of seeing itself. They are gathered between these covers to speak about The worst thing about being an artist who works in film is the feuds and deaths and marriages and happinesses that that movies are important to everyone. For most of us, “I have made this seeing possible. Here in the underground, know what I like” means “I like what I know.” But along- new kinds of lives have made new kinds of pictures possible. side the great march of television and movies that most of us Here are their stories. One day they may be yours. are on, there are those who have decided to go down the road not taken. They are, we are, the minor literature of cinema, the poetry, the fringe, the underground. We are every dream a company will never have, every longing that does not lead to success. Mike Hoolboom We are everything without a bar code or a corporate sponsor.