ohn Greyson's Zero Patience, cantly, its false media representation. the AIDS crisis has precipitated what a follow-up to his 1991 short, Although, the word "on" is somewhat of has been deftly named an "epidemic of , offers a misnomer, as Greyson has tended to signification." Yet Greyson's style— a racy, post modern melange sidle up to an issue or an accepted tru- comic irreverence laced with political of camp, politics and (whew, ism, then circle back to playfully illus- savvy and methodological smarts— even) cultural theory. Mon- trate its tenuous foundations, question- serves his subject well. The film's range, sters was a searing musical ing the certainty of "knowing" in the its rapid shifts of tone from one discrete romp on anti-gay violence. first place. element to another, and its genre-bust- This time Greyson ups the No armchair activist, Greyson adopts ing pace (from musical to love story to stakes and delivers a spirited deconstructive wit as a weapon against lessons on bad science) suggests a unique musical mediation on—of all the commonplace, homophobia and talent. topics—AIDS. He reflects on policing of gay sexuality in particular, To mainstream audiences, Zero its ill-considered scientific regulation and oppression in general. Patience could be labelled perverse, reception and, most signifi- Zero Patience offers a filmic take on how risque, perhaps even outrageous or

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This eighties video bad boy has crossed over to feature-length cinema with his moxie intact, while maintaining a definitive nod to popular culture.

John Greyson's Zero Patience • • •

By Kass Banning

unprecedented. Not so. John Greyson is in the United States. His body of work is a household name in both 's reminiscent of the pervasive rigour of video art and in its gay activist scenes, an England's late Stuart Marshall, while enfant terrible whose earlier tapes and decidedly informed by the gay camp of films include Moscow Does Not Believe in Toronto's General Idea and video artist , The ADS Epidemic, and his fist Colin Campbell. This eighties video bad feature, Urinal, which premiered at the boy has crossed over to feature-length 1988 Festival of Festivals and went on to cinema with his moxie intact, while critical acclaim at the 1989 Berlin Film maintaining a definitive nod to popular Festival. He has written for Fuse, Jump culture. Cut, and has helped shape Canada's ver- Driven by provocation more than sion of what has come to be known as dramatic convention, Zero Patience neat- cinema, exemplified by the recent ly falls under the rubric of "the cinema of success of Tom Kalin and Todd Haynes ideas," heavy on the side of counter cine- ma. Intentionally didactic, yet it is nei- ly holds on to this myth. Greyson uses ther impenetrable nor interminable. the story of Patient Zero to explore the Long on spectacle, short on narrative epidemic of blame that has been drive and character identification, it is unleashed by the AIDS crisis. replete with implied meanings. Its Zero returns from the dead to put an cheeky disregard for the ABC's of plot end to the nonsense and lies, and clear would explode any script writing soft- his name. Nonsense is exemplified in the ware program, sending Syd Field-types second major character with an extended lifespan—Sir Richard Burton, a notorious Greyson uses the story of Patient Victorian adventurer, Zero to explore the epidemic of explorer, sexologist and Orientalist. Burton's blame that has been unleashed accomplishments in by the AIDS crisis. earlier life include the first uncensored Eng- lish translation of The running for cover. Its excesses, its con- Arabian Nights. He was the first non- ceits, its flagrant absurdities, however, Muslim to enter the holy city of Mecca are its strength. Thought-provoking, but and the first European to discover the hardly a treatise, Zero Patience is smart source of the Nile. Burton also promoted fun. the theory that warmer climates produce However, before considering the homosexual behaviour, whereas colder film's excesses, a synopis is in order. The climates, such as Northern Europe and title, Zero Patience, cleverly plays on the England in particular, do not encourage Zero instead. The sensationalist appeal of real Patient Zero. Inverting the appella- sodomy. (This theory can perhaps this most immediate epidemic is not lost tion for an Air Canada flight attendant, a account for the Victorian rush to exotic, to Burton. gay man who ostensibly brought the epi- tropical locales.) George, a black schoolteacher and demic to North America from Africa in Greyson portrays Burton as part former buddy of Zero, is the film's cen- the sixties (who died of AIDS in 1984), dandy, part amateur scientist, with a tral PWA (person living with AIDS). He he was singled out and made a scapegoat decided tendency toward the verbose, adds a human touch (and tear) and pro- by the scientific establishment on the who performs taxidermist duties at the vides the flip side to the fantasy and fun. lookout for origin and someone to Museum of Contagions by day, while George's daily struggle with contradic- blame. His story was uncovered by the dabbling in bad science and sleuthing by tions and false information offers an all- tabloid press in 1987, and although the night. When a rat plague exhibit is can- too-real element to the film. The ten- truth of this "case" has been conclusively celled because of budget cuts, he seizes sion, however, exceeds the fixity of a refuted, the popular imagination dogged- upon opportunity to feature Patient crude binary. George is no victim—he

All photos from Zero Patience of bias. On the way, Burton not only ways. Some may call it encyclopedic receives an AIDS education, but learns auto-didacticism, others may label it a about human frailty and courage. form of insider's trivial pursuit, a "who's The host of stock characters are who" of gay history. Historical figures entertainingly informative, but hardly familiar to the gay lexicon populate fleshed out—lots of glorious moments, Greyson's film—Andre Gide, Jean but few lives. Is this a problem? For Genet, Oscar Wilde. These personages those brought up on Jean-Luc Godard or shift in and out of the mise-en-scene, Jean-Marie Straub, and with a penchant never one-dimensional, always spewing for , the answer is one out in various directions. Linearity is resounding "no." (I am almost nostalgic imposed by music and voice-over narra- for the sixties when film directors were tion. Characters never say something critics and satirists as much as filmmak- when, instead, they can sing it. ers, before the current trend to mindless At times Zero Patience threatens to anti-intellectualism which has taken its veer off into a lecture about camp aes- steely hold, before our present sound- thetics, which critic Susan Sontag has bite, pc mentality.) Like the virus itself, described as "a certain way of seeing the Zero Patience transforms itself so often world as an aesthetic phenomenon, not that the pace and structure prohibits in terms of beauty, but in terms of attachment to any particular character. degree of artifice, of stylization." Gender In characteristic style, Greyson takes referents are suppressed, or slip into one his pick from the past, many of the another, and metaphors substitute for lit- players are shadowy historical figures. eral descriptions. The film carries the Sidestepping the chore of creating char- heavy weight of symbolic baggage, gets to sing. Pharmaceutical companies acters from scratch, real personages are which, on the whole, it carries off with and AIDS activism meet his scrutinizing simply put back to work. Embodying superb art direction and flashes of direc- gaze. Such an auto-critique is indeed ideas, these "readymades" speak and/or torial brillance. Ironic, bitingly funny, courageous, and one of the film's greatest sing, in this case, a plethora of discours- visually stunning, sometimes obscene, strengths. es: medical, scientific, romantic. Yet, in but never boring (although certainly not Sir Richard sets off on a fact-finding spite of this level of artifice, we are, sur- to everyone's taste), Zero Patience delib- mission, meets with Zero's mother, steals prisingly, still drawn in. A constant play erately undermines traditional Hol- his diary, and begins his quest. With with different levels of identification lywood structures and conventions. It is camcorder in hand, he blazes his way takes place. Tearing pleasure out of a film of desire and dialogue, rather than into Zero's life: the friends, the lovers, identification, Zero Patience offers a dif- a commodity for economic exchange. ACT UP meetings, and the bath houses. ferent form of pleasure, visual sumptu- With humour and perceptive analysis, Zero agrees to assist him with his quest, ousness mixed with fodder for the brain, Greyson has managed to create a pas- and Burton gradually reassesses centuries lots to watch and ponder—in different sionate, definitive film about AIDS •