Cronenberg's Canada

While writing the script for Rabid (1977) at producer John Dunning's country house outside Montreal, having a brief loss of confidence in the film's merit, writer/director David Cronenberg admits referring to the film as a story about 'this woman [that] grows a cock thing in her armpit and sucks people's blood through it.'[1] While this might not be the most flattering view of the movie, it is not entirely inaccurate. In response to this, Dunning reassured him that despite this, 'there's something about it' adding, 'it's compelling and weird'[2]. And indeed, while the film can be seen as a dumb horror movie about a woman growing an organ from her armpit, it is at the same time something unusual and certainly with at least some filmic merit. No less weird and certainly no less compelling is Cronenberg's twisted-metal sex-romp completed almost 20 years later - Crash (1996). While he did not need reassurance by now, it must have been nonetheless encouraging for the Canadian director to win a special jury prize at Cannes for his work. While this relative international acclaim might have shined a certain light on Canada, it might be useful to observe how these two works fit within the Canadian context and more importantly within the notion of national identity.

Another Canadian artist, acclaimed experimental filmmaker and feminist Joyce Wieland says that she thinks of Canada as female[3] but does this woman Canada, through Cronenberg's eyes, grow a metaphoric cock thing in her armpit and sucks people's blood through it? Or is it more compelling and weird? In essence, it can be both. Through a formal and thematic analysis of both Rabid and Crash, I intend to examine Canada as presented through the landscapes (Toronto and Montreal) and characters in these films. Through this examination I intend to show that Cronenberg's Canada is deeply influenced by marginalization from society, sexual exploration (both literally and figuratively) and blurred gender roles.

To achieve this, I will first consider the geographical element in both films and how it works toward presenting this view of Canada. How do Montreal and Toronto as well as their less urban outskirts serve to establish the unique Canada presented by Cronenberg? Following I will consider the characters in the two films. Specifically, Marilyn Chambers' character in Rabid and James Spader's in Crash - how do they function in each film and to what purpose? Finally, I will look at the characters' relationship to each other and to the space that they inhabit. How is each affected by the other and what does this say about the Canadian nation?

To begin, let's consider the landscape in both films. While both happen in two of the biggest urban centers of Canada, Rabid starts in a rural setting, on a desolate roadway among decaying shacks and leafless trees. There is still snow on the ground and the dry vegetation and cloudy sky set a tone of gloom and imminent dread. It is not a happy landscape, nor a welcoming one, it is a landscape of abandon, one of solitude and isolation and it is this landscape that sets the mood for the rest of the film. To most Canadians and specifically Montrealers this would be a familiar sight and immediately identifiable with Canada, but it is not enough to set the film as specifically happening in Canada. Using unmistakeably Montreal locations like the Cremazie subway station[4] or Cavendish Mall[5] (sporting a big 'Canadian Tire' sign in the opening shot of the scene) serve to further nail down the fact that this is happening in Canada if one wasn't already convinced.

While Crash starts off right away in a more urban and modern setting, it is again not one that is immediately indicative of Canada. The first shot of landscape that we are presented with is one of a city skyline as seen from the Ballards' apartment[6]. While this is less rural than the one in Rabid, it is nonetheless just as welcoming (that is to say, not very welcoming at all). We see some apartment buildings in the distance, but they are separated by numerous multi-lane highways with buzzing cars. It gives the impression of small pockets of humanity, stacked in concrete prisons and separated by humming death-traps of asphalt and rubber. Later on, like in Rabid, we see more unmistakeably Canadian locations, like the train-bridge overlooking the scrap yard marked in big letters as 'Canadian National Railways'.[7] In fact, Crash makes extensive use of Toronto locations that it becomes a strategic element for asserting (and selling) national specificity[8].

But to what end this preoccupation with the landscape? An insight into this might be what Cronenberg chooses to do to the respective environments in each film. In Rabid he is 'showing an entire city in thrall to rabid maniacs: army trucks, martial law in Montreal and so on.'[9] In essence, he has taken the familiar and everyday and shaped it into something out of the ordinary. He has disrupted the normal environment which his characters inhabit into something hostile, something unknown, something that they are thrust into without a choice. Seeing familiar Montreal locations manned by armed guards, people lining up for controls, army trucks with masked biological response personnel fighting maniacs on the streets - this is not the Montreal that we are familiar with. This is a more hostile and unwelcoming city. This is a city that tells us to stay indoors and lock our door.

Similarly, Crash presents an equally hostile environment. Here, again, Cronenberg is taking the everyday and changes, disrupts it to its liking. The fact that Cronenberg was allowed to 'close sections of major Toronto freeways in order to film car crashes and actors making explicit, moaning love amidst the wreckage'[10] was nothing less than disruptive, one would imagine. It is a striking reminder that we are never safe. The highways that we drive to work on every day are presented as dark and dangerous death traps. They are inhabited by maniacs like Vaughan and his gang which turn them into their own personal playground. But despite this, we still inhabit this place.

This representation of the geography makes the works distinctly Canadian. Not only because the 'representation of landscape has a long and venerable history within Canadian culture'[11] but also because in these two films, the landscape is modified by technology. Be it the martial law in Montreal, with the army trucks and disinfectation crews or the highways and emergency-response crews in Toronto, there is a clear conflict here between technology and nature. This conflict, argues Longfellow, lies at the heart of Canadian philosophical tradition.[12]

This opposition, however, is not only apparent in the presence of landscapes in the film. We also observe it in the characters that inhabit it. In Rabid, Chambers' character undergoes experimental plastic surgery. This immediately places her as the central point of conflict - she is transformed, mutated, with the help of technology into something different, something 'other'. She becomes marginalized, having to hide her new state from society while at once needing to reveal it in order to survive. She infects others - they become brainless maniacs. Another conflict is created - brainless maniacs vs. normal population. Martial law sets in and people are given identity cards - Chambers doesn't have one, so she is again an outsider, an outcast in the face of the normal.

This same marginalization appears in Crash. First in the police raid on Vaughan's crash re-enactment; we are reminded that what they are doing is something illegal. But it goes much deeper than that. Vaughn quickly 'corrects a view we might first have had that this incursion of the police is a demonstration of the marginality of crash culture' stating 'it's not the police. It’s the department of transport' - they are merely a nuisance, an irrelevance'.[13] And indeed, we do not easily dismiss this marginalization as simply being something defined by its illegality. We have to be introduced to the whole 'family' to grasp the full extent of the phenomenon.

The characters in Crash are obsessed with the pleasure and pain drawn from the crashes of American public icons. [14] This obsession and deep familiarity with intricate details about the lives (and deaths) of public icons, even if not illegal, can be seen as a marginalizing element that defines a society outside of the norm. Further, their performances are grotesquely exaggerated versions of what similar versions might be within the Hollywood star-system which causes the system to collapse[15] and we are left with something distinctly unique that, again, strays from the norm (of Hollywood film and as consequence of normal everyday life). In this sense, the community formed by the characters in crash can be distinguished by the style in which it is imagined (that is, one of marginalization, obsession and sexual exploration) which is precisely why it forms a community[16]. This imagined community then, becomes the basis for the nation of which it is part of, since the nation is an imagined community in itself - both as inherently limited and sovereign.[17] It is exactly this notion of an imagined community that Cronenberg uses to express 'Canada'. 'He articulates Canada not as an authentic national essence to be uncovered or realized, but as a constructed process of narration.'[18] And indeed, this nation is 'imagined not as an invulnerable national body, but as an entangled network of contested relations traversing "America" and "Canada."'[19]

But what of this network of contested relations? Cronenberg casts primarily American actors in the lead roles of both movies. He puts them through accidents and subsequent surgeries, and presents them as emerging marginalized individuals. As in most Cronenberg movies, we have characters in the midst of a transformation caused by something tangible and hostile from the outside, but inevitably born from within - either mentally or physically.[20] In Rabid it is something physical that was caused from outside (surgery) but born from within (phallic organ that emerges to suck blood). In Crash it is a mental transformation (interest in car-crash sex) caused from the outside (Vaughan's influence) but again born from within (the Ballard's already dysfunctional sex habits). Finally, they all emerge to be characters that Cronenberg is well versed in, that is, uptight and emotionally repressed people altered by acts of their own imagination, or else symbolically altered by grotesque creatures of Cronenberg's own imagination. [21]

But what does this say about the nature of Canadians? Are we all just Americans that underwent some horrific transformational or surgical process which turned us into depressed sociopathic perverts? Maybe not literally, but figuratively - yes. Let us see how this works in Rabid for example. We start off with an American porn star - Marilyn Chambers - blonde, blue eyes and all too eager to please (both man and woman) in bed. Enter Canada and the Keloid Clinic (thank you free healthcare) and we end up with blood-sucking armpit-penis monster. Again, looking at it all figuratively, what does this tell us? The image of the submissive American girl is transformed to one that (to our apparent horror) is all too eager to release her female 'activeness' - an apparently horrific and disgusting process[22] (in the face of American standards at least). Of course the flipside negative argument to this is that Cronenberg is portraying female sexuality as predatory[23] which did not seem to bother him seeing how he saw it as a no-win situation and that even if he did every character in the movie by the feminist 'book' - depending of course by which feminist book - he still could not satisfy everybody[24].

How does this same principle work in Crash then? Here, like in many other Cronenberg works, there is the 'pervasive fascination with forms of perverse sexuality'[25]. Which parts are perverse in Crash? That would depend on how open-minded the society within which it functions is. I would assume that penetrating an open wound in a public parking lot can safely be considered perverse in most situations. But what does it say about us as Canadians vis-à-vis our southern neighbours? Other than the fact that we produced a director brave enough to churn out this kind of film and get awarded a prize at Cannes for it, we also let him do it right in our back yard. Production details aside, however, there are more elements in Crash that not only distinguish it from Hollywood but also render it a distinctly Canadian work. Here again Cronenberg shows us 'people digging away at their insides, desperate to get something out of them - desperate to express themselves in some way… or other.'[26] And indeed much like the characters in Crash Canada is in a way desperate to express itself, desperate to find a way to convey some national identity not in the face of American culture but rather as an individual, stand-alone entity. And much like the characters in Crash we are finding it difficult (though not impossible) to accomplish.

This difficulty is accepted however. One of many explanations for this is provided by Cronenberg himself, describing his introduction to the 'fierce nationalism' of Quebec and 'how well it worked in terms of a very enclosed culture that could excite itself' and that it is 'very hard for English-Canadian culture to excite English Canadians' because 'they are excited by Americana.'[27] But it is precisely the expression of this difficulty that gives Cronenberg's work its strength. His work is a peculiarly Canadian work exactly because it 'crystallizes a particular national angst'[28]

In conclusion, we have seen various elements that shape Cronenberg's Canada through Rabid and Crash. We looked at the landscape in the films and its significance to the Canadian nation-building process. We have seen that landscape allows the director to work on several themes that identify his work as Canadian, in particular the theme of conflict among technology and nature. Second, we have observed the characters in both films and their marginalization and sexual exploration/deviance. We have seen how they form the basis for the constructed Canadian imagined community as portrayed by Cronenberg. Further, I examined the characters' relationship to themselves, their habitat and their surroundings. We have seen their American roots, their transformation and their eternal search for identity. Together, these elements are in a way paradigmatic for the Canadian nation and its imagined national identity. This identity is not as 'clear-cut' as one would expect it to be, but rather it is formed from the relationship Canadians have vis-à-vis their southern neighbours. This particular situation, which doesn't allow the members of the community the privilege to have an easily identifiable identity and as consequence an easy way to associate with this identity, renders them in a permanent state of flux. It creates this national angst that is apparent within Cronenberg's work and which is one of the elements that forms what has come to be reluctantly identified as our national identity. And while most would be content with seeing this fact as something compelling and weird, it is not entirely unfathomable for a good part of us to see it as a major blood sucking cock thing in our collective armpit.

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[1] Cronenberg, 1993, p53

[2] Cronenberg, 1993, p53

[3] Longfellow, 1999, p167

[4] Cronenberg, 1977, [1'00"14]

[5] Cronenberg, 1977, [1'05"25]

[6] Cronenberg, 1996, [0'06"16]

[7] Cronenberg 1996, [1'22"39]

[8] Lowenstein, 2005, p170

[9] Cronenberg, 1993, p53

[10] Lowenstein, 2005, p164,

[11] Longfellow, 1999, p180

[12] Longfellow, 1999, p166

[13] Boyne, 1999, p48

[14] Lowenstein, 2005, p171

[15] Lowenstein, 2005, p174

[16] Anderson, 1991, p6

[17] Anderson, 1991, p6

[18] Lowenstein, 2005, p150

[19] Lowenstein, 2005, p175

[20] Monk, 2001, p234

[21] Monk, 2001, p234

[22] Wood, 1983, p130

[23] Cronenberg, 1993, p56

[24] Cronenberg, 1993, p56

[25] Wood, 1983, p126

[26] Monk, 2001, p234

[27] Cronenberg, 1993, p36

[28] Wood, 1983, p126

REFERENCES

Anderson, B. R. (1991). Introduction. In B. R. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (pp. 1-7). New York: Verso.

Boyne, R. (1999). Crash Theory: The Ubiquity of the Fetish at the End of Time. Angelaki: journal of the theoretical humanities , 4 (2), 41-53.

Cronenberg, D. (Director). (1996). Crash [Motion Picture]. Canada.

Cronenberg, D. (1993). Cronenberg on Cronenberg. London, Boston: Faber and Faber.

Cronenberg, D. (Director). (1977). Rabid [Motion Picture]. Canada.

Longfellow, B. (1999). Gender Landscape, and Colonial Allegories in The Far Shore, Loyalties, and Mouvements du désir. In K. Armatage, Gendering the Nation: Canadian Women's Cinema (pp. 165-182). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Lowenstein, A. (2005). Trauma and Nation Made Flesh: David Cronenberg and the Foundations of the Allegorical Moment. In Shocking representation : historical trauma, national cinema, and the modern horror film (pp. 145-175). New York: Columbia University Press.

Monk, K. (2001). The Incredible Weight of Being: Talking Philosophy with the Grim Reaper. Profile—David Cronenberg. In Weird Sex & Snowshoes: And Other Canadian Film Phenomena (pp. 209-238). Vancouver: Raincoast Books.

Wood, R. (1983). Cronenberg: A Dissenting View. In P. Handling, The Shape of rage : the films of David Cronenberg (pp. 115-135). Toronto: General Publishing Co.

David Secter's Winter Kept Us Warm (1965)

As a pre-Omnibus Bill film, David Secter’s Winter Kept Us Warm (1965) is a film that deals with a subject which was technically still illegal in Canada, but this is not what makes it groundbreaking. The fact that it was the first Canadian feature to be invited to Cannes, gives it an important place in Canadian film history, but this, as well, is not why this film is groundbreaking. One must look deeper within the work itself and the way it fits in the society that it comes from to see this – deeper than mere anecdotal facts such as the above which are more akin to a statistical analysis as opposed to the sociocultural one that makes it groundbreaking. Specifically, we must observe how the film fits within the queer film context and how it contributed to its shaping. How is the way that the film deals with the subject of homosexuality special and why is this way of dealing with the subject important? Furthermore, the context in which the film takes place, namely the English Canadian universitary circle of the 1960’s, has a significant importance in relation to the subject of homosexuality, specifically, but also more broadly to the subject of Canadian national identity.

To examine this, I shall first consider the way the film deals with the subject of homosexuality – how is the subject broached and why? Second, I will explore at the Canadian context of the film – who are the characters and what space do they inhabit, what society are they part of and why is this important? Lastly. I will look at the way that the two subjects converge and influence each other. How the queer subject matter fits in the Canadian context and how does it influence it? Do they mirror each other in a way or are they separate and distinct entities?

To begin with, the subject of homosexuality in Winter Kept Us Warm, is presented in a very subtle way, a way which has caused many (then and today) to doubt that it is a queer film at all. Even in Richard Roud’s Cannes review, he writers ‘all of a sudden one realises that one has got it all wrong, that something quite different is happening there on the screen’[1] seemingly not identifying the film as queer until a certain watershed moment when he realizes what the subject really is. And indeed, one would have difficulty identifying the work as queer cinema from the get-go. The main characters are both presented as heterosexuals, complete with girlfriends and closeted denial (‘Oh come on, cut it out, Bev.’[2]). But despite this, we soon realize that Doug and Peter’s relationship is ‘more than male bonding and even more than frolicking in the snow’[3]

But why this ambiguity? Why this subtlety? The answer is twofold. One reason might be the time and place within which the film was produced. It would be conceivable that Secter would have had many more problems than he already had to bring this film to light if he was making an overtly gay movie. Considering it was his first feature and he had almost no budget, if he had to deal with a possible political turmoil that the production could have caused if it was deemed a queer-film, one could consider the possibility of the film never seeing the light of day. It is no wonder then that even some of the cast members did not feel they were making a queer film. The other equally valid reason could be simply the fact that Secter wanted to make a film about characters that were themselves ambiguous and unsure of their identities. This is to say, we are not sure (or are not supposed to be) of their homosexuality for the simple reason that they are not sure of it themselves. This does not only put the film in another dimension of narrative (one more complex than a mere precursor to Brokeback Mountain (2005)) but also gives it a certain authenticity. One would conceive that individuals in that time and that social milieu would indeed be confused and unsure of their nascent homosexuality.

On to the Canadian context of the film – it is important to note that the film does not hide its Canadian origin. Unlike other Canadian films that ‘often seem to disguise their nationality’ by hiding Canadian speech or artifacts like money and license plates[4], Winter Kept Us Warm doesn’t shy from showing us recognizable Toronto locations and filming exclusively on location at the UofT residence and campus. In this sense it overtly identifies itself as a Canadian film happening in Canada (as opposed to a Canadian film that could very well be happening anywhere in the world).

Other than geography alone, however, one must also consider the society and era in which this is taking place. Like mentioned before, the era is 1965 Canada, pre-Omnibus Bill, meaning that the subject of homosexuality isn’t only taboo, it is also technically illegal. Furthermore, the characters are not subjects that are already identifiable as marginal (like the leather-clad Bikers of Anger’s Scorpio Rising(1964) for example), instead, they are ‘worried young men in conservative suits and narrow ties learning folk songs and dating girlfriends.’[5] What this means is that the subjects in Winter Kept Us Warm are characters which would otherwise be welcome as examples of Canadian citizen by the conservative right. They are not characters that would already be dismissed by the viewer before even learning of their budding homosexuality. Furthermore, they embody an ideal that ‘the institution’ (be it the university-circle academia or the more conservative nation-defining cultural powers-that-be) would be quite happy to present as a paradigm of young Canadians (to other Canadians and to non-Canadians alike). In this respect, the Canadian nature of the film takes on a whole new importance: It does not only present itself as ‘overtly’ Canadian but it also presents a quite complex and previously unexplored facet of Canadian identity.

Finally, we can look at how the two subjects presented so far interact with each other. In his essay, Thomas Waugh explores the subject of the Queer nation and reaches the conclusion that the Canadian queer cinema adds up to a national cinema by its nature of “otherness” in face of the corresponding American models.[6] One can argue, however, that Canadian queer cinema also stands as a national cinema independently of its conformity or lack thereof against the American model. Much like the characters in Winter Kept Us Warm one can argue that the English Canadian cinema and more specifically its Canadian identity is one that appears conservative on the surface while containing a turmoil of self-questioning identity-searching underneath.

While one can be tempted to easily dismiss this argument of surface-conservatism by bringing up the various NFB documentaries and animated films, or even the many experimental works with which Canadian cinema is often associated with, one must look within the same type of cinema in order to properly characterize a national cinema. While it might indeed be true that Canadian cinema is known for films other than the narrative type, one must look at how the Canadian identity shows itself within each type of cinema rather considering the types themselves as an identity. Since Winter Kept Us Warm is narrative, one must consider the narrative film as a gauge. In this respect, the film is of great importance to Canadian cinema in as far as establishing an identify of identity-searching. Much like Peter and Doug are struggling with the question of their identity, so does Canadian cinema struggles to define itself in the face of other cinemas but more importantly in relation to itself. While the homosexual subtext is not directly indicative of the nature of Canadian cinema, one finds many parallels between the two. The pressure to conform (to hetero society or to our southern neighbours), the struggle to find an identity and the struggle to accept this identity, the difficulty in presenting this identity to others – all are examples of these kinds of parallels.

In conclusion, we have seen that Secter’s Winter Kept Us Warm is not only a groundbreaking film but also an important part of the English Canadian national cinema. Starting with the queer nature of the film, we observed that the subject is presented in a subtle manner which created some ambiguity, albeit a natural and necessary ambiguity. Next I considered the Canadian context of the film, showing that it is an openly Canadian work and that, on the surface, it dealt with a part of Canadian society that is often associated with conservative and mainstream society (as opposed to a marginalized part of Canadian society). Finally, the interaction between the two subjects shows that not only is Winter Kept Us Warm a groundbreaking film in terms of queer cinema, it is also an important component of English Canadian national cinema. Overall one can argue that the film doesn’t make for a characteristic piece of either queer cinema or Canadian cinema, which in a way makes it even more Canadian than a movie that would be obviously Canadian and queer. It is this subtlety, this quiet but powerful nature of the film that makes it all the more Canadian than anything - perhaps it is even more Canadian than it is queer.

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[1] Roud 1966, p154

[2] Secter 1965

[3] Waugh 2001, p288

[4] Locke 1977, p18

[5] Waugh 2001, p300

[6] Waugh 2001, p300

REFERENCES

Locke, J. W. (1977). A Healthy Case of Craziness. Cinema Canada 41, 17-18; 20-21

Roud, R. (1966). The Cannes Festival. Sight and Sound 35.3, 154

Secter, D. (Director). (1965). Winter Kept Us Warm [Motion Picture]. Canada: Varsity

Waugh, T. (2001). Fairy Tales of Two Cities: or Queer Nation(s)—National Cinema(s). In a Queer Country Terry Goldie, ed. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 285-305.