Culture, Sexuality and Politics in Deepa Mehta's Fire

In Indian-Canadian director Deepa Mehta's 1996 film Fire, the first part of her "Elements" trilogy (followed by Earth (1998) and Water (2005)); Nandita Das's character, Sita, talks about the difficulty of expressing her lesbian relationship in her native tongue, saying "there's no word in our language for what we are, how we feel for each other"[1]. A statement which might seem odd to a western viewer, considering the film occurs in 1996 India, when (one would imagine) vocabulary exists for referring to phenomena even if said phenomena is (supposedly) not socially/morally accepted or widespread in such a (relatively) diverse and developed society. Regardless of the term's actual existence in Hindi, the fact that its use was not common enough (or at least not appropriate enough) for Sita's character to consider as describing her relationship with Radha (Shabana Azmi), says something about the way in which the behaviour itself was seen (or hidden) in the society that the characters inhabit. Director Mehta herself refers to the opinion of a lot of Indians which insist that "lesbians don't exist in [Indian] culture!"[2] She further elaborates that "Indians don't talk about sex" jokingly adding: "A country of a billion people, and they don't talk about sex."[3] Statistics aside, however (or precisely in light of these 'statistics'), the fact that sex is considered taboo even when practiced in its socially acceptable (heterosexual) form, only further goes to show the deep layer of taboo that a same-sex relationship might be shrouded in. The other thing to notice about that sentence is the fact that Mehta refers to Indians as "they", despite being Indian herself. While having emigrated to Canada at 23, Mehta makes films set in India, with Indian actors and generally identifies as an Indian filmmaker (which is not to say that she does not shy from referring to herself as a Canadian or Indian-Canadian filmmaker either). While it is plausible that this choice of words might have had more to do with the medium and audience at which it was directed (the English-speaking audience of the New York Magazine) it can be equally indicative of her feelings towards aforementioned Indian taboo of sex, seeking (perhaps unconsciously) to distance herself from the phenomena. Indeed, considering her work as a whole and Fire in particular, one can see why Mehta would not like to identify with the part of Indian society that claims that "lesbians do not exist". A mere choice of words, however, be it intentional or not, is not enough to understand the filmmaker's view of the subject and this view's overall significance to Indian society in particular and to sexuality in general.

To adequately appreciate this view, one must consider several elements as relating to Mehta's Fire, both in terms of the film's content and in terms of the socio-cultural landscape that it explores and its reception in said landscape. In doing so, I intend to show that Mehta's Fire redefines queer film by adapting it to the Indian cultural context while exploring the issues stemming from the heavily patriarchal nature of her home country.

To do this, I will begin by looking at the reception that the film had in India and the turmoil surrounding its 1998 release. In addition to issues raised by the events, I will consider the element of free speech as articulated by both opposing and supporting sides of the conflict at the time of the film's premiere in India. I will look at some of the arguments used by both supporting and opposing parties, as well as the significance that these arguments have as relating to both the homosexual and cultural aspects of the film. Following this and directly stemming from it, I will consider some cultural issues that the debates raised. These issues do not only provide a helpful background for understanding the environment into which the film was released, but also aid in exploring some of the problems raised by the film with said environment. How does Indian culture (and here I refer to 'Indian culture' in the broadest sense, seeing how it is practically impossible to generalize or essentialize such a diverse environment) reconcile the idea of homosexuality, both in the present and in its history, and how does this feed into the queer context of the film. Finally, I will explore this very queer context, looking at how it's manifest in Mehta's film in particular but also within the larger Indian society and more broadly in a global context.

To start, one can look at the events surrounding the film's release in India. In the section dealing with India, between a paragraph about Australian missionary Graham Stewart being burned to death by Hindu extremists and one about the Pakistani cricket team's less than ideal visit to Bombay, The 1999 edition of the Human Rights Watch World Report notes: "In December 1998, the award-winning film Fire, by director Deepa Mehta, was recalled from theatres after Shiv Sena activists vandalized at least fifteen cinemas where it was playing. Sena members objected to the film's depiction of a lesbian relationship between two Hindu sisters-in-law, adding that had the women been Muslim there would be no objection"[4]. Putting aside for a moment the actual details of the story, the mere fact that the events surrounding the film's release warranted a mention in the Human Rights Watch World Report, especially among such serious stories (which is not to say that Fire's release wasn't serious), only manages to show how grave the situation really was. When the events surrounding a film's release are considered a human rights violation, especially by an international organization like the Human Rights Watch, one must look at the significance that this event might have had on the overall impression of the film. The more interesting part of that note, is that the Shiv Sena say there would have been no objection to the lesbian relationship if the women were Muslim. This says something crucial about the issue at hand (primarily with extremists but to a certain extent also with moderates opposing its release), that is, the issue is not so much the fact that there is a lesbian relationship depicted, but rather that the characters partaking in this act are members of the dominant cultural (and similarly religious and moral) majority. To put this in a more western perspective, one could draw parallels with Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005), drawing controversy not so much because it featured a homosexual relationship, but rather because the homosexuals were cowboys, a fact which destabilized some cultural codes which, up until that point, would not have been the subject that kind of "attack" in the mainstream. India of 1998 was not, however, the American conservative right of 2005, and the repercussions of this sort of intrusion into the cultural fabric of the country were felt long after the film had its debut. When attempting to shoot Water, the last part of the trilogy, in 2000, Mehta was met with threats and demonstrations which ultimately prevented her from going on with the shoot and delaying it for five years, to finally be completed in 2005[5].

What is even more interesting, however, is the conflict among the protesters which were against the film's censorship, a detail that even further goes to show the unique cultural significance the issue of the same sex relationship has in the society. Bachman talks of "the conflict between those who wanted to stress democratic rights and freedom of speech in general and those who wished to bring forward the specific issue of lesbian rights,"[6] noting "the contradiction inherent in some free-speech protestors' requests that lesbians censor themselves"[7]. Here, people that are essentially "fighting on the same side", with ultimately the same goal (unbanning the film) enter in conflict over the very issue for which the film got in trouble to begin with. On one hand this might seem hypocritical, to fight for a freedom but at the same time demand its restriction on others. But instead of decrying the labelling of a group's subset as "last among equals" (the reverse of primus inter pares) which implies that somehow a minority is less entitled to fight for the same right as the rest of the group fighting for this right, one must look at why this might be the case in this particular instance. One reason might be, that the issue is so strongly ingrained in the culture of the society at hand that a double standard as to the entitlement to participate in an activity is accepted because the gravity of a same-sex-relationship in this society (even among moderates) overrides the overall fight for freedom of speech. Finding an equivalent to this situation is more difficult in a Western society, but one would imagine most groups fighting for whatever rights in the west (as liberal as they might be) might be reluctant to receive support from and as consequence be associated with an organization such as NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association - assuming it was still in existence), mainly due to moral codes in effect, which could bring the opposite outcome of the one that this hypothetical group is seeking. In fact, the mere analogy of lesbian rights in India to aforementioned organization is in itself problematic, and can very well serve to destabilize the argument being made, even though it was only used to better illustrate a point than rather to draw direct parallels. Ultimately however, Bachmann notes, Fire's primary value lay precisely in the debate surrounding the film[8], and quoting Rima Banerji: "Fire's most compelling point is the manner in which it has become a truly public text, the subject of controversy in the media and among viewers… The fact that it has elicited such strong reactions from critics and spectator is perhaps its most notable redeeming quality…For those of us who are lesbians, the film is a milestone because it has pushed the politics of same-sex love into the limelight with an unprecedented amount of publicity and hype"[9].

Indeed, this public debate was used to explore issues of cultural identity present in the Indian society. As Geeta Patel notes, "cultural nationalisms were at stake here, and the debate centered around what forms these nationalisms might take and which citizens would have access to controlling them"[10]. The problem of including lesbians as part of the Indian cultural identity (or even acknowledging their existence) became essentially a struggle not only to define what the Indian cultural identity is, but further a struggle to decide who should be allowed to influence this definition. In the case of Mehta's film, this cultural identity was presented as one where unhappy wives turn to each other because the institution of marriage is not as perfect as some would like to pretend, and even if the marriage was perfect (since some took issue with them turning to each other for the sole reason of their respective failed marriages - an issue I'll explore later), society would not allow them to be together for moral reasons. Further, allowing her film to be shown, thus disseminating this view of the Indian cultural identity, would essentially make her one of the "citizens [with] access to control [the form of Indian nationalism]" which was the problematic issue being debated. The subsequent writing of the Supreme Court which "sought to uphold all citizens' democratic rights to free viewing and showing," demanding "an open public sphere, open for discussion, open to multiple representations that could be articulated and watched in safety" was not enough however, as the film was eventually banned quoting emergency government power against a threat of public safety[11]. But despite this, the issue of deciding if lesbians were part of the nationalism remained. The fact that Sita claims "there is no word in our language for what we are" might prove that they are not part of this nationalism. On the other hand however, "the storm of commentary and countercommentary about Fire proves wrong Sita's statement"[12] and "the many conflicting voices tell us that while there may be no adequate single word, there is certainly no shortage of words deployed to explain what we are, to interpret and reinterpret the fiery images on contemporary India's cultural screen."[13]

But what of this cultural screen upon which Fire is projected? Patel refers to the fact that for all intents and purposes, Fire operates within the framework of a Bollywood plot, pointing to the fact that the "trials and tribulations of difficult love" and "love against the grain within a joint family", both elements present in Fire, are part of "a genre with a long history, beginning in the nineteenth century."[14] In this respect, Fire would seem to conform to the very conventions which its detractors feared were being shattered. It is however, this very conformity (or rather apparent conformity), that posed the most difficulty to individuals that opposed the film. Patel further elaborates that while on the surface Fire conforms to the Bollywood formula, in practice it breaks away from it. According to Patel, the Bollywood genre of "love against the grain" was about the "disruptions provoked by desire and the resolution offered for those provocations" against a background of an anticolonial nationalist heteropatriarchy[15].This "triangle", as Patel refers to it, was never broken by the "lodging [of] desire in places of sexed sameness"[16]. Essentially what Mehta does with Fire is work on some cultural expectations with a long tradition in Indian society, "lulling" the viewers with the familiar until they are comfortable and only then shatter this comfort with a lesbian relationship which forced the viewer to receive and "swallow" it before they could decide if they'd like to "digest" it. An unfair move on Mehta's part, if it weren't for the fact that lesbianism wasn’t something that broke away from Indian tradition but merely something that, over the years, with the help of the political right in India, became taboo. Pointing to grandparents' stories, folk songs and the sculptures in Khajuraho and Konark (which depict, among others, lesbian relationships), Bachmann shows that lesbians are not new to Indian culture. In this sense, Fire not so much unfairly introduces foreign elements into Indian culture, but rather resurrects elements which, over time, have become close to extinct, and forces the viewer to acknowledge them because they form an actual part of current Indian society.

The inclusion or exclusion of this element in Indian society however, demanded that sex be considered in terms of political economies, something that is accomplished by "aligning" the different bodies at play (both abstract bodies such as religious or right of choice bodies, and specific ones like the bodies of the women in Fire), thus "transmuting the body of person into forms of the body politic"[17]. But while this way of reading the film enables us to discuss it in terms of politics, we run the risk of abstracting away from the analysis of the same-sex sexuality present in Fire[18]. According to Levitin, "the lesbian outcome was arguably not necessary in a film about the choice to leave a bad marriage"[19] and in fact "Mehta likely would not have been funded by Canada to make Fire as a film about lesbians and, allegorically, about the hold of tradition and a call for choice"[20]. Indeed, this view was shared by some critics (mainly white straight males and some lesbian according to Tom Waugh) who challenged the film as a mere "contextual theory of lesbianism, women driven into each others' beds only by husbandly neglect"[21]. But while this might be a valid argument, the film can work as an open text and the lesbian relationship can function as gateway for discussing a myriad of other issues that women in India (and to some extent elsewhere) are faced with. While a more conservative reading of the film can indeed point to the husband's neglect as the reason for the lesbianism, a liberal one can see the lesbianism as happening despite the heavily heterosexual and male-dominated society which the characters inhabit, a society which would have prevented the relationship from happening. Paraphrasing Carol Upadhya from Economic and Political Weekly, Bachmann notes that "the depiction of Radha and Sita's desire for each other makes more space for all women to challenge oppressive family and social relations" which in turn, according to Upadhya, renders the film "a feminist, not just a lesbian, project"[22].

So on one hand we have the lesbianism as caused by "inadequate" male counterparts or as a rebellion against said male counterparts - but what of the same-sex relationship itself? Is it used merely to contrast an unjust patriarchal society and to illustrate the rebellion against said society, or can it stand on its own as unquestionably discussing gay issues without any other "hidden" motive? According to Bachmann, paraphrasing Shohini Ghosh, the film's depiction of sexuality and its connection to the construction of gender renders the film "pioneering, in that it casts gender as a construction involving factors far more complex, fluid and abstract than biology would have us believe"[23]. While this theory does not refute the previous two, which cast the visible representation of female same-sex desire as a comment on women being kept "in their place" within the heterosexual home, it does so by "unsettling the definitions of gender", the very definitions that place the woman at home[24]. In linking lesbianism and feminism through the concept of gender construction,[25] we avoid the favoring of either element on the expense of the other, and similarly avoid reducing lesbianism to a simple cause-and-effect equation or as symbolic for other issues separate from lesbianism itself. As such, Fire is both a feminist and a lesbian film, and neither element overshadows the other, in fact they converge into one cohesive discourse regarding women's' issues in India, issues that are equally concerned with feminist, lesbian and a myriad of other aspects of women's' lives. By using the various elements (feminism, same-sex relationship, male oppression, heterosexual society, gender construction) to support each other, instead of using most to support a single one, Fire uniquely portrays the multifaceted reality that its characters are part of.

In conclusion, we have seen how Deepa Mehta's Fire manages to bring the queer film to Indian cultural context and what are some of the issues that it explores in doing so. Looking at the circumstances surrounding its release in India and the this release's impact in Indian society, both culturally and politically, we observed the significance that it had in generating public discourse and strong reactions which reflect the country's moral and political state. Further, I considered the issue of the Indian cultural heritage which the film used as canvas. I have looked at some of the reactions and misconceptions that various groups had regarding the nature of culture and the right to shape this culture. Also discussed was the way in which Fire uses this canvas to paint its own picture of Indian culture and how it displays this picture to the Indian audience. Finally, considering the same-sex relationship in the film I have seen how it operates in terms of a lesbian project and how this fact was viewed after the film's release. The way in which the lesbian aspect of Fire was either explained as a an effect of other issues or as a tool for the advancement of other agendas, separate than gay rights, was considered and ultimately linked to feminism through the concept of gender construction. Ultimately, there are many other issues left unexplored, namely the uniquely transborder qualities of the filmmaker and her own identity as Indian, Canadian and Indian-Canadian. There is no doubt however that, as Tom Waugh notes, the "larger context of a transnational artistic milieu where courage is rare and a turbulent planetary traffic in sexual identities increasingly calls into question cultural and national borders confirms Fire's status as a historic moment in Canadian - and Indian - queer film history"[26]. As such, it is perhaps fitting that the film was made by a director with a "hyphenated" national identity, a quality which enables Mehta to view both the weaknesses of her two cultures as an outside observer as well as their strengths as an integral part of said cultures. And while the fact that she is not gay herself risks rendering her as less apt at expressing issues affecting gay people (in both India and Canada), it was perhaps an important first step which shows that these issues do not preoccupy gay people alone, but are rather of broader significance to people everywhere.. . . .

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[1] Mehta, 1996, [1'33'14"]

[2] Falvo, 1997, 157

[3] Ibid. 157

[4] Human Rights Watch, 1999, 189

[5] Knegt, 2005, 36

[6] Bachmann, 2002, 241

[7] Ibid. 241

[8] Ibid, 239

[9] Banerji, 1999,18,19

[10] Patel, 2002, 230

[11] Ibid, 230.

[12] Bachmann, 2002, 241

[13] Ibid., 242

[14] Patel, 2002, 230

[15] Ibid., 230.

[16] Ibid., 230.

[17] Ibid., 231.

[18] Ibid., 231.

[19] Levitin, 2002, 286

[20] Ibid., 284.

[21] Waugh, 2006, 468

[22] Bachmann, 2002, 237

[23] Ibid., 241

[24] Ibid., 241

[25] Ibid., 241

[26] Waugh, 2006, 468

REFERENCES

Bachmann, Monica. "After the Fire." In Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society, edited by Ruth Vanita, 234-244. New York and London: Routledge, 2002.

Banerji, Rima. "Still on Fire." Manushi, no. 113 (July-August 1999): 18,19.

Falvo, Patricia. "Talent in the line of Fire." New York Magazine, August 1997: 157.

Human Rights Watch Staff. Human Rights Watch World Report 2000: Events of December 1998-November 1999. New York, Washington, London, Brussels: Human Rights Watch, 1999.

Knegt, Peter. "Beautifully Elemental. Review of Water. Directed by Deepa Mehta." Exclaim! Magazine, November 2005: 36.

Levitin, Jacqueline. "Deepa Mehta as Transnational Filmmaker, or You Can't Go Home Again." In North of everything: English-Canadian cinema since 1980, by William Beard and Jerry White, 270-293. Edmonton: University of Alberta, 2002.

Fire. Directed by Deepa Mehta. Trial by Fire Films Inc., 1996.

Patel, Geeta. "On Fire:Sexuality and Its Incitements." In Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society, edited by Ruth Vanita, 222-233. New York and London: Routledge, 2002.

Waugh, Thomas. "Deepa Mehta." In The Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Natins, Cinemas, 468-469. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006.

Visconti's Death in Venice

In his 1971 adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel Death in Venice, director Luchino Visconti cast Dirk Bogarde in the role of composer Gustav von Aschenbach. While the casting seemed to be effective overall, it also raised some issues against the original novel. As Geoffrey Wagner notes, "the real difficulty is the appearance of Bogarde, looking like an absent-minded professor who is in reality a lecherous fag…"[1]. But while the characterization of Bogarde's Aschenbach as a "lecherous fag" might prove slightly exaggerated, the fact that this poses a "difficulty" might require some further exploration. How does Aschenbach's homosexuality fit in to the larger picture of Death in Venice and why, regardless of Wagner's opinion on Bogdade's appearance, might this be difficult? With an analysis of Visconti's film, I intend to show that the same-sex attraction in Death in Venice serves to further elaborate on the conditions of art and life as relating to the homosexual context of the early 20^th century. To do this, I will first examine the historical context of both the film/book's plot in the early 20^th century and its relation to the Visconti production of the early 1970's. How is Visconti's film and Aschenbach's same-sex attraction work in both the plot's and the film's respective historical places in time. Following I will look at the concept of the (gay) artist in Visconti's film. How does the idea of the homosexual artist relate to both the fictional Aschenbach and to Visconti himself. Finally, I will explore the relationship that the homosexual artist in history, through Death in Venice, has to art and life. What significance does Aschenbach's attraction to Tadzio have in light of his character as a (supposedly) failed, dying artist and how does Visconti use this to deliver his message.

First I shall consider the historical context of the book's plot as well as Visconti's 1971 production. While Death in Venice can work well as a timeless "parable about longing and obsession" it is also very much a "mise-en-scène of the homosexual condition in a certain historical epoch"[2]. This historical epoch, if we are to accept Mann's wife's memoirs about their actual holiday in Venice which inspired the book[3], would have been 1911, a year before the book was published and still very relevant when the book would have been first read. Not so was the case with Visconti's work, which in the early 1970's could already be categorized as a period piece. By then, Mann's book and as consequence Visconti's film would have been only a "final celebration of a departed … sexual regime", "nostalgic and anachronistic within the rapidly changing gay cultural context"[4]. In essence, Mann's book's relevance at the beginning of the 20^th century was of a quite different nature than Visconti's film was in the early 70's. While Mann's book considered gay issues as they were happening, Visconti's film reminded us of the way they used to be and as consequence showed us how they have changed. The presence of young Tadzio's character, while not so jarring in the early 1900's, posed a definite challenge in the early 70's, especially with "the tightening taboos on pedophilia within sociomedical-juridical discourse… [and] changing conceptions of the economic role and sexual identity of the child"[5]. Further, Tadzio poses a problem in Visconti's film due to the fact that he "had to be visualized and thus particularized instead of appearing more or less just as a projection of Aschenbach's mind"[6]. Since "Visconti has no time to insinuate Tadzio into Aschenbach's consciousness as deftly and delicately as …the original author"[7] did, it rendered the exchanges between Tadzio and Aschenbach more as actual events than the internal thoughts and contemplations of Aschenbach's character that Mann might have intended.

Regardless of his representation in Death In Venice however, Tadzio represents the ephebe male type as defined by Thomas Waugh[8]. But while Tadzio is the ephebe, Aschenbach is by no means its polar opposite, the "he-man", but rather represents the third body, the "implied gay subject, the invisible desiring body of the producer-spectator - behind the camera, in front of the photograph, but rarely visualized within the frame"[9]. As such, Aschenbach dons the disguise of the third body, his eyeglasses, makeup and mortality[10] serve not only to disguise himself in order to survive as an invisible stigmatized minority but also to desexualize him in the erotophobic regime that he is a part of[11]. But while Visconti was hardly part of an erotophobic regime, he nevertheless sets up Aschenbach in such a way as to create autobiographical parallels as the aging gay artist. "The image of… Aschenbach on the porch of the Venice hotel, is that of both the alienated artist charting the machinations of social power from the wings and the gay man tuning into the sexual undercurrents of his surroundings"[12]. Indeed, the "autobiographical discourse can be read on a quite literal level" when considering "Visconti, in his sixties, undertaking his final progression of aging artistic figures"[13].

But why would Visconti create this parallel to an era where attitudes to homosexuality were different and to an aging gay artist on the verge of mortality fighting with his inner demons in the face of sublime beauty? Is he struggling with similar inner demons as Aschenbach is when his artistic merit is challenged and he is faced with his mortality? To a certain extent - yes. According to Bacon, the minimal narrative tension in Death in Venice "creates the sense of attempting to stop time, overcome death and old age by stepping out of time into the eternal spheres of beauty of forms"[14]. But while stopping time and overcoming death might seem futile, Visconti's Aschenbach might serve another function. His existence in a time past but not too far away to be forgotten reminds us of the ever-changing nature of life and his mortality points to life's ephemerality. Further, his role as the gay artist, third body figure makes the connection not only with the Director as the aging gay artist but also serves to create a contrast between the themes of beauty and its corruption, life and death, art and its demise. In essence, Aschenbach's same-sex attraction to something supremely beautiful serves to provide this contrast and counterbalance its perfection. As Bacon notes, "the achievements of the spirit through the creation of beauty are counterbalanced by the decadence that seems to be eroding the basis of the civilization that has produced it" and "while the spirit may continue to exist in works of art, biological and social corruption inevitably take their toll"[15]. While Aschenbach's character is not the polar opposite of Tadzio's ephebe (as discussed, he is not the "he-man" figure), he in fact serves as a polar opposite of what Tadzio represents. Abstracted, Tadzio's ephebe in Death in Venice stands for ultimate beauty, youth, life, art, while Aschenbach makes for the complete opposite of all this. Their connection then serves to show the inevitable necessity for each other among these two opposites and "the contrast between the tragedy of Aschenbach's inability to accept this and the way his story is rendered through the serene and sensuous splendour of the film becomes a metaphor for the basic paradoxes of our relationship to art and to life: inasmuch as art can be a way of transcending the contingencies of life and even overcoming its fundamental transience, inasmuch as art can be a path toward resignation, it also runs the risk of becoming alien to life"[16].

To conclude, we have seen how Visconti's Death in Venice operates in the historical context of both the plot of Mann's book and of the film's 1971 production. We have seen how changing attitudes and social-norms between the two places in history (beginning of 20^th century and early 1970's) have contributed to shape both Visconti's adaptation of Mann's book and attitudes to its same-sex relation with a young boy. Further, I have considered the character of the aging gay artist embodied by Dirk Bogarde's Aschenbach. While noting the autobiographical parallels between the character and the film's director, we have seen how the character of the gay artist functions as both Waugh's "third body" and as a contrast to Tadzio's ephebe without being the ephebe's traditional opposite (the "he-man"). Finally, considering these elements, we looked at the way that Visconti uses them in his adaptation of Mann's novel to point to the contrast between the themes of beauty, youth and life vs. decay, old age and death. By providing this contrast, both through the thematic elements of Mann's novel and through the visual ones in the film adaptation, Visconti points to the inseparable nature of opposites in both art and life. Aschenbach's contrast to Tadzio and their link despite this contrast points to the larger reality of the link that beauty and art has to corruption and decay, to the inevitable necessary balance between them, and to the necessity of one for the continued existence of the other.

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[1] Bacon, 1998, p161

[2] Aldrich, 1993, p4

[3] Mann, 1975, p62-63

[4] Waugh, 1993, p436

[5] Waugh, 1993, p436

[6] Bacon, 1998, p161

[7] Bacon, 1998, p161

[8] Waugh, 1993, p431

[9] Waugh, 1993, p432

[10] Waugh, 1993, p435

[11] Waugh, 1993, p434

[12] Waugh, 1993, p439

[13] Waugh, 1993, p437

[14] Bacon, 1998, p172

[15] Bacon, 1998, p172

[16] Bacon, 1998, p172

REFERENCES

Aldrich, Robert. "The Attraction of the South for Northern Homosexuals." In The Seduction of the Mediterranean: Writing, Art, and Homosexual Fantasy, 4. London: Routledge, 1993.

Bacon, Henry. Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Mann, Katia. Unwritten Memories. New York: Knopf, 1975.

Waugh, Thomas. "The Third Body: Patterns in the Construcion of the Subject in Gay Male Narrative Film." In Queer Looks: Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Film and Video, 431-447. New York and London: Routledge, 1993.

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.