I'm getting a little tired of every film critic east of Kenora trying to explain
Guy Maddin and his movies by talking about what a weird place Winnipeg is. If
anything, the opposite is true: Winnipeg is very normal-hypernormal, in fact.
I ought to know; I have lived there for almost all of my life. Many major corporations
use it as a test market (yup, we had McRibTM before you did) because it's such
an absurdly perfectly normal cross-section of middle America (and I'm using
that term in the continental sense, so don't get snitchy, you nationalist) that
it's, well
Okay. So Winnipeg is strange, but only because its population is continually
bombarded with the most crass examples of mass-media hucksterisms ever contrived
by man or beast. And therein lie (I think) a few hints about Guy Maddin and
his movies, which include the short film The Dead Father and his first
feature, Tales from the Gimli Hospital.
To look at him (he used to be a bank teller), one wouldn't know he was capable
of creating a film where one character proves his heroism by strangling a marauding
Bolshevik with his own spilt guts. To avoid the possibility that any of his
viewers might miss the more subtle nuances of the scene, Maddin thoughtfully
follows it up with a title card that reads 'Strangled By An Intestine'. I'm
beginning to think that people follow the same rules of protective colouration
that function in the animal world: it's the smart, innocuous-looking ones that
we should worry about.
What made Guy Maddin's mind into the strange and wonderful movie-making device
it is today is obvious, given the above information about the nature of Winnepeg:
he got media-bombed. It seems to have started at birth, when (rumour has it)
his brother named him after a B-grade matinee idol, Guy Madison. He cites his
major influence as distant late-night radio stations fading in and out of audibility.
This is a man who has watched too many I Love Lucy reruns.
His latest film, Archangel, is a chronicle of WWI like you've never seen
it.1 But that's just the point: neither did Maddin (he's only 34). The Russia
he portrays is a conglomeration of bits and pieces which may or may not bear
any resemblance to the truth (there's no way of knowing, so why bother making
the distinction) culled from sundry technologies of information storage and
retrieval (my Dad says they used to call them books and newsreels). The result
is not only far more entertaining (and less expensive) than the original production,
but what it tells us about the way in which mass-media propaganda works may
also be of more use than a straight narrative could be, or will be ever again.
Watching Archangel, one should try to think simultaneously about the
way in which Operation George Bush's Manhood was packaged (it has to have been
the first war with a logo).
The set of coincidences which led to my chance to speak with Guy Maddin is too
strange to relate here (actually, it was pretty mundane, but you don't want
to know that). I'll just mention that he generously agreed to answer a handful
of questions from a scruffy prairie boy he'd never heard of when I accosted
him at the Toronto premiere of Archangel, and was committed enough to the process
to do so from the El Rey Inn in New Mexico (I've got a letter on the hotel stationery
to prove it).
(Here ends the prolegomenon and begin the questions.)
Q. In Toronto, you mentioned that some of the actors in Archangel performed
under hypnosis. Who were you referring to specifically, and in what scene? What
was the rationale (if there was one) for doing this?
A. There's a scene early in the movie, after little Geza has been horse-brushed
back to consciousness, where his family and Lt. Boles sit up upon the boy's
sick-bed and discuss the healing powers of horse hair. All the actors were hypnotised
in that scene. I wanted actors to be doves, not only for this scene, but for
most of the movie. I wanted them to speak in a low, measured cooing, and relate
to each other as peacefully as birds. This was something they could easily do,
but when [fellow actor] Michael O'Sullivan offered to put them under and suggest
birds, I thought it was a great opportunity. The stuff that didn't make it to
the final cut was pretty strange, but why film a Reveen show? In the movie's
final scene, the homecoming parade, Kyle is right out of it. He insisted upon
the post-hypnotic suggestion of complete forgetfulness and actually has no recollection
of shooting the scene! What a dedicated amnesiac! I know I'm not the first director
to hypnotise his or her actors, but I may be the first to do it for no apparent
reason.
Q. There is a certain mythology surrounding the number 23 that seems to have
appeared first in the texts of William S. Burroughs, although it has spread
far and wide since then. The following excerpt is from Robert Anton Wilson's
Cosmic Trigger:
'Burroughs began keeping records of odd coincidences. To his astonishment, 23's
appeared in a lot of them. When he told me about this, I began keeping my own
records and 23's appeared in many of them. (Readers of Koestler's Challenge
of Chance will find that there are many 23's in that encyclopedia of odd coincidences
also).
This, of course, illustrates Jano Watts' concept of 'The Net', the lines of
coincidence-sychronicity that connect everything-with-everything.' (p.44)
Were you aware of any of this when you put a large number 23 on Philbin's flight
helmet? If not, what do you think about the concept of sychronicity in general
(it seems to be a major structural device in Archangel-Iris's urn and the near-identical
bottle that appears later, the wooden leg that fits Boles perfectly, the parallel
scenes where Boles follows the map etc.) and 'the 23 syndrome' in particular?
A. Philibin's helmet was actually fashioned from a Detroit Tigers warm-up uniform
a few years ago. Jeff kept the number intact from this coif's previous incarnation
as a tribute to its original owner, a player by the name of Kirk Gibson, I think
(you'd have to look up his uniform number in an old Tigers program). What this
says about sychronicity I don't know.
I do know that (script collaborator) George Toles and I believe an object or
piece of music acquires emotional force when it is repeated, and remembered,
in a different context (the ending of It's A Wonderful Life is a good
example of how this works). In Archangel, Veronkha reminds one of the lost Iris.
A wooden leg reminds one of the lost original. Bottles are confused with urns.
Think about what sychronicity does: first, it jangles the memory, then it blurs
or even anaesthetises it. Synchronicity often occasions deep emotions, but if
the emotions are too painful, a concomitant psychic anaesthetic-forgetfulness-erases
the coincidence. Without proper memory, a comfy helplessness resultsFor the
movie, we constructed this gentle emotional landscape by piling all the snow
on top of the sychronicities. I know this gentleness disappointed our more bloodthirsty
viewers, but I think war movies can be too scary sometimes.
Maybe someone can tell me why Jeff took Kirk Gibson's helmet and not Lou Whitaker's.
Q. While we're on the topic of sychronicity, there were startling parallels
between the way you present war in Archangel and the war we watched unfolding
in the Persian Gulf around the time of your movie's release (I'm thinking specifically
about two things here: 1. the role that chemical weapons played in both the
war and in your film; 2. the construction by both the media and your film of
the image of an enemy filled with what you call 'self-love'-Saddam Hussein on
the one hand, and your Huns and Bolsheviks on the other). How did the onset
of a real war affect the reception of your film?
A. I watched the events in the Persian Gulf unfold with a feeling of horror-horror
at being scooped. It was our intention all along to present our war in terms
of propaganda-the charmingly naive propaganda used by the Allied press during
WWI. These anachronistic slanders, which depicted the pre-Nazi Kaiser Wilhelm
II as anenemy of Christendom and civilisation, have always reminded me of the
way I malign my own romantic rivals and enemies. This stuff was going to be
at least gently funny, but then Saddam Hussein burst into the scene. His routine
went off the map. He got all the laughs and our prescience went unrewarded.
At least our chemical weapons were nicer: we used them as the benign agents
of the above-mentioned forgetfulness. If only Saddam could use his nerve gas
for Good, instead of Evil.
Q. There is a scene in Archangel where the camera spirals down a long tube
into Boles' ear that reminded me of the famous scene in Blue Velvet. From the
clippings I've seen, many critics compare your work with David Lynch's (especially
Eraserhead), yet I've heard that you don't think it's an apt comparison. I'd
like to know what you think about the relationship (or lack thereof) your work
bears to Lynch's. While I'm at it, who/what do you consider to be your major
influences?
A. Well, you're right, Lynch's name comes up quite often, but I've noticed the
term 'Lynch-like' is being anything not in the mainstream as well! The term
has a definition so flaccid as to be useless. Surely, like Eraserhead,
my movies have been shot in black and white; have curious soundtracks; have
'bizarre' things in them; and, most importantly, have their origins in the screenwriter's
personal experiences. However, I think Lynch and I are headed in opposite directions,
especially in the last area. As far as I can tell, Wild At Heart is about
nothing. I hope Lynch hasn't run out of things inside. Maybe he just isn't looking
there anymore because the mass audience he has cultivated couldn't care less
about what's inside. I'm a pretty hollow person myself. I know Toles feels the
same way.
Also, Lynch keeps turning up the volume: everything's getting bigger and stranger.
I think the viewer needs a gentle and quiet setting in which to dream. At least
that's what my press kit says.
Maybe this is the right time to deliver my rant on soundtracks. It goes like
this:
(Guy Maddin's rant on soundtracks.)
When a painter starts a canvas, he or she can use any kind of brush-stroke desired;
they can even throw the paint on with their hands. When a poet puts pen to paper
he or she can use any word in any language, or even make one up, but when a
filmmaker adds the soundtrack to his or her movie, it had better be the same
kind of soundtrack as all the other movies, or else! Why is it that there is
only one kind of movie sound-'realistic sound'-and that everything that deviates
from this is considered a 'bad sound'? Why can't sound be slashed and pasted
like a crude but beautiful collage? Why must sounds obey the laws of perspective?
I kind of like it when the lips don't quite sync up with the dialogue. It reminds
me of when children crayon over the lines in the colouring book. Why are you
people so anal about your children's colouring books?
(The end of Guy Maddin's rant about soundtracks.)
To be anal about your question, I owe you a few thoughts on major influences.
This is where Peter Greenaway would start listing painters. House painters I
say! My influences have been radio stations-very distant radio stations that
drift in and out of broadcast clarity on late Summer nights. The thick acoustic
textures of static mixed with music and spoken word have created for me, since
early childhood, worlds far more magical and mysterious than those found on
all the calendars hanging in Peter Greenaway's kitchen.
Q. What's the story on the machine-thingy that Boles keeps crawling out from
under?
A. It's an electric sodomizer.
Q. To what extent does your present aesthetic derive from your involvement
with others in the Winnipeg Film Group (John Palzs in particular). Do you think
your work is in any way uniquely 'Winnipegian', or is it really similar to trends
elsewhere, and just characterised as strange because Toronto and New York film
critics can't believe anything good could come out of Winnipeg?
Supplementary Question: Bruce has a theory about what he calls 'the new tribalism'
which more or less boils down to the idea that small communities of people with
common tastes have the potential to become primary socio-media units in the
90s. He asked me to see how you thought this idea applied to the Winnipeg Film
Group, so that's what I'm doing right now.
A. I'm afraid I don't buy the 'new tribalism' theory, noble wish that it is.
Nor do I think there's much that is uniquely 'Winnipegian' about my stuff. It's
something that's in the air everywhere if you look for it. Palzs has always
been a huge inspiration for me, but other than a shared revulsion for bathos,
our 'aesthetics' have little in common. Well, maybe we both like looking back,
back to the times that are lost, gone, gone forever, or something like that.
I don't know, don't ask me that.
Q. I read somewhere that you'd like to hand-tint every frame in a feature
film. Could you tell me more about that project?
A. I'm shooting our next film, Careful , in something I like to think
of as 'repressed Technicolour'. Hand-tinting every frame would take two trillion
person-hours. So, I've had to scrap that plan. At one point I had decided to
computer-colourise the movie, but even though the broadcasters everywhere are
eager to paint colours on top of the timeless black-and-white masterpieces in
order to broaden their audience base, it was considered blasphemy (or at least
ridiculous) for a director to do his own work. Telefilm refuse to finance such
a caprice. These days, no-one outside the arts councils will fund a black and
white film in Canada, it's Canadian Colour or nothing from here on in, but that's
okay. I think all Canadian movies should look alike; it's kind of like a team
uniform. I'm going to tinker with the colour a bit, as a baseball player who
cuts up his stirrup socks up a bit higher than the other fellows on his team
might, but my stuff will be as Canadian as everyone else's from around here
thank you sir.
Q. Archangel is a winter film, but it's shot indoors. Why not go outside,
since Winnipeg's buried in snow for good chunk of the year?
A. It's too cold to go outside in the winter. Once I worked on an outside winter
shoot. We stood around all day growing great beards of ice. Fake snow is better.
It's cleaner, too. No dogs.
Q. Finally, is there anything you'd like to add-pet peeves with critical
reception of your work, sweeping polemical statements, laurels to hand out etc.?
A. Most critics have been very generous with my movies, no matter how uneven
they have been. Telefilm, MAC, Canada Council and especially Cinephille have
also been incredibly supportive of me. This may sound like the acceptance speech
for an award I'll never get, but I honestly and truly feel very lucky to be
working on these movies. Most people don't know what to make of the stuff, but
at least half of these people are polite enough not to complain to me.
This interview was an A.D.o.S.A production. Special thanks to Guy Maddin.
© Darren Wershier-Henry, 1996
MESH film/video/multimedia/art #10,MESH is published by Experimenta Media Arts