On the Cutting Edge in Canada

John Greyson

His film Lilies won the Audience Award at the 1997 San Francisco International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and won the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest '97 in Los Angeles.

He co-edited the l993 Routledge anthology Queer Looks: Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Film and Video and recently published a collection of writings entitled Urinal and Other Stories.

His new film, Uncut, opens Friday, January 8 at San Francisco's Castro Theater. The film is beginning is U.S. theatrical run.

PopcornQ: Welcome, John!

John Greyson: Merci beaucoup!

PopcornQ: Let's start by talking a little about Lilies, a film that many people saw and loved last year.

John Greyson: Even my Dad!

PopcornQ: Lilies was a huge success, winning the Canadian Genie (equivalent to our Oscar) as well as a number of film fest awards. It was an adaptation of a work by Michel Marc Bouchard. How did you hear about Bouchard's work?

John Greyson: I had seen Lilies in 1991 at a local theater and I fell in love with it. The real force behind it was Anna Stratton (co producer of Zero Patience). She had acquired the rights to it. So she introduced us to each other and we went down the yellow brick road together.

PopcornQ: How does it work, going from finding the play to green-lighting the project?

John Greyson: Big long journey. The funders were nervous about turning such a theatrical play into a film. They were nervous about the idea of men playing women. I guess they worried it was going to be sort of Priscilla en Francais or something. Or Priscilla meets the Mounties.

PopcornQ: How did you convince them?

John Greyson: We did a reading with a number of the actors, including Brent Carver who played the Countess and Matthew Ferguson who playeed Young Bilobeau. The reading really helped them understand this was a really cinematic film. Which was funny because it was just a reading. But there was such excitiement in the room I think that really helped. It was a really successful play in Quebec, and we did get Quebec financing, so that helped too.

PopcornQ: Did you prop out a "prison" set for the reading?

John Greyson: No, the actors sat around a table and we had the Hilyard ensemble do inter-active music. We had a three act structure, but not like a play. It was very aural. We were in this warehouse space which felt prison-like and this huge storm broke out... It felt very possessed.

PopcornQ: How lucky.

John Greyson: I grew up Catholic and was an altar boy. The chance to eroticize all that stuff was one of the big pleausures of the script.

PopcornQ: You write much of your own material. Who adapted Lilies for the screen, and what's it like working with someone else's vision, trying to make it your own?

John Greyson: Michel Marc wrote the screenplay from his play. It was the first time he'd worked in film. So we worked really closely from '92 to '95 when we shot. 3 years of working on the script and getting it there. We got through all our big disagreements years before pre-production!

PopcornQ: [laughter]

John Greyson: Early on I wanted to do a sort of Jarman anachnronistic thing like Edward II. Like stick Harley Davidsons in the middle of a quaint 19th Century street. Michel Marc, I can't tell you how much he hated that idea!

PopcornQ: [laughter]

John Greyson: For me that was great info, that told me volumes about his aesthetic and what the world of the film could and couldn't be.

PopcornQ: Your films are very queer. What is the auditioning process like for you? Are actors wary to work on such queer-themed projects?

John Greyson: I think it's changed so much in the last decade. The cliche now is all the straight actors -- especially the young ones -- are dying to play queer.

PopcornQ: All the "straight" actors.

John Greyson: No, really. In the '80s everyone wanted to play handicapped (My Left Foot, etc.) and in the '90s everyone wants to play queer. They're juicy roles. The young guys don't have the same sorts of masculinity issues that an older eneration might have. So the cast of Lilies was very mixed. . . very gay, very straight. People ask me all the time who was gay on the film. I won't name names. But the thing that was also true -- it changed during the course of the film. Some who identified straight early on, they had different feelings by the end. These categories of gay and straight aren't what they used to be.

PopcornQ: I think a lot of people see Canadian cinema (compared with American cinema) as being quieter, quirkier, and more interested in the 'small moments' and offbeat subjects. Do you agree?

John Greyson: I think when our mainstream consists of Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg that makes for a huge differnce in the film industry. It's a great place to work. We make commercial films really badly. In fact, we're hopeless at it.

PopcornQ: What is really pushing this difference between American and Canadian films? Are Canadian audiences actually different?

John Greyson: It's not about audiences it's about support. Our industry is like the European film industry, it's state financed, not commercially financed. By definition film is considered an art medium not an entertainment medium. It also makes for the possibility of a queer cinema. There's Hanging Garden, Laurie Lynd, Patricia Rozema, Jeremy Podeswa, Midi Onodera. We're given tax dollars to be queer and artsy! Bruce La Bruce. . . He's actually commercial, because he gets his own funding.

PopcornQ: You have a distinctive visual style, it's always a bit surreal. What other filmmakers do you think have influenced your work, and where do you see their influence in your work?

John Greyson: It's pretty broad. Fassbinder, Visconti, Yvonne Rainer. Todd (Haynes), Derek, (Jarman), and Mr. Gus (Van Sant). Historical avant garde. . . Chantal Akerman, Valie Export. . . When I started thinking about film in the late 70s early 80s that Euro avant garde was the real inspiration and video was even more important.

PopcornQ: The themes of copyright law, circumcision, and the sexuality and popularity of Pierre Trudeau wind together in Uncut, making for a challenging film. Why did you decide to mix these particular themes to make a movie?

John Greyson: The script started in 1990 at the height of the Outing debates. I wanted to talk about how gossip was an important factor in the outing debates. Our interest in private lives of icons. Why do we care about Tom Cruise or John Travolta or Jodie? Pierre Trudeau -- the only sexy Prime Minister Canada has ever had or ever will have -- became a good test case for me. Circumcision was meant to be the counterpoint. With outing you have the in-the-closet/out-of-the-closet debate or the gay/straight debate. And with circumcision you've got cut or uncut.

PopcornQ: How does sampling and copyright work into this?

John Greyson: I wasn't allowed to make that film and the Canadian Film Center said that's libel, you can't talk about Trudeau in that way, and then the film I did make was The Making of Monsters.

PopcornQ: Which is on my top ten list of all time.

John Greyson: Then The Making of Monsters got censored through Copyright issues. So, it was time to fight back!

PopcornQ: There are definitely themes to Uncut, but do you feel like there is ONE central theme to the piece? For example, what strikes me strongly is the struggle of these characters to cut through their obsessions to connect with each other, but that connection always seems thwarted.

John Greyson: It's a film where -- it's about the metaphors of copyright. And many things spin off that content. So, in that sense its target audience is more "people involved in copyright" than a "queer audience. But a "queer audience involved in copyright" is the perfect audience! I set it in a pre-digital moment on purpose -- 1979. I think the analogy to chat lines and AOL/PopcornQ interviews is all too clear.

PopcornQ: I wonder about your questioning of copyright law. I see how you feel it can stifle, but you're also an artist, and copyright law helps to protect you and the work you create.

John Greyson: The film very purposely doesn't have answers. The voice of the filmmaker in the film is best heard when Linda Griffiths talks about ethics. When she says "All artists steal, and when you steal you better be good."

PopcornQ: "You better give back tenfold..."

John Greyson: The ethical issues for me are the rich ones. The practical issues of rewarding artists is being transformed as we speak by digital technology, into rewards that aren't commodity driven.

PopcornQ: You're sounding like a bit of a Marxist...

John Greyson: Imagine that! [laughs] Copyright law as it's written now is about art as commodity. So it doesn't protect artists it protects businesses who own art. We are discovering mechanisms for how to protect artists, like paying artists up front and then making their work available free on the Net.

PopcornQ: Why did you choose to shoot Uncut on digital video, rather than film? Cost? The look? (1998's popular film "The Celebration" was also shot on video). Or, perhaps, the irony of shooting a "Pre-Digital" film on digital video?

John Greyson: Yes, yes, and yes. Yes to all three. Definitely cost, and post-production cost too. I knew I'd be posting on Avid. It was completely non-tape online. We did all our effects on the Avid.

PopcornQ: How did it change the way you shoot, in production?

John Greyson: The DP really believes good lighting is good lighting and bad is bad. Video used to need more light, but it hasn't for years. The DP approached it as a film shoot. We created a whole pallette as you do in film.

PopcornQ: Yes, the film looks great.

John Greyson: There's no reason not to shoot like that. You know Gummo? Gummo is shot half in film half in video. The point is it's not the medium it's the aesthetic. You can shoot home video in 35mm or you can shoot Jane Eyre with Fisher-Price. Technology is not deterministic.

PopcornQ: Your films often create mood with light, but video doesn't allow for as broad a range of light as film. Did you find less flexibility with video, or wasn't it a big deal?

John Greyson: There's more flexibility than people think. If you know the camera well, you can do lots of stuff. We were going very retro -- so the color scheme was orange, green and purple -- very 70s! So, we were gelling the bounce mirros with green and orange.

PopcornQ: We're running out of time, here. Tell us about your upcoming projects.

John Greyson: You bet! Two feature scripts are ready. One is The Law of Enclosures and the other is Bandit House.

PopcornQ: Can you tell us more?

John Greyson: Law is based on Dale Peck's novel and it's about a messed-up couple and their gay son set in the Gulf War, in Long Island and Upstate NY.

Bandit is the true story of a sodomy case in 1735 in Capetown. An African man and a Dutch sailor were found guilty of sodomy and executed by drowning. And that I'm working on with Jack Lewis.

PopcornQ: When will you go into production on those?

John Greyson: When people give me money!

PopcornQ: [laughter]

John Greyson: So send your checks care of Jenni at PopcornQ. . .

PopcornQ: Thanks for talking with us today, John.

John Greyson: Thanks for having me. It's been an extraordinary pleasure.

PopcornQ: Remember everyone, John's new film, Uncut, opens Friday, January 8 at San Francisco's Castro Theater for a one-week run. The film is beginning its U.S. theatrical tour, and will move on to other cities later in the year. You can get more info about the film on the PopcornQ site on PlanetOut, or from the film's website, at www.turbulentarts.com.

John Greyson Films with PopcornQ Reviews

John Greyson's Lilies

• The ADS Epidemic (1987)
• The Jungle Boy (1985)
• Kipling Meets the Cowboy (1985)
• Lilies (1996)
• The Making of Monsters (1990)
• A Moffie Called Simon (1986)
• Moscow Does Not Believe In Queers (1986)
• The Perils of Pedagogy (1984)
• The Pink Pimpernel (1989)
• Ray Navarro Memorial Tape (1990)
• Urinal (1988)
• The World Is Sick (sic) (1989)
• You Taste American (1986)
• Zero Patience (1993)