PDF: The Epistemology of Adaptation in Jogn Reyson`s Lilies

LAWRENCE HOWE
THE EPISTEMOLOCiY OF ADAPTATION
IN JOHN CiREYSON'S LILIES
Resume: John Greyson, dans son adaptation cinematograp1li.<lue de la piece Les
Feluettes de Michel Marc Bouchard, emploie une mise en scene novatrice pour
aborder Ie discours denondateur de Bouchard et les conflits epistemologiques du
drame. rapproche empruntl!e par Greyson r~ussit a d~passer Ie cadre limite de la
piece, mais se heurte souvent a des contradictions narratives qui oe peuvent etre
resolues que par rutiIJsation de techniques conventionnelles. Greyson tire avantage
de ce recours aux conventions en mettant I'emphase sur l'intertextualite du film, qui
amalgame les pratiques radicales du theAtre gai et I'ceuvre nostalgique de Stephen
Leacock,. Sunshine Sketches of a Uttle Town. II resulte de cette combinaison frappante une analyse de l'heterCHlormativite qui a echappe a la majorite des critiques.
hat f.il~ adap[atio~s of novels fall short of their sources is a commonplace.
Reducmg a narranve that may stretch for 200 or more pages into a 100minute featwe film requires a lot of compression and omission, so the latter is
frequently judged a truncated disappointment. A film adapted from a short story
may minimize those challenges of reduction. bUI the difficulties of translating a
verbal narrative that unfolds in the imagination of the reader into a primary visual spectacle envisioned by a film director may still yield unflattering comparisons. Drama does not necessarily suffer the same consequences when rranslated
from stage to screen. In fact, the narrative enacted in a theatrical play might actually benefit from a cinematic production in any number of ways, not the least of
which is the varying proximities to the action that a camera and sophisticated
sound technologies can afford the viewer of the film. Still. a film adaptation of
an original play may nevertheless be charged with failing to achieve what Roben
Stam has called ..the chimera of fidelity" for reasons other than lechnical choices, as the criticism surrounding John Greyson's Lilies (canada, 1996), an adaptation of Michel Marc Bouchard's play Les Feluettes, au. La repen'tioll du drame
romamique (1987). shows.' As Starn argues. though, a film narrative adapted
from another source is its own text manifesting its own narrative strategies and
intentions.
T
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GreY50n's Genie·winning mm has been credited for its creative cinematic
technique (fou.neen Genie nominations as weD as numerous otber festival citations), but it has been perhaps as sharply criticized for indulging "byper-romantic aspirations,· and. in the view of one scholarly critic who has addressed this
under-examined film, for soflening the original play's stark represeotatioo of
homophobia. religious zealotry. and secrecy.2 These themes have been important
to r~dical Quebec theatre since the Quiet Revolution. starting with Michel
1!emblay's bold dramatic representations of marginalized sexuality and obsessive religiosity. The later generation oC Qu~bec playwrights, to which Bouchard
belongs, has continued to address the subject of se;wality directly, though oiten
with a nod to classical influences as weU.l But the majority of Greyson's work before'
and after Lilies-UriTlllI (Canada, 1988), The Making of Moosters (Canada, 1991),
'Zero Palience (Canada, 1993), Uncut (Canada, -1997), and ProteWi (Canada,
2003)-establish his credentials as a radical queer filmmaker. In light of his filmography, iI seems surprising thaI he should be accused of pandering 10 the
mainstream for having compromised the politics of Bouchard's play in his adaptation of Ulies. In this essay. I contend that the wider audience and critical
acclaim iliat Lilies bas attracted should not distract us from acknowledging the
range of thematic implications that result from its cinematic technique. Greyson's
cinematics in this film transcend the boundaries of represemation that the staged
production was subject 10; his innovative technique introduces representational
opportunities not available in other narrative forms or media. Investigating the
ways in which the fIlm tells its story-and especially how it tells it differently from
how Bouchard's play tells its story-will reveal the potential and the limits of the
film's indictment of secrecy, institutional repression, and the prospects for constructing an alternative to the containment of official history.
For the film's technique goes beyond the differences in medium, and even
content to some degree. to invoke and play of( a broad array oC cultural references, all DC which serve an epistemological project. The fUrn constructs its own
way of knOWing the world it screens and the antecedent te.xts that contribute to
its knowledge of that world. In adapting its source. Lilies dialogizes material
from progressive Quebec theatre with a more coDventional, popular AngloCanadian literary narrative. By consuucting this imene.'((ual dialogue, Greyson's
Lilies goes beyond the play it adapts to demonstrate its own version of ";hat
Edward Said calls a text's "worldliness·-its "ways of existing...enmeshed in circumstances, time. place. and society.... The same lmplications are undoubtedly
true oC critics in their capacities as readers and writers in the world. "4 In Lilies.
Greyson's role as rtlmmaker includes the function of critic. His film does not siro·
ply seek to remember the past-historical and literary; rather, it reconstitutes the
past and representations of it in its own collage of interpretation. Drawing on a
striking range of intertextual procedures. Lilies subtly expands the scope of its
criticism of homophobia in Canadian culture, rather than eliding or softening the
ADAPWlON IN NIMH GRfYSQN"S UUES 45
enricaJ :slanee of Bouchard's Us Felul![[es. Both film and play begin with a reulllon
of ad\'t·~n()5-a convicted murderer, Simon Doucel. and Bishop Bllodt:o(lu-lI1
1951. fony yean: after the evel1l for which Simon was sentenced to pnson, And
to both stage and screen versions of the SIOr;'. the meeling is an opportuOity (or
Simon to confront Ute bishop with a play that Simon has writlen~ This play wuhin
me framing narrative lakes pldce in 1912. when Simon and Bilodeau were ome-leen, in Roberval, a lawn on the shore oi Lac saim-Jean where they greow up.
The action centers on lhe homosexual relationship belween Simon and Val her de
Tilly, the It"pression they face, Bilodeau's E'nvy and pnggi.$l1 disapproval of rheir
lovl.", and wllfn.atdy on lhe death of Vallier,,) homicide Ihat hangs OVt'f the fdtes
of these two old men. By siaging thlS drama, Simon hopes to exuael from the
bishop .:m admission of whdt he knows of the evenls of Ihe'lf past.
But GIt.:oyson's iilm ffidkessome significant changes [0 the original 5(.TiVt
that. in my \li~w. improve considerably upon Bouchard's remarkable play. The
operung preml (> in Lllu!s, for exa.mple, provides a much more plaUSible premJsc
lhan IU w Felneues. Where Bouchard's ptay has Simon. now an ex·convict, and
the btshop mC'et in some undefined location for a purpose that is unclear to the
bishop. Gre)'~on '50 film adapt.luon begins with Bishop Bdode.:1U (Michel
Sabounn) arnvUlg at a Quebec pnson expecting to hear the death·bed confes·
ston 01 Simon lAuben Palldscio). who. the bishop has been mid, IS very iU, a
ruse- 10 lure me bishop mtO the dramatic rembutioo ritual Simon has planned.
rhe filnJ's rcalistk premise not only explains how the two old men come log€'ther
~tfter so many yea,f'S1 but il also provides a more reasonable expl.mauoll for how
the .}ctors lIJ SmIOU's pta.y corne to their rc-Ies_ TIlt."y lOO are inmdtes. confidants
of Simon, who have bribed the guards and me prison chaplain 10 allow this theatrical (0 be siaged for its cdptive audience of one. Bouchard's plJY, 011 the olher
hand. dSks liS {O imagine lhat Simon has round,,>d up d rroupe of men whom ht."
had known III prison, all of whom would have beoen released at different tunes.
for tlus one per!onnance,
In additIon [0 l}fovidmg a deareor logic. Ihe fUm's premise also functions to
('mphas'll.e the revers", discourse o( Ihe narrative. The prelext oj Simon's confession inVOkes d convenuonal trope of thiS kind of IlMrative: a conviCI seeking
penitence befort" ht> dIes. But his real objective is revenge. nOI violent r<!Venge
but epistemological J1:."Vffige: Simon sei'Ks knowledge Iholt onJy Btlodeau's ddlnis·
sion of culpdbiluy (or Vallier's dedth can provide. Simon CXpt""CIS that tius knowl·
edge will validdJe the 10. . for which Vallier was killed and fnr whIch Simon W,lS
l[amed ~d imprisoned. ThE' confessional premise is conslstem wilh the -meellamsms of .discipbne," which Foucault argues correldtf! the judging 01 the soul
with tbe pumshmeJll of the body in (he hlStory of legal discipline. s Simon turns
that judgment back ou tbe bishop by conducting his ahe.rnative Ihe,uncal 10
coomer the one ~formed at the criminal trial tba,1 resulted in his conViction.
Confession is ltse1f an eplSlf'mological process tboJl requtres the pcnitel1l to
... .-...aKOWl
.Jean-FrancOtS 8landlafd
(Vall;") and o.n;, Roy
(Simon) in l o s _
ou. Ia rfp«ifiion du drorne
rornon'ique. NAC and
Th.~".
Pap.
Photo e Robert laIlbett.
USed by permission.
divulge information fonnally in order to qualify (or absolution. The eplsH.'mo·
logical process of dr.una or film. or oi ndrraU\'e gen~ally, IhtJugh. construcb an
accoum of evcnts 10 order to ~'Ieid knowledge for the dUlllcl1ce d~ wEli J~ lh~
characters. Bouchard's original play and Greyson's film .arc ·'revi....als· or
"rehearsals." as denoted by lhe term "repetHlon" in BouchJrd's subtHJ~, thal
conslrUd such an dCCOUtl1.~ But CJch deploys its own strJl~es in order to til!;·
cover a truth that hdS been obscured by the oiftckll hbtory as COll.5ttuCh.·d bv
Bilodeau's te timony.
The r~vcrsal of lhe authority wnhm the coniessionJ.1 compticJlcs tht.· rel,'t:u·
rion that structures both play and film. Simon's drama rcvI\'~'S the Issues 01 th~
past in order (0 obtam vindicauon and to revise, at leasl I'flvdlclv. the hlstorv
lhdl has condemned htm to prison. As Merleau·fumy points OUI.
IHjistory is action in the realm of the imJginary, or even the spen(ide IUli
one gives one5e'1f of an aetlon_.. _ Knowledge and dctlOll an" tWO polL~ ('II 1
single existence. OUr r~lationship to history is not only one of Undi;!!Slami·
ing-a relationshIp of the spectator to the spectadt>. \\> would nut be spe' t.J
IOrs If we were not Involved in the past, and action would nOI be seriOUS it
it concluded the whole emerprise of the past dnd did not give the dr.ama its
lasl act.:
Thus Simoo's drama for himM'U and Bouchard's play ..m d Greyson"s film (or their
audiences attempt 10 construel knowledge about thE! past through imaguh1l iv't!
spec.ldc1e, making clt>ar Ihe epistemological enterprise th.'lt is at stolKe_
Sunon'. drama muhiplies the layers inherent ill Bouc!l<'UCl's ~pldy,withiu-J-
ADAPJAnOM IN JOHN GanSOH'S UUlS 47
play" structure by opening with a rebearsal.of yet another play within his play,
D'Annunzio's The Martyrd.om of St. Sebastion, in which he, Vallier, and Bilodeau
were to have performed at school. 'The not·so-subtle homoeroticism of that
school play enables Simon and Vallier, as actors, lO indulge emotions that they
must keep hidden from the community. D'Annunzio's script also provides them
with language that they repeat in their private expressions of intimacy. In the
same spirit. Greyson's mm maximizes the S01Jcture of repetition but also alters
that structure. For example. at the climax of the 1912 slory. Simon. Who at the
outset had ridiculed Bilodeau's pietistic homophobia with a violent kiss. refuses
to grant his request for a saintly kiss. instead. he flings Bilodeau's own earlier
criticism of Simon and Vallier as ·sick" back at him and withholds the kiss
Bilodeau desires with the vow, "Never!" At the end aCthe film's 1952 frame-nar·
rative. Simon ends his confrontation by the repetition of the kiss, though with a
difference: after Bishop Bilodeau has confessed to starting the fire that he had
blamed on Simon, and admitting yet more shamefully that he prevented lhe rescue of Vallier from the blazing attic, he begs Simon to kill him. Simon responds
by planting a violent kiss on Bilodeau's mouth, recalling the gesture of sexual
force with which he had ridiculed young Bilodeau's homophobia, and by withholding the bishop's desire for death with the repetition of his earlier vow:
"Never!"
The resolutions of both the 1912 and the 1952 stories in the film revise what
Bouchard had conceived in the script of the original.8 In Les Feluetles, Simon sets
the fire as a murder-suicide love sacrifice to escape the repressive world that forbids him and Vallier to live freely. The suicide half of Simon's plan is foiled
when Bilodeau rescues his secret beloved, but not his rival for Simon's affections, Vallier. The ex-convict Simon repays this injustice by refusing to kill the
shamed bishop; rather. he says. "r hate you 50 much.. .I'm gonna let you live."
The film's revisions to the Original play certainly altered Bouchard's intention: in
the climax of Lilies, it is not Simon who sets the fire but the jealous Bilodeau
who throws a lamem to the floor of the attic, Simon and Vallier's secret hideaway, and locks them in. But the mm's denouement more thoroughly deploys
the reverse discourse that challenges heteronormative, judicial history-a judicial
history that Bilodeau, out of jealousy and homophobic religious zealotry, had
helped to construct in the first place with false testimony.
The fJ.1m's alterations of the play's content are paralleled by changes in form
with respect to time and space. Both Bouchard's play and Greysou's film bridge
the division of time between the experiences of Simon's and Bilodeau's youthful
past in 1912 and 'the consequences they face in the present of 1952. But Les
FelueHes, in contrast to Lilies, involves far less of Simon and Bishop Bilodeau in
1952. After the framing device of the play is established in about ten pairs of
brief exchanges, Episode 1 follows with only two pairs of exchanges between the
elderly men in the middle and another two in which they comment on the scene
g
LAWl.DKIE HOWIE
at the end. Episodes 2 and 3 contain even less of the bishop and Simon in 1952.
Granted, both elderly men are on stage during the enlire performance of the play
within the play, and the audience can view their reactions. In the film, though,
Greyson frames the older Simon and the bishop in shots intercut with shots of
the prison play, foregrounding the elderly men's reactions for the spectator precisely because they're not continually in view. In addition to that highlighted
screen-time, the bishop confronts the inmate actors, out of character, and finds
that they are as committed to the theatrical project as Simon is, which extends
the meaning of the persisting consequences of the 1912 events. Not only is the
final resolution of the conflict between Simon and the bishop a prolonged version of the scene in the play, but it takes place privately, after all the other
inmates have exited, unc,1erscoring the dramatic intensity and the personal meaning of the turn of events.
In addition to paying more attention to the present throughout, the film
most explicitly emphasizes the conditions of reverse discourse and the radical
difference between the two different eras of the· narrative by its treaUDent of
space in its· varieties of mise en scene. We see this early on when Bishop Bilodeau
is locked into the confessional and forced to watch the dramatic presentation of
the narrative through a small window, making the representation of Simon's play
a kind of peep-show-a guilty pleasure, with more emphasis on Bilodeau's guilt
than on his pleasure. By utilizing the confessional, Lilies bears a strLlUng comparison to Robert lePage's film Le Confessr.onnal (Canada, 1995). lePage's narrative is also an epistemological drama built on an intenextual structure
incorporating the making of Hitchcock's I Confess (U5A 1953) in Quebec City in
1952 with the dark family mystery that remains tragically unsolved until 1989.
The splitting of the narrative in temporal settings divided by nearly (orty years
further strengthens the comparison between these two contemporaneously pro-
duced canadian fIlms, and the emphasis in both films on"the year 1952 historically places the stories in the midst. if not the height. of the Duplessis regime's
most severe repression, out of which the "Quiet Revolution- emerged. But where
the camera in lePage's film remains outside the confessional, much as Hitchcock
had done in preserving it as a kind of private sacred space where secrets are
maintained, Greyson places us inside the confessional with the bishop looking
out on the dramatic presentation of a secret history. III
Of course, conventional films have screened the ritual oi confession from
within this private space, but Lilies seizes it for a subversive purpose, though one
ullimately conunitted to the truth that will expose the lie that sworn testimony
has propounded. The authority and perspective of this space are reversed by
locating both Simon's audience, Bishop Bilodeau, and Greyson's, the film spectator, within the confessional. And by watching the cinematized drama (rom
within the closet of the confessional where he usually presides as confessor,
Bilodeau \Viti be confronted with the implications of his guilt and compelled. to
AOAP1J'110N IN JOHN GRIEY50N'"S UUE$ 49
play me role of penitent. Greyson's deployment of space makes literal sense
given the roles of the bishop and the inmates, but Simon's plan reverses the surveillance model of the prison by locking the bishop into the confessional from
which he will watch the willingly rendered words and actions of the performers,
instead of the customary model in which the one in power enjoys the privilege
of overseeing the convicted criminal who is locked into the architecture of the
prison where his activities are regulated.
The film's most controversial departure from the play is its inclusion of an
added spatial dimension. This maximal extension of Greyson's cinematic libeny
occurs when the image viewed through the confessional window is transformed
cinematically imo a realistic mise en scene of Roberval in 1912, and not the
prison drama representing that narrative. With this scenic shift. the film translates the reversal into its own terms. We see the window in this instance as akin
to the projection-booth aperture of a movie theater. This cinematic trope is made
explicit when the prison chaplain occupie, the other side of the confes'ional
from which he projects photographic images on a screen while the young
Bilodeau (Matthew Ferguson) narrates his life story and the history of RobervaL U
This cinematic representation not only adapts Bouchard's play but reaches coosiderably beyond il. Les Feluenes takes place strictly within the walls of the
unidentified location. but in two separate spaces: the realistic space in which
Simon confroms Bilodeau, and the theatrical space in which the dramatic play
of Simoo's memory is staged...by his fellow ex-convicts. Lilies includes both of
these spaces, though set within the prison, but adds cinematic representations of
the past that are liberated from the incarceration by which Simon's re-enactment
is bound. The movement of the story into the Vividly cinematic mise en scene of
1912 Roberval achieves a kind of dialectic between Simon's dramatization of the
past and more visually ricb images of memory.
Greysoo's decision to deploy this cinematic technique has generated the
most poin~ed criticism. Andre Loiselle charges that the cinematic environment is
too lush. too colorful, too beautiful. and thus retreats from the minimalist directness of Les Felu.ettes as a concession to mainstream audiences. But rather than
characterizing Greyson's film as "a sellout" for having deployed the vividness of
these cinematic sequences. I contend that Ulies uses its cinematic vision both to
critique homophobia and to construct a larger story that comments on tensions
in Canadian cultural memory rather differently than in the source play.'2 I will
address the laner point presently, but first I would refute the criticism of Greyson's
film by noting that to reject his cinematic representation as too beautiful is to
take the side of Bishop Bilodeau, who protests Simoo's drama as a falsely beautiful ponrait of Simon and Vallier's relationship. But even if one were to reject
this as a filmmaker's trick deployed to fend off legitimate criticism, or nOle his
implicit admission of haYing embellished the story. we should acknowledge that
the striking images of the cinematized memories are effective precisely because
50
LAWltENQ HOWE
they transcend the limitations of the illusion in the prison theatrical. 13 Uberating
the drama from the dingy and bleak chain-link enclosed box of the prison
chapel/theatre. enables Greyson to validate the relationship in the setting in
which it existed. To imply that the love between Simon (Jason cadieux) and
Vallier (Danny Gilmore)-however condemned by Bilodeau; Simon's father; and
Lydie Anne, the fiancee in whom Simon seeks refuge from his fathers brutality
-can·Oourish in the world and not only on stage or in prison does not at all min~
imize the critique of homophobia.
The cinematic representations are, indeed, somewhat romanticized, and
explicitly so. for this rendering of the story is not testimony. Rather. the dramatic
and cinematic representations are Simon's sentimental memoir intended [0 spur
Bilodeau's admission of what happened forty years ago and, perhaps more
imponantly. to give the film -spectator an aesthetically charged experience of the
world of the characteIS. Despite the radiant lighting, soft focus. saturated colors,
detalled selS, and rich co,tuming. Greyson's cinematic technique in the Roherval
scenes elude' simple nostalgia by attaining a hyperrealistic quality that challenges what he has called "our 'low-level addiction'" to standard storyteUing
modes and takes his audience "to a place you haven't gone before. "14 By a\'oiding the programmatic techniques of Hollywood productions, Greyson hopes that
"we can be surprised into an unexpected response." which wiH enable us to see
things "in a new way, and we'll discover something...
Perhaps his most effective decision in this regard is casting the inmate
act.ors within Simon's play in the same roles within the cinematic representation
of the past in the Roberval mise en scene, though it is a decision thaI produces
several conflicting effects. IS First. it provides a, practical advantage by helping the
film's audience to clearly understand the characters' identities. If, for example,
Brent Carver, the actor playing Vallier's mother in the prison drama, were to have
been replaced by an actress in the Roberval mise en scene, we would be. at least
momentarily. unclear about the identity of this new character. So the consistency
of the cast allows the SlOry to be wId in both the prison drama and the cinematic
environment with maximum efficiency. Conversely, however, we do experience
some disorientation because the actors in female rotes make no attempt to mask
their actual gender. A reverse rorm of disorientation occurs when the story shiflS
back to the prison environmenl_ As the camera cuts 1'0 different inmates, we are
required to adjust our frame of reference especially with respect to those who've
played female roles in the drama. In particular. the lone black inmate (Alexander
Chapman) who plays Lydie Anne has a distinctly different vocal mannerism and
persona than the character he portrays with supercilious passion in Simon's play.
These disjunctions cause us to recognize the performance implications in theatre. in film, and in the social construction of gender.
This is-emphasized. in the scene in which Bishop Bilodeau violently rejects
his containment within the confessional. Upon breaking out to confront the
AIIJIU"tAJION '"JOHN GUYSOH'SUUES
51
irunates, he leams bow d£"eply committed they are to completing their rerfor~
mance.
IraclU'd (rom Ihe general prison population because Ihey Me bomosexuals, tht"Y explain how Simon enhsted their panicipallon one by one through
the retelling of his story. C105108 lfi menacingly, 'hey relatc how their own sense
of having. been viClUruz.ed by homophobia emitles them to d sldke in SlInon'J,
ven.geam::t> agdu\sl [he bishop, underscored by tbe fact that the inmJle who pla~s
the young Snuon is the most infuriated at u1e bishop's pleading_ In underscoring
what Ihe scnpt means to Ihe.lf own ide-nulit."S, what they've endured at the hand5
oi hereronoflflative society both 1J1Slde and outside the prison. and what bJrgams
they have had to negotkUe with Ihe guards 10 stage this pldy, the inmales make
plain tht" ways in whkh social, politiCdI, a.nd aest.hetic elements combine in Iheir
penormant."e.
The sb.ifung of (he blm"s narrative between these different mue en scenes
offers .a1terual.lng perspectives thdl destabl1ize lhe audience's orientation and
sense 01 S<'Curity, and thus maximize the range of available illlerprelatlons.
Similarly, the consistency of the cast 10 bOlh the prison and the Robe-rval settings
remfofCC'S Wt! poinl thai the Cinematic represenlations are not objecnve. The
Roberval sequences are- not some clearer and more rellable Imdge oi reality.
Instead. they projcct SImon's uansmuted memories revivified by the drama he
has StagN \\·c St.--C Ihl • hrst. 10 the initial cinematic shift, when the plJy·with·
m~SLmon's pia", lS interrupted by the young Bilodeau, OUf perspective On Ihl$
scene is de-hoed 10 J. poilll-of-view shot through lhe window in Bishop Bilodedu's
conf('ssional <cll. d scent!' compounded. in effect. by Simon's thealries and
Creysou's cinematics_ Young Bilodeau's reJectton of lYAnnunz.io·s 51. sebastian
play ~ "sick" and tu.s COndemnd1l0n of Slffion and Vallier as sodomit.es all tdkes
place in .1 cinem.aucaUy reahstlc SC'lling of their former school. noticeably difft'rent
from the pnson drama st..,smg in which the first balf or Ute scene was. represented. W. llllghl be templed to thin.k of IhlS as the bishop's memory exceplth.
scene- i perfonncd by S.imoo's cast, and the bishop complams Wolt Simon has
presented hiS younger self as a ~cdricature" mtended to discredn hlnl_ WithIn Ihe
narrative, the repr(>Sentalions and the castmg are iluthodzed by Simon; from the
seats ill .\ mOVIe theatre. however. the audience of Lilies sees the rcpresentalion
in Tecbnicolor. with Dolby Sound, Ihrough Grcyson's authority .as a Iilmmaker.
which eifecuvely presents dn era from fony years earlier as the vlbr.ant prf"SenL
The dtiference between the theatrical d11d Cinematic representational el1Vlronmem. within !.ilies IS rughlighled when lhe clunky makeshifl slaging of 'be
prison prcxluclion fully gives wa.y to the Roberval mise en'scen.e, Bright sunlighl
streams in when the prison stagehands remove the top or t.he bishop's confesslonaI cell 10 """'ai the c!t>ar blue 0tJ<'bec sk>' as the Parisienne Ll-die Anne's hOI-air
balloon floatS by overhead. accompanied by 'he film'. sporadically used sound·
track of Cregorian chants. This siriking shih mtroduces an ex:tended sequence of
cinematic represeruation~a spell broken only when the hi hop defiantly objects
Danny Gilmore (Vallierl and
Jason cadieux (Simon) in
tJ.... used by
per_
10 the drama by kicking down Ihe confessional door. The bl$b p':;, \'inlenllU1(·r·
ruption of Simon's st.ory abruptly returns thE.' setllng lO the prison ~1WtrOnUlem
and Ihe bishop's direct confrontation with the reahty of pri;)Q!1 hft: lor th('~
inmates. Simon intercedes. first preveming them from harmjng the bishop. and
then persuadlng his advenary to weuch thE." balance of the play so that Slllon's
IIlQU€S1 may run its course. He directs the bishop 10 take .) S(at wnh hm~ no J
bench at the edge of the puddle that the priSODt'~ have created on stage w represem the shore of Lac 5aint-Je,.m. This IS d crucl.11 step bec.1use not on Iv I'> the
bishop out of the ronfesslon.31 where he is accustonI(--d 10 preSiding 'Wilt: tbe
sanctilY of his office. bUl also Simon bas maneuvered him beYond me iounh \\'<111
.and into 3 more active partidpation in the drama As thl."I.- take lhi'1r S('..:ns un ;,nt>
bench. th€'y are poIsed to enter thE.' RobeC\·at ml..'re en $CL'1lC .md not ·....l1:"!v
ObSt.YVl! It from Ihe confinemenl of (he confesSJonal.
The most magical effect of the CmemdtlC represf>1lI,,1tI011 n()\\ occur~. >VJlh
Simon's siriki_ng of a m.uch, a symbolic gesture of his }outh(ul pa.:islon dnd pen
cbdm for arson by which he vemed hiS fruslril.lion ",lIh Ihe [Own, the bishop ;md
convict fllld themsclves at the celebrauon of Simon's, E'ng.1gement 10 Lydi~ ArL1e-.
Simon has entered this arrangemenl as both a begrudgmg C'tlpiruldtlOl1to Ihe h'-'t·
erononnative reqUirements or SQC\ClY Jnd a praetic..ll means for t.':."<:.lpmg rtll-~
Canadian bJckw.uer. and in Lho(' process he has bmk.:n Vallie-f':; heMl The pre
setuation of the IWO elderly men lransported forty Y('J.rS into Ihe saine ~;J<l\..~
OCCUpIed by lheir youthful personae has an uncanny trdllShJstorlcaJ i'1It.'l1. j,U,
tly underscored when the young Bilodeau, a w.liter at the hotel. Sl'rves wire (0
his older self, Although fin;t demurring, Ihe bishop accepts the ()ff~r with some
embarrassmenl. bUI Ihen drinks as the eldl'r Simon ludgmentaJly glJres al thl"
ADAI'T.ulOH fH IOHH 'l[YSOH"S
uun
S3
bishop's easy indulgence. The quaffing of wine suggests the deeper sensory
engagement that tms representation inspires, And, of course, one cannot overlook the sacred syrDbolism of a cleric drinking wine at a feast; this will, indeed.
be a kind of Last Supper before the sacrifice of Vallier to Bilodeau's betrayal.
However, the transhistoncal leap turns out to be not only spectacularly
evocative and highly imaginative, but also finally ineffective in achieving
Simon's objective. As Simon and Bilodeau witness the exchange of private
humiliations between Lydie Anne and Vallier's mother. the elderly men learn
what they were not present to have wimessed in 1912. An insistence on realism
would object that this narrative wrinkle foreshadows the limiLS of both Simon's
drama and the mesmerizing illusion of Greyson's film. To be sure. there are several scenes of which Simon would not have had first-hand knowledge, and
which can be explaineg only as effects of his or Greyson's poetic license. Le.s
Feluettes contains parallel instances in which the bishop complains that Simon's
play rnischaracterizes people or represents events. In a rare exhibition of a need
for a realism, 'Bouchard's play answers this problem with a diary that Bilodeau
had given to Simon in 1912 to prove his devotion to the "saint" he worships.
Simon produces and reads from the diary, and includes in a later scene young
Bilodeau's presentation oJ the diary to him. to counter the bishop's complaint
that 'Simon's play is a fabrication because it contains events about which he
could not have known. 16 But the most important function of the diary is that it
proVides crucial leverage when Simon's play is unable to dramatize the whole
story. Simon must rely on the bishop to fill in the gaps. The diary is the documentary evidence of the bishop's erotic desire, the revelation of which prompts
him to complete the knowledge of the narrative with his admission.
in the film. Simon's play is bound by the same limits of his imagination.
Simon can dramatize the aftermath of the disastrous engagement party, his
reunion with Vanier, and their plans 10· leave together. But he cannot stage the
climax with any certainty because his knowledge of what finally occurred is a
blank: Slmon succumbed to the smoke of the fire that Bilodeau caused only to
discover upon regaining consciousness that Bilodeau dragged him. but not Vallier,
from the burning attic. He may be certain of his own innocence in Vallier's death,
but the full truth of whether o.r not Vallier could have been rescued resides with
Bilodeau alone. Greyson's cinematic inventiveness in the Roberval mise en scene
not only adds richness to Simon's story but also functions primarily as the complement to Simon's drama. Consequently. by their alignment with Simon's play,
the Roberval sequences of the film are subject to the limits of Simon's know!·
edge. Like Simon, Greyson must rely on the bishop to complete the narr;tive.
And just as Simon's play gives way to the bishop's narration of what occurred,
Greyson's cinematic technique gives way to a conventional form of fIlm flashback as supplement to the bishop's voke·over narration. As Simon's incomplete
play winds up. the film segues to the elderly Simon and the bishop seated on
54
LAWI.£MC.E HOWl
their bench, not in the prison where we saw them take their places, but in the
Roberval mise en scene, on the shore of Lac Saint-Jean at snmise. This is the
penultimate transhistorical cinematic scene. which crosscuts to a scene of the
convicts, back in their prison denims, restoring the prison theater to its offtcial
function as chapel, signaling the end of Simon's authority over the direction of
the narrative.
A knock on the prison chapel triggers the memory of, and the simultaneous
crosscut to, B.ilodeau knocking on the door of the school attic where Simon and
Vallier have spent the night; thus this realistic detail signals a shift of narrative
authority and the first gesture toward closure. In other words, because the narrative authority of Simon's play has run its course. this succeeding phase of the
story is a cinematic flashback that marks the realignment of the film's narrative
authority with the bishop·s memory. The bishop's reluctance to complete the
Sl:ory poses the same problem here as in Les Felnettes. But where Bouchard's play
achIeves closure by baving Simon confront the bishop with the dial)" written in
his adolescent hand in order to induce his confession, in Lilies Simon's leverage
is a fony-year-old photograph of Vallier and him costumed for a school play.
We've seen other formal photographic moments within the film, in which the
hotel guests pose for photographs to commemorate their holidays at the lake
(ironically. Greyson casts the playwright and screenwriter Bouchard as the photographer). These framed images suggest the artificiality of the identities that
those who visit the pastoral reson take on. But when Simon produces his photographic memento of Vallier, we realize that those earlier photographs foreshadow the m.oment when Bishop Bilodeau will be confronted by the image of
the two lovers, reminding him of the actual lives he destroyed and" compelling
him to provide the resolution that Simon has craved during his four decades of
imprisonment.
The photograph provides the literal catal}"t for the bishop's admission in a
way that neither the prison theatrical nor the cinematic sequences in which the
Bishop mingles with the characters could. At this moment we understand
Simon's glare when the bishop drank. the wine served him at Simon and LydieAn!le's engagement party or when he remarked thar the inmate-actor playing
Vallier is heavier than the young man he represents. Simon's disturbed gaze at
these moments registers his silent recognition that the dramatic tableau is DOl
achieving its goal. Despite the immediacy of that cinematized dramatic experience in the 1912 location, its ability to provoke is buffered by the esthetic qualities
of the cinematic rep.resentation. But the photograph allows the bishop no such
esthetic distance from the consequences of his actions, Confronting the image oi
the actual Vallier and Simon prompts a belated adrnissioo by pricking the bishop·s
remorseful conscience.
At the metanarrative level, the photograph tangibly represents what Greyson's
cinematics attempt to accomplish by combining the dramatic aspects of Simon's
ADAPTJrnOH IN JOHN CiREYSON·S UUES 55
theatrics with the photographic qualities of his cinematic production. The effect
of the photograph would seem to suggest that the power of Lilies is derived from
the image, whereas the power in Bouchard's Les Felnettes is located finally in
text. And yet the photograph, like the diary, is a documentary ohject and not the
explicit anistic invention that Lilies is, which suggests a tacit acknowledgement
of the epistemological limits of aesthetic productions. even cinematically inventive ones.
This acknowledgement implicitly warrants the move to the conventionality
of cinematic representation during the scene in which the bishop admits he bad
given false testimony and that Vallier might have also been saved. His account
is the authoritative assertion supplemented for the spectator by the cinematic
representation. As in so many conventional film narratives, in which a character
narrates as the screen portrays I.be action, this sequence of the film illustrates the
narrative, but does not construct the vivid epistemological hypothesis anempted
in tbe earlier Roberval scenes. This move into conventionality is not entirely surprising. We might even commend the ending as an appropriate fonn at this juncture because of its attachment to the bishop, an institutional figure of onhodoxy,
or as a symmetrical return to the conventionality of the film's beginning, in
which the opening titles roll over estahUshing shots of the bishop's car making
its way through the Quebec autumn to arrive at the prison, then followed by a
sequence of shots as the bishop is conducted through the prison architecture to
arrive at the chapel. BU{ at the very least we should observe that Greyson's fIlm
registers the inability of his cinematic inventions to do more than transcend lhe
formal limits of the prison theatrical without revising or challenging the epistemological obstacles within the narrative's basic stru~ure, even though the limits of cinematic representation are obscured by the ways in which the shifts in
mise en scene overstep the representational boundaries of the play. Indeed, we
might grant Greyson credit for nOl privileging film as a medium of special knowledge in the way lhat, say, Orson Welles does in Citizen Kane (USA, 1940)_ Such
a gesture in this particular story would not have satisfied the primary objective:
to have the characters, and specifically Bishop Bilodeau, confront the past and
acknowledge the truth. Welles's film, on the other hand, withholds knowledge
from those within the film who seek it and grants insight only to its audience. as
if to say that a feature film extends a cenain privilege to its audience that other
means oi communication cannot deliver.
But despite the limits implied when the narrative authority aligned with
Simon and complemented. by cinematic innovation gives way to the narrative
authority aligned with the bishop and supplemented by conventional flashbacks,
Greyson's inventive representations of Roberval still afford imponant critical
leverage. For these scenes, and especially the exterior shots, expand the range of
the film's reference to Canadian cultural elements. Bouchard's Les Felu.ettes presented Greyson with a ready set of such elements. The legacy of Michel1temblay
56
LAWIIDK.l HOWE
is unmistakable in the source play: drag characters such as Tremblay's Duchesse
who appears in several of his plays and works of fiction, the conflicted fusion 01
homoeroticism and religiOUS devotion in Damrufe Manon/Saaee Sandm, the
overlapping temporal frames of Albertine en cinq temps are all readily trackable
in the characterizations, themes, ami structure of Bouchard"s play. And in one
ironic moment of Bouchard's homage to 1temblay, the Baron de HOe not.es that.
the mysterious arsonist of Roberval is converting the town to ruins including
"Tremblay's General Store. "17 In light of Tremblay's significance as a groundbreaking playwright centrally invotved in the Qniet Revolution, we shonid hardly
be surprised that Bouchard draws on elements established in !.he "new Quebec
theatre. "'18
Greyson's film draws on this same genealogy. but more importantly Lilies
hybridizes its descent from Canadian literary sources through its shift into the
pastoral environment of the Roberval mise en scene. For although the idyllic
images have been a source of some critical complaint, it is in these sequences
that we find the film dialogizing the elements of radical Quebec drama. which
focuses largelY on urban experiences. with images borrowed from a Canadian
tradition estahUshed hy the Ontario pastoral of Stephen Leacock's Sunshine
Sketches of a Utlle TOWTL l' Indeed. it is difficult to overlook some of the obvious
parallels between Ulies and that canonical texL The little town of RobervaJ on
Lac Saint-Jean is a Qutl:bec version of Leacock's fictional Mariposa on Lake
Wissanotri (modeled on his hometown of Orillia on Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching
in Ontario). The pastoral quality of each lakeside town suikes an idyllic tone
that. while consistently characteristic in Leacock's story. is notably at odds with
the tragic mood of Lilies. The hOlel that forms the center of social life of
Greyson's Roberval recaHs the hotel of the notorious Mr. Smith in Leacock's
Mariposa. The social tenor of the two locales are strikingly similar as well;
despite being marked by different provincial cultures, Roberval and Mariposa are
both deftned by a stratified class hierarchy, and both towns take pride in the visi.tation of European dignitaries.
A number of specific correspondences help to reinforce the connecrion
between the two settings. not the least of which is the burning of a church. To
be sure, the arson that young Simon indulges in is an act of teenage rebellion,
whereas the burning of Dean Drone's Church of England parish in Leacock's text
is an insurance scam hatched as relief from bankruptcy. Still. in both Li.lies and
Sunshine Sketches, we note that the arsonists-Simon and Mr. Smith-work
urgently as volunteers in the fire brigade as. social cover for the acts they've committed. We might also note that lilies symbolizes Simon's anti~religious motivation with the image of a charred statue of a saint. This image recalls the Blessed
Virgin statue, similarly burned in a fire, that Tremblay's Manon has recovered for
her own private shrine, and which iconi.cally connects all three texts together.
And finally, Leacock's Sunshine Sketches is published in 1912, precisely the year
AQU"WlON IN JOHN GIlfYSON'S UU£$ 57
in which the cenrral drama of the.Iove triangle occurs in Lilies.
The degree to which these correspondences are embedded in Bouchard's
play seems merely coincidental. But their more striking emergence in the visual
code of Greyson's film seems if not deliberate then at least unconsciously intentional. and not surprisingly given the canonical status of Leacock's text in the
mythology of Canadian identity and Greyson's Ontario upbringing.2:0 Indeed.
Greysoo's avant-game video You Taste American (canada, 1986), about a 1983
police raid of a public bathroom in Orillia, includes expIJdt narration of the town's
place in Leacock's mythology, and thus .indirectly identifies Leacock with homo·
phobic oppression. With regard to Lilies, Greyson's decision to shoot the
Roberval sequences of the fIlm narrative in a pastoral lakeside location forges
the associations to Leacock's text, which thus expands the ways in which intertextuality functions critically in his film, as distinct from Bouchard's play.
Here it is useful to note Roben Stam's citation of Gerard Genene's complex
theorization of intertexluality hy noting fiye different forms of what he calls
"transtexlualiry." As Starn points Out. all film adaptation is explicitly tran5textual.
but not necessarily in the same ways. For example, Lilies is a 'case of "hypenextuality," to use Genette's term. functioning as a "hypenext," that "transforms.
modifies, elaborates, or extends" an anterior text. or "hypotext," in this case
Bouchard's Les Feluerte1i. l1 Both Bouchard's play and Lilies include quotations
and allusions to D'Annunzio's The Martyrdom of Sr. Sebastian; these are instances
of Genene's first form of transtexruality. '"intertexruality," characterized as "the
effective co-presence of nil/a texts," just as lePage's Le Om{essiDnnal acknowl·
edges its interrextual relationship with Hitchcock's 1 Confess. But Ulies makes
use of "architextuality," an additional form of transtextualiry with respect to Les
Feluetles, evidenced in the "reluctance to characterize a text generically in its
title." In other words. while Bouchard explicitly identifies Les Feluettes in its sub-title as a "revival of a romantic drama," Greyson's title evades the taxonomic
identifications with its anterior text by omirting the subtitle. And finally, the relationship between Lilies and Leacock's Sunshine Sketches functions as a form of
"metatextualiry" because of the "critical relation between" Greyson's film and
the canonical text of conservative Canadian humor. Ulies' criticism of Sunshine
Sketches is implicit, but the degree to which Greyson's text subtly undermines
the repression of Canadian decorousness canonized in Leacock's measured narrative voice should not be overlooked.. 22
Admittedly, the hybridizing of radical Quehec drama with wholesome tales
of small-town canadian life appears an odd combination. But it is precisely the
contrast between the two, the contact of steel U(X)D flint. that makes this such a
provocative dedsion. lndeed, if radical gay literature is distinguished by representing the homosexual experience as central, as Derek Cohen and Richard Dyer
have argued, in contrast to "much conventional handling of homosexuality in the
arts," which "works by introducing gay characters or images into an otherwise
heterosexual milieu." then Greyson's film might be credited for optimizing its critique.13 For Lilies not only centers homoerotic identity and experience in its narrative but also defamiliarizes Leacock's conventional milieu of heteroDormative
gentility by its juxtaposition to the secret in Roberval that runs against its orthodoxy. Through this dialogical structUle, Greyson expands the scope of his film,
going beyond the terms of Bouchard's Les Feluertes to comment incisively on
Canadian life. on the secret repression in small towns like Roberval and Mariposa.
which doesn't begin to emerge in the stories told by Leacock's wry: avuncular
narralor. Greysoo's cinematic evocations, then. do not idealize the past but add
to Lilies a subtle critique of the silences in stories like Sunshine Sketches.
Similar to the way that Tremblay's Manon/Sandra creates a dialectic between
the sacred and the profane, Lilies capitalizes on the same force to create a cinematic yer.;ion of Bakhtinlan dialogism. The double-voiced quality thai Bakhtin
attributes to the genre of the novel is paralleled in Gre)"Son's film with a doublevision that makes auslerely staged drama and lush cinematic spectacle more
powerfully critical than either one alone. The effect calls to mind the distinction
that Said attributes to the critic: the responsibility "for articulating those voices
dominated. displaced. or silenced by the textuality of textS," a .responsibility to
be "inventive" in order to "e.xpos[e] things that otherwise lie hidden beneath
piety, heedlessness, or routine." 24
To be sure, Bouchard's Les Feluetles should be credited with helping to
break what Carole Bayard refers to as the "Quebecois obsession with history."
Quoting Jacques Godbout, Bayard implies the necessity of breaking lhe spell of
history that has defined Quebec pessimistically: "From the Conquest on we have
tried to cure ourselves through the word-be it literally, religiously or politically.
Through discourse. We chose to He down on History's couch and repeat the same
narrative. We tried to occupy a geography through words. "25 Lilies entails the
same proce:;s but does not restrict itself to a provincial critique. It represents a
kind of post-modern filmmaking that offers an alternative to a culture articulated through monological discourse. Even separate plural discourses such as those
in Quebec and anglophone canada can exist in their own solitary echo chambers. But by putting discourses in dialogue, the narratives are Dot simply repeated (or revived or rehearsed), they evolve with new epistemological resonances.
And the manner in which Greyson's innovative cinematic narrative both presents
a spectacle to complement plural discourses and identifies the epistern~logica1
boundaries in order to revise them warrants our critical attention.
NOTES
I would like to thank the following: the res(X)Ddems at a panel of the Association
ror Canadian Studies in the Uniled States 2003, where I presented a much earlier
version of this argument; my Roosevelt colleagues Regina Buccola, Bonnie
Gunzenhauser, Ellen O'Brien, Brooke Ponman. and Amanda Putnam for their
AIlAP1RION IN JOHN GUYSOH'S UUES 59
comments on a preliminary deah; and the two anonymous readers who critiqued
the manuscript submission. I am also grateful to V-Tape in Toronto for the opportunity 10 view You Taste American and to Michel Marc Bouchard, Robert
LaLiberte, John Greyson, and Robin Cass of lliptych Media for assistance with
and permission to use photographic images of stage and screen productions.
1.
2.
Robert Starn, "Beyond fidelity: lhe Dia~ies of Adaptation." in Film Adaprotion, James
Naremore. ed. (New Brunswick. NJ:"Rutgers University Press. 2OlXl), S4-. Although qu0tations from Bouchard's play refer to the English banslation, I identify Bouchard's play by its
French title throughout the essay to distinguish more easily between it and Greyson's film.
Stephen Holden. "Of Star·Crossed Love, With Cross-Dressed Cast," New YOlk Times,
11 October 1996: Cl6. Other reviews with drffering degrees of disparagement include
Martin Bilodeau, -Un E!VeMment digne des Feluettes," Le Devoir, 26-27 Oct. 1996: B6;
Marco de Blois,. "Une certiline id~ de la beaute," 24 images 85 (1996-97): 48; Robert
Horton, -'Festivals: NYfF," Fifm Comment 32.6 (November 1996): 63-65; Peter [Howelij,
"flom period finery 10 studded leather," Toronto Star, 26 October 1996: 0; Jan Stuart,.
"Crimes of the Heart,."' Advocate, 745 (28 October 1997): 63-4; J. Hoberman, "Gay
Trippers: Village Voice, 21 October 1997,85; and Rob White, "lIlies," Sight and Sound,
8 (1998): 48. See especially Andre loiselle, "1'he Corpse that lies in lilies: The Stage,
the Screen, and the Dead Body,. Essays on Canadian Writing, 76 (2002): 117-3fl.
3.
Lucie Robert, ---rhe New Quebec lheatre: Davi<f HomeI, trans. Canadian Canon Essoys in
Literary Vahle, Robert Leder, ed. {Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991),123.
4.
Edward said, The Hobrl4 the Text and the Critic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Pr.es5, 1983), 35.
Michel Foucault. Disdpline and Punish; The Birth 01 the Prison, Alan Sheridan. trans.
(New York; Pantheon, 1977), 23.
Sara Graefe. "Reviving and Revising the Past: lhe Search for Present Meaning Michel
Marc Bouchard's Ulies, or the Ret/ivaI 01 a Romantic Drama," Theatre Research in
Canada/ Recherches Thedtroles au Canada 14.2 (1993), makes a shrewd point about
the conflation of both conc:.epts in the French word and their thematic im~ications for
Bouchard's text (166-68). The same would hold for Greyson's film, indeed, to a greater
degree because of the representational opportunities that the Roberval scenes afford.
Maurice Merfeau-Pooty, Adventures of the Diafectic, Joseph Bein. TranS. (Evanston, IL.;
Northwestem University Press. 1973), 11.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Bouchard. who also wrote the screenplay, has talked about the authority that Greyson
asserted in revising this scene, among others. See -Dossier: The3tre et cinema: Jeu 88
(1998): 46-60.
Michael Marc Bouchard, lilies or the RevMJI of a Romantic Drama (1981), linda
Gaboriau, tJans. (Toronto: Playwrights Canada, 1990),69.
lePage's film doesn't maintain the privacy of the confessional out of a convention of
respect; indeed, he juxtaposes the rituals of the confessional with the acts performed
in cubicles d a bathhouse..
films like Sherlodc Jr. (USA,. 1925, Buster Keaton), Citizen Kane (USA. 1940, Orson
Welles), and Cinemo Paradiso (Italy, 1989, Giuseppe Tornatore,) give us similar reflexive
glimpses back to the projectionist's window, the source of the screened image. .
LoiseUe.13O. loiselle's airidsm here recalls similar responses to gay texts and films,.
especialty those dealmg with the AIDS crisis (see Lawrence Howe, -Anthologies of the
Plague Years: AIDS, Art, and Criticism," Contemporary Literature 35 (1994J: 395-416).
The allies of AIDS literature, echoed by those who reject Greyson's film as 100 pretty,
insist that the literature of AIDS must express outrage at both the neglect of an epidemic
and the nanative requirement that the people with AIDS be represented in relationships
that reRect comparisons to heteronormative relationships, and thus be acceptable to a
mainstream audience. Perhaps the most highly charged obted of this kind of attical controversy is lhe Names Project: lhe AIDS Quilt, which has been, on the one hand, praised
for its ability to generate compassion and calls for action, a~~ on the other ha?d,
charged with betraying gay identity by invokin~ the d~estlcrty of heteronarratrves (see
Steve Abbott, -Meaning Adrift: lhe NAMES Pro,ect QUitt SUggests a Patchwork of
ProbJems and Possibifrties,." San Frandsro Sentinel, 16.2 [14 October 198B}: 21,24).
13.
14.
Loiselle. 130.
15.
Loiselle observes that the casting asserts a mise en abi'me-an emblem of the narr.a~'s
core cooflid-which aeates -a peculiar tension between, on the one hand, the artificiaflty
of the male actors and, on the other hand, the naturalness of the filmic setting" (123).
16.
Bouchard, 44 and 55. Although Greyson's film dispenses with the aulhor~ty of .Bilodeau's
diary, a scene in which the youthful Bilodeau derrvers a ~liloquy expr~SS1ng .hlS frustration with God's failure to intercede on his behalf is a vestige of the rehance m Bouchard
play on the private documenl as a source of Simon's dra~. lhus, thi~ isol~ed.scene
seems out of place in the filJll, which implicitly relocates dlred authority WIth Simon.
17.
18.
Bouchard, SO.
.
The title of Michel Belair's 1973 study gave this movement its name. see Robert (note 3)
for a concise histor( of the evolution of "New Quebec lheatle" into a canonical forma·
19.
20.
Edward Guthmann, "John Greyson,- TheAdvocote 742 (16 september 1997): 71.
tion.
.
Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little To'Ml (1912; rept. Peterborough, ON:
Broadview, 2002).
In interviews. Greyson has acknowledged his personal attJaetion to the story of
likening it to the kind of stories a gay adolescent like himself invents while gro~ng up
feeling entirely alone (Film Festivals website. John Greyson. http:/~jjlmfestJvals.com/
london96/ffi1b9.htm). The lUnd of heteronarrative thai Leacock's writing asserts would
certainty inform that sense of solitary difference.
f.!lies.
21.
Starn, 65.
22.
2.3.
Ibid.. 65.
Quoted in Graefe. 175.
24.
saKi, 53.
25. . Carole Bayard, "Criticallnstincts in Quebec: From the Quiet Revolution to the
postmodem.Age, 1960-1990: in Canadian Canoo, 125.
LAWRENCE HOWE is Associate Professor of English at Roosevelt University in
Chicago. where he teaches American literature and cultural studies, Canadian literature. narrative theory, and film. In addition to publishing a number of scholarly articles. he is a conrributor to the Oxford Mark 'llvain and the author of Mark
11vain and rhe Novel (1998).
ADAPIJIJION IN JOHN '.EnON'S UUES 61