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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Politics as Art, Art as Politics: Uncut - Review﻿</title>﻿
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﻿<b﻿>﻿Politics as Art, Art as Politics:
﻿<br﻿>﻿Uncut 
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Review by Archie Graham﻿<br﻿>﻿
﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, August - September 1998﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
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The social value of the Ontario Film Review Board (OFRB) shouldn't be underrated. I'm not referring to its importance as an agency for the classification and censorship of films, but to its significance as an instrument of artistic expression. The decisions of this agency are sometimes so wonderfully and unwittingly in tune with the work it classifies that they could be construed as an unexpected extension of artistic production. A scene, as it were in the film itself.
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
The film in question is John Greyson's Uncut, a scintillating mock docudrama about censorship, circumcision, copyright issues, sexual orientation, and Pierre Trudeau's image and politics. In June, the OFRB decision in this case was to classify the film as "Restricted" after identifying it as an example of "antiestablishmentarianism", although this rating was changed less than a month later to "Adult Accompaniment" following an appeal by the Montreal distributors, Domino Films. The change in rating is, of course, a much more desirable and appropriate result, but from a purely artistic point of view, I can't help thinking that the original decision was a more aesthetically fitting and unconsciously ironic institutional response to Greyson's blistering satirical indictment of Canadian censorship policies. It could not have been better scripted by the filmmaker himself if he had planned a sequel to parody the censorship of a film parodying censorship.
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
Uncut, superbly edited by Denis Day, is an electrifying mix of delightfully whimsical, occasionally hilarious, surrealistic melodrama, and serious documentary interviews. The setting is 1979 Ottawa. The story pivots around a farcical gay love triangle involving three men named Peter. (The prolific use of the anglicized version of the first name of the former Prime Minister Trudeau is a bit of comical defiance of the relentless efforts of the political image makers who would like to copyright everything, even names.) Peter Cort is a young writer looking for a publisher for his manuscript on circumcision; Peter Koosens is his typist, and Peter Denham is a gay-bar cruiser. Cort has an obsession with the "psycho-sexual meanings" and political implications of the circumcised male member, one which he elaborates in the voice-over intermittently throughout the film. Koosens is repeatedly harassed by a cop for writing love-letters to the Prime Minister, with whom he is madly in love. Denham is the mild-mannered Mephistopheles who seduces them both and eventually lands them in jail. This amiably nonsensical and symbolically laden tale is spliced together with a series of more obviously sensible talking heads.
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
Among the latter are writer Tom Waugh, artist A.A. Bronson, and playwright Linda Griffith. Waugh discusses his book of erotic gay photos, Bronson General Idea's use of the "c" sign and AIDS logo for aesthetic purposes, and Griffith her stage impersonation of Trudeau. These interviews are overlapped by a seemingly endless string of images of penises in various states of arousal, some comical, and some downright painful. The result is a dazzling fast-edit mix you might find on MTV, except that here it is used for higher aims. It not only purposefully defies current Canadian legislation which outlaws the showing of a full erection, but develops a sophisticated satirical comment which makes instructive connections between circumcision and censorship, between copyrighting creative property and manufacturing political myths, and between the development of sexual orientation and the capacity to hold political power.
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
The story of the three Peters makes all these weighty subject seem light, and involves some wonderfully bizarre revisions of history. Cort periodically reads his illegible manuscript to Koosens, intoning about such delectable ditties as the myth of the curative power of the penis foreskin. Koosens is picked up by Denham who returns with him to his apartment, the walls of which are plastered with Photos of Trudeau. Denham seduces Koosens and steals the photos. Denham then splices them together into a sizzling mix which includes a video of himself making out with Cort, and actual footage of Trudeau announcing that "there's no place for the state in the bedroom of the nation," proclaiming the War Measures Act, and expressing unmitigated contempt for the "bleeding hearts" who don't like what he's doing. Denham sells his adult-only Sesame Street sizzler to a TV network which airs it prime time. This gives Trudeau a heart attack and sends him into a coma, which, in turn, leads to the arrest of the three Peters. 
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
In a trial which looks like a Monty Python comic opera set to the music of Carmen, they are prosecuted and convicted for the infusion of stolen images with a "homo-erotic subtext". Committed to a farm-prison, they are ordered, among other things, to "clean books" by known gay authors like W.H. Auden and Jean Genet, literally, with a Q-tip. Koosens, in a fit of passionate self-sacrifice, circumcises himself in order to make available the foreskin cure for Trudeau. Like an organ donor selflessly relinquishing a desperately needed organ, he presents the unsightly gift to Cort, who is released early, and asks him to deliver it to his beloved. I'm not giving away much about the ending when I say this kooky series of events leads to the restoration of history as we know it.
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
Uncut is the vigorous deconstruction of a Great Canadian Icon, an energetic parody of the manipulative and exploitative practices involved in the politically motivated media construction of iconic images for mass consumption. It is a powerful satirical critique of the glib, authoritarian, and elitist politics Trudeau stood for, and involves searing condemnation of copyright and censorship policies which have been developed in recent years to control the communication of mass media images, and protect and preserve the powers and privileges of elite groups.
﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿
The comical irony of the OFRB's "Restricted" rating of this film and the subsequent change to the more palatable "Adult Accompaniment" should not deflect attention from the seriousness of its original decision. This decision simply reaffirmed the core message of Greyson's film: censorship in is a clearly political act. The virtue of Uncut is that it both exposes and challenges such acts, and does in a hugely entertaining way what all good art should do: it extends and redefines the parameters of dialogue, discussion, and debate of serious cultural issues.
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