The Making of Monsters

The Making of Monsters is a 1991 Canadian short film, directed by John Greyson.[1] Made while Greyson was a student at the Canadian Film Centre,[1] the film's premise is that playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht is alive and living in Toronto, and actively interfering with the production of "Monsters", a heavily sanitized movie of the week about the 1985 death of Kenneth Zeller in a gaybashing attack.[1]

The Making of Monsters
Directed byJohn Greyson
Written byJohn Greyson
Produced byLaurie Lynd
StarringChristopher Anderson
Stewart Arnott
Lee MacDougall
Edited byMiume Jan
Music byGlenn Schellenberg
Production
company
Release date
1991 (Berlin)
Running time
35 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

The film premiered at the 1991 Berlin International Film Festival,[2] and was later screened at the 1991 Toronto International Film Festival[3] and other selected LGBT film festivals, including Vancouver's Out on Screen,[4] Montreal's Image+Nation[5] and Edmonton's The Voice and the Vision.[6]

Cast

The film's cast includes Lee MacDougall as the film within a film's version of Zeller, while the roles of Brecht and Kurt Weill are played by talking fish.[7] The cast also includes Christopher Anderson and Stewart Arnott.

Controversy

Following its initial run on the film festival circuit, the film remained unavailable for many years due to copyright issues, as Warner-Chappell, the holder of the rights to Weill's songs, obtained a court injunction against the use of a "Mack the Knife" parody with different lyrics in the film even though parodies are fully legal under fair use provisions.[8] Warner-Chappell had originally approved the use, but changed their mind after learning that the film contained gay content;[8] even after Weill's songs passed into the public domain in 2001, Warner-Chappell continued to use legal threats to block public screenings of the film, even preventing it from being included in the 2012 Greyson retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario.[8]

The film has, however, been screened in some university film studies courses without incident.[8] The issue also influenced the copyright-related themes of Greyson's later feature film Uncut.[9]

Accolades

At Berlin, the film won a Jury Prize from the Teddy Award program.[10] The film won the Toronto International Film Festival Award for Best Canadian Short Film at the 1991 Toronto International Film Festival.[11]

References
  1. Matthew Hays, "Legends: The Making of Monsters". POV, February 1, 2009.
  2. "Monsters in Berlin". The Globe and Mail, January 18, 1991.
  3. "Film festival to showcase record number of Canadians: Lineup includes Egoyan, McDonald". The Globe and Mail, July 24, 1991.
  4. "Gay film festival extends friendly hand to all". Vancouver Sun, May 22, 1991.
  5. "Gay film fest not afraid to tackle issues". Montreal Gazette, November 15, 1991.
  6. "Film festival gives voice to gays". Edmonton Journal, March 10, 1992.
  7. R. Bruce Brassell, "The Making of Monsters: The queer as producer". Jump Cut, no. 40, March 1996, pp. 47-54.
  8. "The censoring of Monsters". Daily Xtra, April 2, 2012.
  9. "John Greyson, an Uncut above: The Genie Award-winning director of Lilies returns to his prickly, ironic, video-art roots". The Globe and Mail, May 30, 1997.
  10. "Canadian films make mark among 700 at Berlin fest". Halifax Daily News, February 22, 1991.
  11. "Film festival gives cash to promising director". Toronto Star, September 16, 1991.
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