We caught up with Cass Paley about the brouhaha that's brewing in British Columbia over his John Holmes documentary. As noted yesterday, fur has been flying in Victoria over the proposed airing of Wadd at St. Ann's Academy, a former convent, during The Independent Film and Video Festival Feb. 5. One critic or critics have been saying that Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes is pornographic and the former convent is not an appropriate venue. One lawyer, Ronald McIsaac, says if all else fails, he'll try to have a judge rule the film obscene. Doug Christie, a lawyering free speech advocate says nobody has a right to object to the screening, sight unseen.
But this week, festival organizers vowed to keep the selected venue. In the press, director Cass Paley has been saying all the fuss is "silly and absurd," estimating that his film has been screened about a hundred times around North America, usually to rave reviews. Paley says St. Ann's Academy is now a public building and the film has a legal right to be shown there.
G. Ross: "I hear you're taking your filthy movie and putting it in former convents."
Paley: "Damn right. And rightfully where it belongs."
G. Ross: "Wouldn't the name St. Ann's ring bells and whistles?"
Paley: "No, because there's a couple of restaurants named that - St. Ann's Omelet Parlor."
G. Ross: "You're going to have the whole Catholic Church down on you, now, once the pope reads geneross.com today."
Paley: "I have a phone call into the pope. As soon as I get a hold of him, he and I are going to have a conference call with you and get this whole thing straightened out. I'm tired of all the sabre-rattling."
G. Ross: "But if you're going to choose a saint, make it St. Elsewhere for god's sake."
Paley: "I'm just so fed up with these people and their attitudes...next week they won't let me play in St. Paul for some reason. It's saint town. Then it'll be Santa Monica. I'll be banned everywhere. They called me from the festival, this wonderful lady named Daniella [Sorrentino], she's the spokesperson for them. She said, 'Boy have you caused a stir up here.' I said what did I do now? She tells me the story about this religious fanatic who started this whole thing on a talk show last week. The host is a guy named Joe Easingwood. I'll be talking to him live today [this morning]. He also wrote an article that I thought was just wonderful. This fanatic was on his show and caused all this hoopla. And the problem is, I don't think this guy, his name escapes me, knows who he wants to go after. First, it was the film which he called pornographic. My biggest problem with him is that he hasn't seen the film. If he's seen it and has some comments, I have no problem wuth him. But that's the typical fanatics - 'I don't like, I don't care, I can't see it. It's dirty.' What's really fun about it is that it's giving the film festival so much great publicity. And they're really selling tickets. I'm happy for them."
G. Ross: "And this is in British Columbia?"
Paley: "Yes."
G. Ross: "Now they've got something other than salmon fishing to talk about... you seem to be embroiled in controversy, now." [Paley was also named in the Laurie Holmes suit against Bill Amerson.]
Paley: "I'm having a good ol' time. I'll tell you another story which is brewing and I don't know how to end this one, yet. I was accepted at The Texas Film Festival which is held at Texas A&M in College Park, Texas. Unfortunately, it's a little more of a conservative town and conservative school and a religious area. I was speaking to the film festival directors over the last couple of days. They were really heart broken that the faculty members of one of the colleges decided that they should not show my film, and if they did, they would probably be pulling all the funding for film festivals forever. That bothers me mainly because the 15 members of this school's council haven't seen the film, either. I told the guy at the film festival that I would send all 15 members each a copy. He said would you do that? I said absolutely and if you can get all 15 members in a room to watch the movie I'll buy the beer. I'm waiting to hear back."
G. Ross: "With all this reputation you're getting, you might as well become a pornographer."
Paley: "I was thinking about that. I'm not sure yet unless I do some really disgusting gonzos."
[Paley saus he's also got a Canadian TV station interested now in doing a piece about the controversy.]
