Winter Kept Us Warm “Winter kept us warm,” reads an early line in T.S. Eliot’s landmark poem The Waste Land, “covering Earth in forgetful snow.” This season, often associated with loneliness and despair, heralds quite the opposite both in Eliot’s masterwork and in Canadian filmmaker David Secter’s. The latter’s 1965 feature debut, Winter Kept Us Warm, centers on the blossoming relationship between Doug (John Labow) and Peter (Henry Tarvainen), two University of Toronto college students. An upperclassman, the popular Doug spends more time socializing with his fraternity brothers than studying; conversely, freshman Peter feels awkward in his new surroundings, and as such greatly prefers the company of books (and Finnish folk music) to people.
An unlikely friendship forms between the young men, whose first real conversation unfolds as Peter is checking out The Waste Land from the university library. As autumn leaves give way to first snowfall, Doug and Peter become virtually inseparable. Even Doug’s stylish girlfriend, Bev (Joy Fielding), becomes increasingly jealous of her lover’s glaring preference for Peter’s company over her own. Yet the arrival of spring brings a cold front to the so-called friendship, particularly when Peter decides to put himself out there by participating in a production of Ibsen’s Ghosts, meeting a co-ed named Sandra (Janet Amos) in the process. As Peter falls in love, Doug is beset by jealousy. “If I didn’t know any better,” scoffs Bev during a tense conversation with her boyfriend, “I’d swear that you and Peter…”
Released just four years before Canada would decriminalize homosexuality, Secter’s film never finds Doug and Peter expressing their same-sex desire, though their emotional register clearly rings as one of unrequited love. Commenting on the power of social pressures and the allure of conformity, Winter Kept Us Warm is considered a hallmark of Canada’s then-burgeoning film industry, an impressive feat considering that the filmmaker made it while he was still an English major at the U of T himself. Although it was the first English-language film from the country to screen at Cannes during its 1966 Critics’ Week section, an enduring quality long evaded the film and Secter himself, who never quite made another feature as prominent as his debut. Only now does it get a proper 4K restoration and Blu-ray release via Canadian International Pictures, 60 years after its initial release.
In conjunction with the new restoration, Metrograph has been playing Winter Kept Us Warm in its theater for a long weekend stint. The last showing of the film is tonight, June 23 at 6 p.m. Ahead of the film screening in New York City, the 82-year-old Secter and I hopped on a Zoom call to reflect on the 60th anniversary of his feature debut. Below, our conversation covers an unmade sequel that Secter wrote the screenplay for, the refusal of certain cast members to articulate the film’s homoerotic nature and the Canadian luminary who credits Winter Kept Us Warm for inspiring his own cinematic pursuit.
Filmmaker: What motivated you to centralize T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in the narrative?
Secter: Well, to be candid, I’ve never read the entire poem. But indeed, [during college] I was in a course called English Language and Literature, which required us to learn things like Old English. But when I read The Waste Land, I thought that the opening lines provided a perfect title for the movie. One of the reasons I’m excited about the 4K restoration is the Blu-ray edition, in which they’re including a lot of additional material, [among it] a screenplay of the sequel that I wrote 30 years after making Winter Kept Us Warm called Memory and Desire, which is also a quote from The Waste Land. I thought it would make a terrific movie. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to pull it off, but all four of the lead actors were interested in reprising their roles. I think it would have been terrific, but at least now they’re going to be publishing the screenplay in the Blu-ray edition.
Anyway, I went to the University of Toronto. I’d never been to Toronto before. I had a couple of years at the University of Manitoba, where I grew up. We had the same carpool going to college that we had in high school! I was very eager for a new experience. I went to Toronto for the first time and spent a year in residence. I was not really into resident life, but it provided the setting and the experience for my first movie. It was based on a friendship that I had during that time. It lasted briefly because the other member of the crush had no interest in taking it further than a friendship. I recognized by this time that I was interested in men romantically and sexually, although at the time I identified as bi and I was still involved with women.
Frankly, the movie was really inspired by complete ignorance. At the time, there was no movie industry in Canada. There was no place to study film. U of T did have a terrific theater program, so [I was able to cast] actors who I’d seen on stage. But when I decided to make the movie, nobody involved had ever made a film, not even a short. I went over to a technical school called Ryerson—which is now a full-fledged university—and at the time they didn’t have a film course. But in the third year of their still photography course, they had an option to introduce students to motion pictures. So the teacher who ran that course agreed to invite his students to get involved [in my film]. Two of them, [Robert Fresco and Ernest Meershoek], became the directors of photography and saw the project through to its end. Both of them then became very active in the Canadian film industry, which blossomed shortly after we made the movie. It was really a question of just learning on the set. I’m still a little amazed that it turned out as well as it did, considering how totally inexperienced we all were.
Filmmaker: What was the process of writing this script like? The gay romance isn’t exactly subtext, but it feels intentionally stifled by societal pressures and the claustrophobia of being closeted.
Secter: It’s a really good question because at the time, the term “gay” was not used. We don’t use the term anywhere in the film. Even when writing the script and working with the actors, I was always using euphemisms like, “Doug developed a stronger attachment to Peter.” I had to be discreet in telling people [working on the film] what the subject was, but several of the powers that be recognized the homoerotic theme anyway. One dean that I had to go to for permission to shoot on campus just flatly rejected it and said, “Homosexuality? Not on this campus.” It was really, as they say, under the radar. There obviously were gay [students] at the time besides myself. And yet there was no club, not any kind of recognition of a gay culture. But fortunately, there were enough people who were either excited about just making a movie—or perhaps about the [subversive] storyline—that I was able to get enough cooperation to shoot on campus. Although no one ever came up with funds to make the movie, we ended up building up a sizable debt at the production house in town just on my promise that come hell or high water, I would pay it off one way or the other. When the film was finished, we couldn’t find a distributor, so we ended up basically becoming the distributor and exhibitor ourselves. Which was a blessing in disguise because we’d charge, like, a dollar a seat. We were able to sell out several screenings and pay off our $8,000 debt just during the first run in Toronto. The movie still resonates 60 years later and the restoration gives it as good of a look and sound as it’ll ever have. There are still lots of flaws and I have a lot of respect for those, but I’m glad that it’s finding a new audience after all these years.
Filmmaker: At the time that you made this film, homosexuality was considered a crime in Canada.
Secter: At the time, yes, it was a triple taboo: it was against the law, against the church and against medicine. The three biggest institutions all condemned it. Allen Ginsberg is one of the few prominent people who owned up to being gay. You could count [openly gay] people at that time, really, on the fingers of one hand.
Filmmaker: Even though you were operating under this covert air of queerness you needed to apply, the film still continues to resonate with audiences today, as you said. Why do you think this is?
Secter: I think basically it’s a reminder of the sea change that has occurred in two generations. I can’t think of any social movement which has changed [social perception] so totally in such a brief period of time. When we were making the film, I’m sure that there were statistics that indicated something like 90% of people thought that homosexuality was unacceptable. A generation later, the majority was already open to it. Today, it’s seriously challenged by the current administration, and in some ways there’s been a backtrack. But I think if somebody looks at the film today, they would be surprised at how fresh the subject was just 60 years ago
Filmmaker: I know that neither actor was aware of the unrequited lust in the film. After viewing it or reading critics’ reviews dubbing it a gay romance upon its release, did they come to you with a reaction?
Secter: You raise a very interesting point. About 25 years ago, a nephew of mine made a documentary called The Best of Secter and the Rest of Secter. He interviews a number of the actors [in Winter Kept Us Warm] who are quite open about the fact that they had no idea what the real subject of the movie was. I take that with something of a grain of salt. Unfortunately, both actors who played Doug and Peter died quite young. But John Labow, who played Doug, and I were very friendly for years. I don’t think he was at all homophobic, but he claimed that he didn’t believe that Doug is actually gay. Now, even if you just look at what’s on screen, I think it’s clear that he’s very strongly attracted to Peter. I think it’s pretty clear that Doug is recognizing his attraction to Peter is more than simply friendship. John, as I say, interpreted it differently, and yet he was delivering exactly what I needed and wanted [out of the performance]. So we both came out of the experience, I think, very happy with the outcome, just with different interpretations on what was happening. Joy Fielding, who played Bev—and who has become quite a famous author—says she was shocked when she found out what the movie was all about. I’m interested in hearing what she has to say on the Blu-ray. I think she is as perceptive as anybody—an author should be, anyway. I think I made my intentions clear enough and that it comes across on screen.
Filmmaker: Tell me about the process of restoring this film. Had you revisited it prior to this process?
Secter: Well, I’ve seen it from time to time over the years, but actually I hadn’t seen it for several years until just recently. A couple of years ago, this fellow Christian Dupuis contacted me and said that he had gotten approval to do a book about the movie as part of a series called Queer Film Classics that McGill Queen’s University Press is publishing. The other books in the series include people like Hitchcock, Visconti, John Waters—all sorts of luminaries. I’m certainly thrilled to be in their company. But as part of doing the book, we sat through the movie together a couple of times so I could comment on it as we went through. And then in doing the Blu-ray, I also went through with the distributors, Canadian International Pictures, and also commented on it. So over the last couple of years, I’ve seen it more often than I had for decades, because it has disappeared a couple of times and then been rediscovered. When it first came out, it got quite a bit of distribution for a black and white 16mm student movie. It ran in New York at the theater that used to show Andy Warhol’s films. It ran for six weeks, which I understand was the record except for Chelsea Girls. It also played in art houses in L.A., other major cities, across Canada and at festivals in Europe and so forth. I guess by the end of the ‘60s, it kind of faded away. Then a decade or so later, it suddenly reappeared at some festivals. Then that kind of petered off until my nephew made his documentary, when it got another flurry of interest. Then that faded away, and then suddenly the book came out and the restoration was done. So now it’s enjoying a 60th anniversary resurgence. It’s a hell of a student film, I’ll tell you that much.
Filmmaker: Are there any rising or established queer filmmakers whose work you currently find intriguing?
Secter: Oh, so many. I think it’s really thrilling, the quality of movies that are coming out all over the world. I’m seeing films from Asia and Africa. Obviously, it’s still a capital crime in many places, yet somehow filmmakers manage to deal with the subject even in some very oppressive places. So I’m very thrilled with the state of gay film and, generally speaking, creative arts.
Interestingly, I’m still slogging away. I’ve recently completed the book and lyrics for Rule of Fire, which is a new musical in old Hawaii. It is a kooky, queer concoction of history, myth and fantasy. I’m currently developing it not only as a musical theater piece, but as an animated and, hopefully at some point, a live-action film.
Filmmaker: The restoration premiered last year at the Inside Out Film and Video Festival. Were you able to watch the film with the audience?
Secter: Unfortunately, I was not. I live in Kona, the big island of Hawaii, so getting to the mainland is quite a schlep. I did an interview on Zoom that they projected [on the screen] and I got wonderful feedback from the screening, but I was not there in person.
Filmmaker: What kind of feedback?
Secter: Basically, the people I heard from were a lot of people who were involved in making the film. They were all very pleased to see how good it looked and sounded. Interestingly, there was some controversy. There was a lot of campus unrest regarding the Palestinian situation. As you know, there’s campus unrest in Winter Kept Us Warm. Some of the people in the screening tried to make a connection between the Vietnam protests and the Palestinian protests. Some members of the cast, Joy being one of them, objected to the point they were making. There were some political explosions at the screening, which I was [mostly] unaware of, as I only had a limited view because I was on screen.
Filmmaker: It’s interesting, because Peter and Doug have differing attitudes concerning activism in the film. Obviously the queer plot is what most people take away from the film, but I think that there’s something about being in college and reckoning with who you are and what you believe in as a person that is central to the project, as well.
Secter: Doug sees danger signs in Peter’s activism. That was an issue at the time and it still is. Interestingly, if you read some of the early reviews, you wonder if they’re talking about the same movie. Because some reviews—even quick, perceptive and positive ones—make no mention at all about the homoerotic element. To them, it’s just a campus friendship, a rite of passage. Other reviewers, especially the gay reviewers, of course, did zoom in on that immediately. I mean, several of these critics labeled it as a queer film. But again, that came as a surprise to a lot of the people involved in making the movie, because they hadn’t perceived it as such. I guess I’m pleased that the movie is open to interpretation and doesn’t force the issue. I think that the audience is as responsible as the auteur for coming up with the response [to a film]. I certainly have had that experience over the years of hearing how people’s responses change to the same movie. The movie stays the same, yet the interpretation is often very different.
Filmmaker: Finally, I’m sure you’ve heard that fellow Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg found your film particularly inspiring; he often notes it as an influence on his own career. Have you seen or kept up with his work at all?
Secter: Yeah, I’m a big fan. I think several of his films are classics. I never met the guy, actually, but I’m certainly glad that he credits me with inspiring his career and I’m always ready to see any movie he makes.