When I was taking Music History in undergrad, we
were visited by a Canadian composer for a special lecture on the classical
tradition of the Tundra Not Unda. Her
general thesis was that being a composer in Canada (or any other artist seeking
state funding) meant that government financiers were mainly interested in two
subjects that theoretically made up the “Canadian Experience”: space and
identity. Space may have come from the
wide open spaces of the Canadian wilderness, and how the pioneering spirit
still lingered through the generations and built a foundation for country
life. Identity seems to come with living
in North America, as the histories of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico were rich
with the trials and tribulations of colonialism and immigration. I can’t speak for all Canadian arts as to
whether anybody producing art explores these concepts by choice or by
necessity, but I can attest to the late writer Gabrielle Roy and director Allan
Kroeker, whose combined arts made this wonderful TV movie from the mid-80’s that
occupies that interesting slot of videos that have been out of print for
decades but are very cheap to acquire online.
Tramp at the
Door is set in the Manitoban Prarieside in the mid-30’s, following
Gabrielle Roy herself (newcomer Joanna Schellenberg), her Justice-of-the-Peace
father (August Schellenberg, Joanna’s real-life father) and her mother (Monique
Mercure, who has been in things I’ve seen but I’ve never recognized her). Her father was born of an immigrant family in
Quebec, and forged a new existence for himself in early adulthood, away from
his family. His only connection left
with his roots are his stories and memories, as was common with people living
far away from each other in those days.
That is, until the Roy’s (called the Fornier’s in the film) are
approached by a strange visitor (Ed McNamara, who died within a year of this
film’s release), who we had recently seen conning a train conductor into
thinking he had bought a ticket by wearing a stranger’s coat while he was in
the bathroom and getting the ticket
punched before the coat’s owner returned.
The stranger approaches one rainy evening and
introduces himself as Gustav, a cousin from Quebec. Gabrielle is the one to answer the door, and
she doesn’t believe him at first, because he gets her name wrong (calling her
Agnes) and saying Fortnier instead of Fornier.
He is only invited inside and to the table because of the father’s
curiosity in meeting a cousin from the old home. The news of family developments spill forth,
but Gustav seems to only speak of cousins as their names and details are
offered to him by the family (my favorite is when he insists that a cousin who
had lost his legs in the war ended up running the family farm). Gabrielle and her mother immediately suspect
that Gustav is a liar, but the father is in the mood of fool-suffering because
he likes the illusion of family connection across the horizon. Despite grumblings from his wife, he attempts
sending Gustav off in the morning. This
is unsuccessful, with the father claiming that the roads are unsuitable for
horseback riding.
The mother, also in the mood of fool-suffering (for
her husband, anyways), gives Gustav an old work-outfit and sets him to help out
around the house. He throws himself into
the help, tending to farm duties and even fetching mail from town on foot
despite the great distance. By night, he
becomes a fountain of stories from the family, speaking of many cousins from
the past: one who lived to be ninety after failed suicide attempts, a
bootlegger who became a priest and another who killed her husband by putting
glass in his soup. Each story has a
captivation to it, and Gustav often stops his stories right at a climactic
point, ensuring that the family will keep him at the house for another
day. The mother is the most interesting
in her reaction to all this, admitting that even though she doesn’t trust
Gustav or believe the stories for a second, all information she did get of her
husband’s past was in the form of stories, anecdotes, comparisons, and fragments. Her husband’s stories were in their own way
no more or less real to her than Gustav’s.
This continues for some time, with the web of
history that Gustav spins becoming more and more thick and emotionally grabbing
for the family. One of the most incredible
was the story of Cousin Cleofas, who apparently died aboard the Titanic with
his wife, and his family didn’t find out about it until a decade later. It’s in these moments that a thick air fills
the living room, an air of rapt fascination, one that is represented
beautifully by the music and lighting.
Even more fascinating is a story that he tells to Gabrielle one day,
about a cousin who pulled himself up by his bootstraps by giving bottles of a
cure-all cough syrup to his townspeople, and became a well-regarded and wealthy
man despite having no real credentials or medical skill. Of course, the story of how he lost all his
money is for another time, stringing her along with yet another cliffhanger.
Throughout all of this a strange balance is maintained,
with Gustav’s illusion keeping the family looking the other way, even though
they always question him implicitly, and internally. In a curious moment, the father finds a
notice of an older, possibly deranged older man being in town on the board next
to his office. He takes the notice down,
and when a coworker questions him he claims the notice was for a team of horses
he wants to buy (even though he already has one), and gets defensive when
probed. Gustav has become a member of
the family through pure charm, a feat that may never happen again in this day
and age, where people have to undo sixteen locks on the door just to pay for
pizza delivery. He is blessed with the
enormous gift of observation, and knowing how to play on people’s needs. At one point, he breaks through to the
mother’s religious bent by spinning a story of a miracle-working Brother Andre
at St. John’s Oratory (a Quebec basilica).
She sees the gift of compassion in his heart, a gift that seemed obvious
to them all along, by his ability to weave tales for no other purpose than to
fill his hosts’ hearts with joy.
And then, he's gone.
But, not really.
Merely, he has moved onward, further West, towards another town and
another family. Nothing was taken from
the Fornier’s home, and no ill feelings were kept; he just knew that it was
time to keep moving. And then the
letters start coming, as Gustav tells of more family members he supposedly
visits in his journeys, each one having a kind word for Mr. Fornier. The Fornier’s spend their evenings pawing
through old photographs and correspondences.
One night they think they recognize Gustav’s voice in a radio serial,
and realize that his Scheherazade-like technique of cliffhangerismo may have been
lifted from them. The letters start to
create a trail across the Prairie, a line of experience and warm feelings that
can’t be proven by the Fornier’s but are a joy to relish. Relatives that the father had never heard of
were seemingly happy to send their regards through Gustav. And then, he is silent. In a pivotal scene, Gabrielle forecasts her
own future as a writer by re-telling the story of the cough-syrup cousin to her
classroom. And, in her own burgeoning
talent, she weaves Gustav into the character, while wearing her teacher’s coat
and hat.
Much more of the plot, I shouldn’t tell, but it
might not be what you expect. It is this
film’s gift to create a warm, sprawling texture that engulfs the viewer during
its tidy 80-minute running time. I can
imagine that the original TV broadcast was an inferior way to view the film, as
the depth of the cinematography, design, and acting is far too much for the
small screen. The cinematographer Ron
Orieux and art director Bonnie von Helmot have a love affair with natural
light, and the way it plays across skin, wallpaper, and wheatfields (I suspect Days of Heaven was influential in the
look of the piece). The direction by
Kroeker is superb at capturing the experience of hearing Gustav’s stories,
often following his inflections and movements with a handheld camera, imitating
the spectator. I got the feeling
throughout most of the film that I could simply walk through the screen and
live the life of a Manitoban farmer in the 1930’s, as the rhythms and moods of
this kind of life are made luminous and endearing by the director’s touch. As for the acting, it’s just right, and
especially excellent from the young actress playing Gabrielle. Ed McNamara as Gustav is astounding, giving
the huckster an enormous charisma despite his obvious façading.
Few films I’ve seen have been better at exploring
the relationship between family ties and storytelling, perceived connection and
realistic disconnection, than this one.
Gustav opened a world of life and love spanning across thousands of
kilometers, allowing an extended family spread throughout the prairie to flood
into a single household. In a way, he
also was hugely helpful to the family’s immigrant experience, as immigrants
have to hold onto their connections in a new world; the Fornier’s were no stranger
to this, even though their ancestral homeland is never truly revealed. Another film that expounded on the importance
of immigrant family ties was Barry Levinson’s Avalon, one of my favorite family epics and a movie you should see
immediately. Referring back to my
earlier point on the nature of Canadian art, Tramp at the Door is a beautiful entwining of space and identity,
as well as a loving ode to the power of storytelling. Gabrielle Roy went on to become one of the
foremost Francophone writers in Canadian history, and I’m of the opinion that
this story is an expression of the birth of her love for the storytelling craft
(she died not long before this film was made, and it is dedicated to her
memory). The best writers in the world
are those who seep compassion from every pore, can see to the heart of people
and make monuments to the human experience.
It is just this gift that Gabrielle’s mother sees in Gustav, noting that
he was a creature of true grace. I
believe that an Amen is in order for everybody involved.
I was unable to find the movie on YouTube, but the good news is that the old VHS copies are pretty cheap used at the Amazonz: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000MC1FHS/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used
~PNK
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