Depictions of Hell
What really helped me through the whole process were, first of all, a few animator friends who were recovering themselves, but mostly I found therapy by just writing about it (I wrote articles on Paul Fierlinger, actor Sterling Hayden and am currently writing a book on an old hockey player, Doug Harvey — all alcoholics). I also found some form of comfort (or an illusion of it) in a variety of songs, books, movies, plays, poems, etc… I rented Drunks (some Richard Lewis film), The Lost Weekend (an amazing depiction by Billy Wilder), a Canadian film The Woman Who Drinks, and Pollock (which by the way is an amazing alcoholic film — it’s almost like that film was made for alcoholics…a little series of secrets that only us freaks would dig). I read Charles Jackson’s The Lost Weekend, Long Day’s Journey into the Night, every Nick Tosches word, and even found obscure titles like this 1940s German book called The Drinker. And best of all there are songs…so many to choose from…but my favorites: Drunk Again (Willie Nelson), However Much I Booze (The Who), Angel Eyes (Frank Sinatra), Hey Brother Pour The Wine (Dean Martin), Blood Shot Eyes (Wynonie Harris), almost any drink song by George Jones, Bowlegged Drunk Again (Lonnie Johnson), and two alcoholic masterpieces: Now To War by Guided by Voices and I Can’t Escape You by Hank Williams. Seeking out alcohol stories became my therapy and yes…of course…another addiction.

While I was in Finland last May (2001), I had organized a screening of films about hell. Initially it was just gonna be one of those cartoony horn rimmed demon hells, but then I thought it might be interesting to do a screening of animations that dealt with the personal hells of the creator (films about desire, war, stress, and alcoholism). Along the way I found, not a lot, but a strong body of films related to alcoholism.

That there is a strong connection between alcoholism and animation (and art in general) is not really a surprise. There is a long list of bottle friendly animators (from Tom Oreb, Pat Sullivan to Norman McLaren to Ryan Larkin and John Callahan — although everyone tries to deny McLaren’s problems as if it’s a friggin pestilence — further contributing to that prevalent societal belief that alcoholism is a character flaw or some sort of immoral activity — which, my friends, is utter bullshit). And hey it makes sense…artists, any good ones, are obsessive, compulsive, self-centered and quite often anti-social (especially without a substance) people. Hell…William Faulkner wrote his best (and worst!) work while tight…academics spout on about his stream-of-consciousness or symbolic style…but they were just beautiful, often, incoherent ramblings of a drunk (prolly not unlike Pollack’s so-called Abstract Expressionism). Animation, in particular, is an intense art that often involves a lot of isolation, patience and concentration. Why do you think there are so many parties at animation festivals?

Animated Tales of Booze
Okay...sorry…I’m digressing again (see…ya don’t have to be drunk to ramble)…while I was digging through all these personal hell films (which really was just an excuse for me to confront my own addiction), I found a handful of interesting animation films about alcoholism: And Then I’ll Stop by Paul Fierlinger (1990), I Think I Was An Alcoholic by John Callahan (1993), One Way Street by Bernard Longpré (1980), Michèle Cournoyer’s The Hat (1999) and, strangely enough, I even found a listing of two Estonian animation puppet films about alcoholism. Both Seven Devils (1985) and A Tale about His Majesty (1974) are directed by Heino Pars -- one of the grandpas of Estonian animation.

Now Michèle Cournoyer’s The Hat (La Chapeau) is not directly about alcoholism, but sexual abuse. As a stripper dances, she recalls an encounter with a faceless man with a hat. We see that this man has perhaps abused this woman as a young girl. And yet, and this is what makes the film so bloody courageous, there is a suggestion that this girl-woman desires the sex as well, as if she is addicted to it. She knows it’s not good and yet she wants more of it. In a sense, sex abuse is just a beard here so that Cournoyer can get to the crux of the matter — a woman addicted to something that gives her pleasure and simultaneously destroys her.

When we screened One Way Street (Les Naufragés du Quartier) during the opening of the Ottawa '02 festival, I was immediately struck by how much The Hat (La Chapeau) had been influenced by the thick line metamorphosis style that occurs throughout this story (especially when the daughter becomes a stripper) about the destruction of a family through alcoholism. One Way Street is an absolutely stark and unforgiving film that deals with alcoholism as both an environmental and hereditary sickness. The father drinks to forget his lousy job. His daughter drinks to forget her lousy childhood.

I haven’t seen Seven Devils, but apparently Heino Pars was simply looking for a subject matter and learned about a man in treatment for alcoholism at a neurology hospital in Tartu, Estonia. The man was apparently having visions of devils and wanted to get rid of them through treatment. Pars, obviously not an alcoholic, fails to see that these devils are common traits of delirium tremors, which an alcoholic often suffers during the few sober moments between drinking bouts.