Specious judgment and other oblique definitions
of the word “casuistry”
by Zev Asher
Toronto, May 2001
Three young Canadians (Jesse Power, Anthony Reyan
Wennekers, and Matthew Kaczorowski) videotape the torture of an
innocent feline as part of an “art project.” The story
arouses international media attention after two of them are arrested
and one disappears.
The media resurfaces during the subsequent trials
and the arrest of Matt in Vancouver. The public and media are not
happy with the “slap on the wrist” sentences handed
out by the judge. Some animal rights activists use this case to
help push for a new anti-cruelty law. Media attention then shifts
to greater atrocities.
Montreal, July 2004
Toronto International Film Festival programmer
Steve Gravestock calls to tell me that a list of selected documentaries
for the forthcoming festival will be announced the following day.
My film, Casuistry: The Art of Killing a Cat, is not on the list
but is apparently still under consideration.
He says that the programmers like it and are trying
to fit it into a tight schedule.
For a couple of weeks, I anxiously await the outcome,
until I finally get a call from Real to Reel programmer Sean Farnel
telling me that he is about to recommend Casuistry for selection.
He sounds a bit hesitant; I’m still unconvinced that it’s
actually going to happen. Several days later, a press release goes
out announcing my film’s presence in the upcoming festival.
I am nervous and excited. This is my second documentary feature
to premiere at TIFF (after What About Me:
The Rise of the Nihilist Spasm Band in 2000).
I scramble to finish the film, doing all post-production
tasks on my own (except for a swift sound-mastering job). Casuistry was produced without a budget. Numerous attempts to raise funds
were made and no individuals or government organizations wanted
to be involved. The crew was comprised of multi-tasking producer
Linda Feesey and myself. We invested a couple of hundred dollars
for basic necessities, like digital-video tapes.
Pressed for time, the version that goes out for
the media to preview is not completely polished. Linda appears at
the press screening, which is held on a mid-week day at the merciless
hour of 9 a.m. Some half dozen journalists show up.
Several hours later, she gets a call from Mike
Strobel, brutish columnist from that bastion of objective journalism,
the Toronto Sun. He says he’s been following the case, but
he couldn’t make it to the press screening and would like
to get a copy of the film so that he can write about it. Linda drops
off a tape.
Toronto, August 28th, 2004
My documentary makes the cover of the Saturday
edition of Canada’s largest tabloid (the Toronto Sun).
CAT KILLER’S SICK FILMFEST DEBUT
Strobel appears to be somewhat outraged. He quotes
me out of context and riles up his readership. His depiction of
Jesse Power is, however, amusing:
“His bangs dangle sexily. His eyes toy with
the camera. ‘Man, am I charismatic,’ they say. ‘And
misunderstood.’ And a whiner. The cops ‘went all righteous
on me.’
Several days later, Linda and I appear live on
Canada AM. The interviewer says he found the film very harsh. He
asks us why we don’t have a distributor yet. We remind him
that the festival hasn’t begun. I mumble my way through it,
still wondering what all the fuss is about.
Appalled by the festival’s decision to screen
Casuistry and Strobel’s inflammatory column, a Toronto-based
animal rights group called Freedom for Animals launches a blatant
smear campaign to help get my film banned from the Toronto festival.
The group’s leader, a distressed creature named Suzanne LaHaie,
has been following this case from the outset, and harbours a personal
conviction that she is being persecuted by the cat killers. Back
in 2001, she named the fallen kitty “Kensington” after
the colourful Toronto neighbourhood from which it was allegedly
snatched. LaHaie was so devoted to this dead cat that she even had
its likeness tattooed on her flesh. When the case first broke, Freedom
for Animals began to alert the public to the nastiness of the crime
and the relatively light sentences given to the perps. Now her outrage
cannot be contained.
Linda interviewed Suzanne LaHaie for Casuistry about a year earlier. She cried and trembled for the camera and
came off as hysterical and seemingly unhinged. Shortly thereafter,
Suzanne refused to sign a release form, asserting that Linda and
I were “associates” of the cat killers. This was, of
course, untrue, yet it became the central theme of Freedom for Animals’
subsequent crusade.
The story breaks internationally when Toronto police
are called in after programmer Sean Farnel receives a death threat
on his cell phone. The caller suggests that they will “skin
him alive” and “shove knives in his eyes.” Some
media outlets report that I have also received death threats. I
did not.
Word spreads fast and furious down the misinformation
highway. Many of my detractors seem unclear as to the actual content
of the documentary. Some seem to think it is or contains the cat-killing
snuff video in question. Sponsors of the film festival are urged
to flex their muscles. Multiple protests are organized. Journalists
and radio hosts debate whether or not the festival should pull the
film. Articles supporting the film keep re-iterating the fact that
none of these people who are opposed to Casuistry have actually
seen it.
Bruce Kirkland of the Toronto Sun was among the
first writers to review the film. The headline must have pissed
off his colleague Mike Strobel.
Don’t kill this movie
WHILE THE CRIME WAS VICIOUS, CASUISTRY: THE ART OF KILLING
A CAT IS AN IMPORTANT DOCUMENTARY
He goes on to write that, “Asher and Feesey
are traditional arm’s-length documentarians who step back,
unlike an in-your-face operator such as Michael Moore.” Kirkland
ends his review by calling the film, “a searing portrait of
one of the darkest sides of human nature.”
Meanwhile, the festival privately screens Casuistry for select representatives of legitimate animal-rights groups including
the Toronto Humane Society. Although they find the film offensive,
they agree that it cannot be condemned.
In order to address the issue, festival co-director
Noah Cowan posts an official statement on the TIFF website: “The
rights of Toronto audiences to engage in meaningful discussion about
the issues of the day are inviolable. Film festivals exist, in part,
to generate intelligent, reasoned discussion, not to stifle it.
The Festival programming decision to show this documentary remains
unchanged.”
Linda calls Jesse and offers him a private screening.
He says he would rather attend the festival. She calls me and says
that he wants to come. I assume he won’t dare show his face
there.
And the media onslaught continues…
Linda does a televised debate with Suzanne LaHaie
on Toronto One. I appear on the CTV National News and am interviewed
on Toronto’s male-oriented Mojo Radio. Linda and I answer
questions from outraged callers on CFRB (another bastion of Toronto
AM blather). One woman asks how we can make money off this tragedy.
Then Detective Gordon Scott calls in. He was one of the arresting
officers. He had declined to participate in the production of this
documentary. He tells me these guys are sick and should not get
any more publicity. He says there is no need for it. I tell him
he can’t make comments like that since he, too, hasn’t
seen the film.
More interview requests come in, and I talk to
CityTV and Reuters.
September 14th, 2004
The day of the premiere arrives. I discover subdued
pandemonium as I saunter down Cumberland Avenue towards the theatre.
Several cop cars and a cluster of policemen (and women) are strategically
milling around an orderly group of several dozen sign-waving protesters,
directly across from the entrance to the theatre. They are not so
much an angry mob as an agitated gaggle. Ms. LaHaie is running the
show, yelling angrily through a bullhorn. Her followers seem to
have bought into her paranoid hysteria. One has a sign that reads
“What do Jesse Power, Zev Asher, and Paul Bernardo have in
common? They’ve all made a snuff film.” Another apparently
compares me to Jeffrey Dahmer. The media is circling around like
ravenous animals. The protesters start shouting the word “shame,”
repeatedly. I am introduced to the two burly security agents who
have been hired to protect me throughout the screening. They escort
me into the theatre through a back entrance.
The film begins. The audience emits assorted gasps
and sobs as the sordid tale unfolds. Midway through the screening,
Farnel crouches down next to my seat and asks me to step outside.
The security thug behind me leaps up and follows. Sean seems rather
agitated. He tells me that Jesse Power was just arrested outside
the theatre, in order to avoid an altercation with the protesters.
He asks me if I knew he was coming.
I say I didn’t think he would show up.
Linda had been waiting outside the theatre to hand
out tickets to a number of other people. She was surprised to suddenly
see Jesse surrounded by media and police. He was being interviewed
for television. She handed him a ticket and went into the theatre.
He never made it inside. It seems he was determined to see the film
but couldn’t ignore the jeering protesters. Instead he ended
up handcuffed and detained, much to the delight of the assembled
media. Meanwhile, the festival was not amused and didn’t want
the public (or media) to think that Jesse was an invited guest of
the festival.
Several days later
My documentary that literally cost a few hundred
dollars to produce (along with a few hundred hours spent crouched
over an iBook) is now being mentioned in Time, Variety, The
New York Times, CNN, the BBC, and many other international media outlets.
There are a slew of web pages from all over the world thanks to
wire stories and numerous message boards wherein heated debates
on my film are underway.
Jesse Power’s defense maintained that this
was an ill-fated art project in which he intended to kill and eat
a domestic pet. Jesse had previously made a video called “Chicken”
in which he beheaded, cooked, and ate a “runt” chicken.
He received an “A” for this piece in his art class.
Perhaps he thought he was on the right track.
The fact that these guys were high on datura (jimson
weed) certainly must have contributed to the grotesque and inhumane
way in which that cat was killed. When I set out to make this documentary,
I wanted to tell the story from as many perspectives as possible.
We interviewed one of the detectives that arrested the boys, along
with animal rights activists and other critics. We also interviewed
the cat killers. In the end, what angered so many people was that
I gave these guys a chance to tell their side of the story.
I meet Jesse a couple of days after the screening
to give him a copy of the documentary. He tells me he hasn’t
been following the controversy surrounding the festival’s
decision to show the film.
He is unaware of its magnitude.
I call him up a few weeks later and ask him what
he thinks of Casuistry. He says he really likes it. I tell him a
journalist mentioned that he looks like a young Ben Affleck. “Who’s
that?” he asks.
I tell him it’s not important.
For more info and a trailer see www.roughage.org.
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