Cause for Suspicion

Description:

David Ostrem’s single-channel video Cause for Suspicion appropriates the structure of the whodunit to critique the history of film and television, which he argues involves a hazardous preoccupation with the discovery and punishment of sinners. To satirically express his disdain for the hero-doctor amateur detective archetype, Ostrem’s tape adapts a detective story by George Harmon Coxe that he encountered in a 1979 issue of Liberty magazine.

Ostrem starred as Dr. Paul Standish alongside Dale Lalonde as Arlene Walton, Bob Strazizich as Harry Gibney, Peter Schlappner as Victor Keenan, Steve Anderson as Edward Cormack, Bill Napier-Hemy as Young Billy Klein, Elizabeth Vander Zaag as Mary Hayward,Barb Bernath as Helen Shirley, Neil Wedman as Lieutenant Ballard, and John Tupper as the police officer.

Video documentation available upon request.