Maddin directed Cowards Bend the Knee while in pre-production on The Saddest Music in the World, shooting entirely on Super-8mm film[1] with a budget of $30,000.

[5] Cowards Bend the Knee is set in a vague time period that is stated in the published script and on the DVD commentary as the 1930s, although certain of the film's events (e.g., the Winnipeg Maroons winning the Allan Cup) did not occur until the 1960s.

During the operation, Guy more or less forgets about Veronica and ends up leaving with Liliom's alluring daughter Meta (Melissa Dionisio).

Meta reveals that her father, Chas, was murdered by Liliom with help from the police captain Shaky, who also plays hockey with Guy.

Believing himself possessed by Chas' murderous hands, Guy sets out to kill Liliom but instead ends up trying to seduce her and eventually "fists" her in the beauty salon.

Tormented, Guy discovers a wax museum that has been hidden and forgotten in the rafters of the Winnipeg hockey arena.

Guy also climbs to the top of the arena and heads into the wax museum, where tarot cards predict "a mysterious apocalypse."

[7] Cowards Bend the Knee is also included on the DVD boxed set The Quintessential Guy Maddin: 5 Films from the Heart of Winnipeg, released by Zeitgeist Video, alongside Archangel, Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary, Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, and Careful.

[8] Guy Maddin wrote a lengthy treatment for the feature film Cowards Bend the Knee, which he published as a book through The Power Plant gallery.

In the words of Baerwaldt, the story is a fictional "autobiography [that] features a diabolical plot surrounding a coward on a mission [named Guy Maddin] that resembles a cycle of dark spectacles dressed up as, among other things, lewd seduction, Canadian hockey, murder, amputations, hair design, general mayhem, fetish attractions and heartfelt loss.

I started reading Greek tragedy, Electra, Medea and stuff like that, and basically I just took some premises from these super-durable stories.

Meta and Guy lie in bed, in the midst of a particularly spectacular recital of what could be called THE LIMBO-DANCE OF SELF-PITY --- a verbal choreography performed by lovers who manipulate each other through complicated displays of insincere self-loathing.