Long live the new flesh! David Cronenberg turns 75 today.

March 15, 2018 10:14 AM

The Master of Body Horror: A David Cronenberg Horror Retrospective. To celebrate his birthday, explore TIFF's virtual David Cronenberg exhibition (previously on Metafilter), or ruminate over whether 1983's Videodrome has aged well.

More Cronenberg, a "previously on Metafilter" retrospective:

I give you my heart (and other organs)

Single Body Horror

Secret Weapons

The other film adaptation of J.G. Ballard's "Crash"

The Logical Extension Of Business Is Murder

No Difference Between Flesh & Cloth

It's kind of like making children

"their purposes are entirely opaque to me, as are the purposes of so many others"

Two or Three Things About David Cronenberg

posted by mandolin conspiracy (42 comments total)

"more inside" has never been more appropriate to a posting
posted by kokaku at 10:20 AM on March 15, 2018 [27 favorites]

I'm still kicking myself over forgetting about those Cronenberg valentines this year....
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:25 AM on March 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

I have not generally enjoyed Cronenberg's work, but I found Dead Ringers terrifyingly compelling as a teenager.
posted by praemunire at 10:25 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Videodrome has aged magnificently; we are all the New Flesh now
posted by demonic winged headgear at 10:44 AM on March 15, 2018 [20 favorites]

I'm still kicking myself over forgetting about those Cronenberg valentines this year.... passing over one of the Mugwumps from Naked Lunch at a local antiques fair.
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:49 AM on March 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

Professor O'Blivion was the first twitch streamer
posted by griphus at 10:50 AM on March 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

Has 1983's Videodrome has aged well?

Yes.

Why is all of this happening in Canada?

Because Brian O'Blivion and Max Renn are awesomely savage parodies of Marshall McLuhan and his acolyte Moses Znaimer.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:55 AM on March 15, 2018 [14 favorites]

I'm still kicking myself over.... passing over one of the Mugwumps from Naked Lunch at a local antiques fair.

Flagged as "Damn fool".
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:56 AM on March 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Oh god, what if someone makes a remake of Videodrome? Or a sequel? Actually in a weird way Idiocracy is a Videodrome sequel.

Dead Ringers stands out for me too, mostly because Jeremy Irons is so delicious. Also gynecology is just not an appropriate subject for a horror film. But my real Cronenberg love is Crash. It was pretty heavily panned on release. But Ballard's novel is so good and Spader's performance is just great, love that movie.
posted by Nelson at 11:16 AM on March 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

But my real Cronenberg love is Crash. It was pretty heavily panned on release. But Ballard's novel is so good and Spader's performance is just great, love that movie.

Best Cronenberg by a long shot, and the greatest first run experience of my life. Saw it opening weekend in Montreal (not Toronto, unfortunately - the only time I wished to be there instead) and it was obvious that people expected it to be a straight-up horror flick: jump scares, SFX, blood gushing and whatnot. Lots of people there on dates. By the time Vaughan and James started getting hot and heavy, people were fleeing in droves and I was in film nerd heaven.
posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 11:28 AM on March 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

I really can't wait to dive into the links when I get home.

I thought my husband was a Cronenberg fan when we were dating. He gushed on and on about The Fly. Turns out that after watching Naked Lunch and Crash, hubs was not a fan at all. It's been ten years or more since we watched Naked Lunch and I still don't hear the end of it :D. I enjoyed it - I feel like I shouldn't relate to body horror but somehow I do.
posted by Calzephyr at 11:29 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm still kicking myself over.... passing over one of the Mugwumps from Naked Lunch at a local antiques fair.

I seem to recall that the prop Mugwumps have not aged well - I'll try to dig it up, but I remember reading somewhere that one that was rescued was disintegrating.
posted by Calzephyr at 11:31 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Of course, O'Blivion infinitewindow was not the name I was born with. That's my television Internet name. Soon all of us will have special names, names designed to cause the cathode ray tube organic light-emitting diode to resonate.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:32 AM on March 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

My girlfriend and I have been going crazy for Michael Ironside, so we of course watched Scanners recently (she’s also a huge Cronenberg fan). It reminded me a lot of the movie Possession, whereas before it was always “the movie that so many peoples’ signatures on BBS forums are from”.

I’ve really enjoyed Cronenberg’s later stuff. We watched Cosmopolis a few weeks ago and I loved it. I really want to know what theory Cronenberg reads.
posted by gucci mane at 11:33 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

I seem to recall that the prop Mugwumps have not aged well

It didn't look that great, frankly, much more pink. And it was set up in such a way that I knew a) I wouldn't have nearly enough cash on me, and b) I'd probably be insulting the man if I asked how much he wanted and I had to stifle a gagging sound.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:42 AM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Because Brian O'Blivion and Max Renn are awesomely savage parodies of Marshall McLuhan and his acolyte Moses Znaimer.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:55 PM on March 15

*resisting urge to make Annie Hall reference...*
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:49 AM on March 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

By the time Vaughan and James started getting hot and heavy, people were fleeing in droves and I was in film nerd heaven.

I saw Crash when it was released in a theatre at a mall in Windsor, Ontario. Easily half the audience, if not more, walked out at various points.

There was a couple that left with maybe 10 minutes left in the movie. I mean c'mon...you came THIS far?

But the best walkout was the woman who stormed out, hand over mouth in either mock or real disgust, when the Vaughan/James scene got well underway. The guy who was presumably her date/boyfriend stayed, though. I think he was sending her a message.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:58 AM on March 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

I was at a showing of Crash in like 2007 at an museum theater and there were a lot of walkouts during that first scene with Deborah Kara Unger in the hangar.

I am 95% sure the people who walked out thought it was the infinitely worse racism Crash and were I guess less than delightfully surprised. They missed out on the better movie IMO but it did explain those out-of-place-among-perverts-and-film-nerds posh-looking Upper West Side seniors who were on line and promptly left.
posted by griphus at 12:02 PM on March 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

The oldest Cronenberg films are unsettling in a way few other films can manage, if only because of that ludicrous accent everyone’s got in them. That bulging Crown Royal bag crammed with Old Money Toronto, Yorkville Yuppie, and theatre school Canadian RP. It is a terrifying degree of Canadianness that thankfully has long since become critically endangered. I don’t think they even let you talk that way nowadays unless you can show government-issued photo identification proving your name is, in fact, Gordon.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:25 PM on March 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

I was first exposed to Cronenberg back in the 80s watching The Brood between my fingers on Captain USA. Those teeth, oh god those teeth.
posted by Brocktoon at 12:35 PM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Here is my little David Cronenberg story. A few other people I know who have met him (including my wife) have confirmed that he's actually quite funny in person.

Here are a couple of photos of him looking pretty dope while posing with his cars.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:55 PM on March 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

Am I the only one who thinks Maps to the Stars is underrated, and has some useful things to say about the way we treat children?
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 2:00 PM on March 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

No love for eXistenZ in this thread? I think it's one of Cronenbergs funniest films!
posted by Faintdreams at 2:12 PM on March 15, 2018 [12 favorites]

Canada's Creeper Emeritus.
posted by chainlinkspiral at 2:52 PM on March 15, 2018

Saw it opening weekend in Montreal (not Toronto, unfortunately

I saw it opening day at Toronto's Uptown. Cronenberg did a Q&A afterwords. It was superb.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 3:07 PM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

The only thing that hasn't aged well about Videodrome is me thinking James Woods is awesome.

The criterion edition is well worth the coin.
posted by lumpenprole at 3:33 PM on March 15, 2018

Headline: Has Videodrome aged well

Seventh and final paragraph “Videodrome has not aged well.” It continues with “the exports of Libya are numerous in amount. One thing they export is corn.”
posted by zippy at 4:47 PM on March 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

Some respect should be paid to Cronenberg's adaptation of Stephen King's The Dead Zone, starring Christopher Walken (well before his own shtick ate him alive) and Martin Sheen as Greg Stillson, in a performance that should provide queasy thrills to any West Wing fan who's ever dared to imagine a Josiah Bartlet who's not just evil, but bugfuck crazy. Relatively restrained for Cronenberg, and not as deep as the book, but it still gets the book's central message of what an absolute heartless bastard fate can be, and yet still oddly comforting if you really know what it is that you're supposed to do.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:26 PM on March 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

I'm curious to rewatch Videodrome decades after first seeing it, but having recently just rewatched Scanners I can assure you *that* particular film has most certainly *not* aged well. The atrocious acting and other directorial decisions had me questioning all of my love for later Cronenberg films. Not for long, of course, since his 8-year run from Existenz thru Spider, A History of Violence and Eastern Promises matches any 4-film run of any modern director, period, but yeah.....Scamners is pretty damn terrible.
posted by mediareport at 5:31 PM on March 15, 2018

I love his aesthetic but find I only appreciate it when it bumps up directly against technology. But I lack much love for horror in general.

So, much love for eXistenz, right here. And Videodrome, even Scanners. Oh and the fucking Fly.

Less patience for, say, Crash.
posted by abulafa at 5:50 PM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

I went to middle school with his nephew (now a director in his own right), and another friend, both of whom C used in his films (the nephew was one of The Brood, and my other friend was the kid in the first part of The Dead Zone). They had fun stories.
posted by mollymillions at 6:09 PM on March 15, 2018

...Hired to act in his films, I mean. Not "used." All very much above board!
posted by mollymillions at 6:10 PM on March 15, 2018

Weird that the top article doesn’t mention his role in Gus Van Sant’s To Die For. He is the best part of a great movie.
posted by rock swoon has no past at 6:55 PM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Videodrome has some striking images and, um, interesting ideas, but the plot tends to fall apart towards the end. I liked the Ballard book Crash, but I thought that the film version seemed kinda stiff and airless. I really liked Dead Ringers & Naked Lunch; (there's a funny anecdote that Ivan Reitman helped to finance Dead Ringers by buying the title "Twins"). Everything that Cronenberg has done since the start of the 21st century seems like a different oeuvre.
posted by ovvl at 7:10 PM on March 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

His Freud/Jung Biopic(?) A Dangerous Method feels like the whole body horror-technology vibe of eXistenZ and Videodrome, except the technology is therapy and the body is “the mind.” Which I feel like is sort of a tortured way to say “psychological thriller” but no, this is different. It maintains that queasy quality that seeps into every scene and leaves you feeling like something invaded you.

I can’t say I enjoy his films, but I really like them.
posted by Doleful Creature at 7:57 PM on March 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

Let's not forget him popping up (if not in major roles) in films like Last Night and of course some (if not all) of his own flicks (including "Infected in the crowd / The stabbed shoulder (uncredited)" in Shivers).

And let's give some love to Rabid as well, even if not all the performances are of Oscar-worthy quality (did Frank Moore's acting ever improve? Judging from Stone Cold Dead (released two years later) I can't help but wonder).
posted by gtrwolf at 10:47 PM on March 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was able to share Videodrome with a handful of my friends a few years ago, as the only person in the room who had seen it before. I was really tempted to continuously find excuses to be out of the room in other parts of the house, and then play it off like I had showed them an empty tape of static - what a prank! - and wonder aloud what they thought they had been watching.
posted by panhopticon at 11:23 PM on March 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Huh. It seems that Crash has not been released on Blu-Ray. Helloooooo Criterion...

(IIRC they released an LD version back in the day....)
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 9:28 AM on March 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

There's really nothing quite like the scuzzy thrill of attending a midnight screening of Crash. The theater was at 1/4 capacity, seemingly everyone there had come alone, and it was impossible to tell how many of them were film nerds and how many were maniacal perverts.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:45 AM on March 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

"Let's not forget him popping up"

If we're doing that, then don't forget him on The Newsroom
posted by RobotHero at 10:36 AM on March 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

it was impossible to tell how many of them were film nerds and how many were maniacal perverts.

A joke set up so well that there's no need to finish it.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:37 AM on March 16, 2018 [8 favorites]

Gotta wonder how cinema history would have been changed if Cronenberg had directed the Thing remake instead of John Carpenter (speaking of body horror...)
posted by gtrwolf at 4:19 PM on March 17, 2018