The Cronenberg Thread

(most of my comments are Oct 18, Mo)

This is so true. Most of Kings & Queen worked because of the vertigo it induced in me. The shift in tones in AHOV, sometimes within the same scene, were almost Hitchcockian, with Cronenberg's similarly clammy regard for people perversely warm and human this time around, thanks in no small part to Bello and Mortensen.

And I detected no self-importance in AHOV, for the same reason I don't view Blue Velvet as a Horrifying Critique of Reagan's America. AHOV is a B-movie purified. Whether you think B-movies need purifying is a whole other question.

Sicinski is pretty much the smartest non-professional critic I know of. He could've put Crash in his top ten and I would've rushed to give it a second look.

trailer for DC's latest:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809794102/video/3182401/

no no no no no

ok, huh? Mafias and prisons? I want Cronenberg back.

Looks like Viggo's playing Ed Harris from the last one here.

hm

it's sure to have some brutal violence though, i guess
as long as it's got his brand of grime and grit and general uncontainable ooziness, even if not hyper-viscerally rendered, i'm fine

i feel a constant pain in my lower right abdomen, is that a warning sign for the Cronenberg disease?

anybody ever seen this? worth going to...?

Crimes of the Future screening at the Castro with music by I Am Spoonbender

it's definately worth seeing, but not with added "live score."
the long gaps of silence in that film are integral to its aesthetic.

yeah I'm a little perplexed at their addition - as a band they're quite good and definitely attuned to Cronenberg's aesthetic and ideas but I don't see why they're necessary. Cronenberg's rumored to attend, maybe he'll shed some light on it.

A phenomenology of tragedy: illness and body betrayal in The Fly
by Havi Carel

Many interpretations... read [The Fly] as a film about monstrosity ...Illness is taken to be a metaphor for the changes in Seth, changes that continuously turn him away from the human and towards the monstrous. .

...I suggest an opposite interpretation: instead of seeing Seth’s illness as a metaphor for monstrosity, I suggest that monstrosity is a metaphor for illness. Seth’s physical corruption as he becomes more and more monstrous is, in fact, a depiction of illness, and elicits disgust in the viewer that is identical to the disgust elicited by physical corruption brought about by illness. The external deformation of Seth as he becomes more and more fly-like, shown so spectacularly in the film, is a representation of the internal destruction and physiological chaos caused by disease....

http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=95

The Fly was a genuine Hollywood film, a love story, rich in morbid humour, and a metaphor for genius and for any and every disease mankind has faced. As never before, in the relationship between Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, Cronenberg's compassion was revealed. Indeed, The Fly is only incidentally a horror film; it is primarily a screwball romance, one of the great movies about the kinship of freaks and... the rest of us.

^^ david thomson w/ the only worthwhile analysis of this film

uhhhh...people (incl. I think Cronenberg himself) have been saying that about The Fly for years. xpost.

I love every Cronenberg movie I've seen but The Brood is my favorite. I made my girlfriend watch it and not only was she totally creeped out and disturbed but shortly after that she became pregnant.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

He has creepy gyno stuff in the Brood, the Fly, Shivers, and of course DEAD RINGERS...what is the deal with this man?

He played the gynecologist in The Fly.

There's creepy gyno stuff, yes, but there's also a more general obsession with bodies in general, and how squicky they are, and how they break down.

Oh, see, I hadn't read the Morbs post. The Fly is a perfect example.

i thought i'd heard he said the fly was about how in a love affair one person always turns into a monster.

^^also this

I'm looking forward to the new Cronenberg about as much as I am the new Paul Haggis flick.

Hey, Haggis wrote the screenplay for Casino Royale, which I think is great. He's not all bad.

There's creepy gyno stuff, yes, but there's also a more general obsession with bodies in general, and how squicky they are, and how they break down.

True, but it's worth noting that Cronenberg has never pushed specifically male sexual biology for grossness points.

what about the armpit peepee

i've seen the trailer for "eastern promises" . it was kinda lame, i hope the movie won't be.

http://emanuellevy.com/article.php?articleID=6811

Man, yeah, he's got hella stuff about getting PREGGERS...I can't imagine him making a movie about twin proctologists.

Makes him all the scarier, me being a girl and all. UGH that birth scene in the Brood.

what about the armpit peepee

It comes out of a armpit girl vagina that is attached to a actual girl. So "maleness" angle here is kinda secondary. Fact, it ranks kinda high on the girl-sex-grossness scale.

Man, watch that Eastern Promises trailer. Naomi Watts plays a MIDWIFE...there's a scene of her in surgical scrubs. I can't wait to watch interror as a 14-year-old-girl dies in a puddle of her own leukorrhea or something.

Actually I think it looks like a good movie. The only problem I can foresee is the fake Russian accent. I'm afraid it'll remind me of that letter being read by Lisa's Russian pen pal in the Simpsons, which changes in the middle to being written by a man overthrowing their house. "SINCERELY, LITTLE GIRL."

haha

Cronenberg movies suck.

"Cronenberg has modestly described himself as looking like a Beverly Hills gynaecologist"

Apparently Scorsese said this about him!

But he was MORE THAN HAPPY to keep the title, apparently.

hmmmm

http://www.filmfestivals.com/berlin99/img/cronenberg.jpg

I don't see the problem.

more recently:

http://25frames.org/media/news/david_cronenberg.jpg

He looks like a guy.

No, he's fine-looking man, it's just like, "Hey, J.G. Ballard, describe me as looking like a gynecologist. Like I played in the fly. Not that I'm obsessed with gynecology, it's...bodies...in general."

Are you accusing Cronenberg of being... creepy?

THIS IS NOT HERESY AND I SHALL NOT RECANT

No, I know what you're saying, and you're acknowledging an undercurrent that's in most of his movies, which is a male protagonist dealing with women as if they are an "other." But I don't feel like he's dishonest or self-deluding about it. Almost the opposite. And I think the reckless abandon with which he goes about displaying this tendency is interesting and possibly admirable. In Dead Ringers, a gynecologist becomes convinced that women are mutants and designs special and in fact sadistic-looking tools for these women. I do not imagine that Cronenberg himself is that horrified by the female form, but he's taking a tendency, possibly one of his own, grabbing the ball and running as far and as fast as he can with it.

I know, I love that about him too. And I dig that he's so open about it. I just didn't entirely agree w/yr statement that there's "a more general obsession with bodies in general, and how squicky they are, and how they break down." I mean, there is for sure, but maybe the gyno thing hits home for me bcz, you know, sitting in those stirrups can be scary enough without fearing you're going to get experimental treatment with some silver Geiger pterodactyl leg or explode with sacs that grow clowns of creepy Canadian boys.

(It's something I've always noticed due to the "AAAGH!" factor rather than the gender politics.)

He would be honored to hear you say that. :)

Ok, so he's creepy. Creepy R People Too.