Spotlight on David Cronenberg

By Gareth Ransome

David Cronenberg seems to have finally hit the mainstream with History of Violence and Eastern Promises -and many people, I'm sure, would say that it's been an inevitability ever since he directed "The Fly"; yet, even though no one has accused him of selling out, I would urge the audience to hold back before taking that observation any further. On the surface his films seem more linear and more "acceptable" in terms of subject matter, but look beneath that "safe" and almost predictable exterior and there lurks the old Cronenberg -body horror and all, a mischievous glint in his eye, ready to subvert the mainstream from within -like a virus. And isn't this what Cronenbergs films have been about all along?

"All stereotypes turn out to be true"
Cronenberg has a reputation for body horror - a vast majority of his horror seems to be centred on the physical transmutation and re-imagineering of the human body (and psyche); Some of it is extremely literal (Videodrome) and some of it less overt (Crash). Whether you are repulsed by this form of horror or not, I feel it's a by-product of our society and its social conventions and, more importantly, needs to be looked at afresh because Cronenberg's horror has one thing that many other brash imitators don't... It has a philosophy.
In Cronenbergs very words, his films are very "body conscious", he looks at the human body as being conscious of its very physical existence as a living organism, rather than an object to be defiled as in other horror. He'd been known to comment that he would like to see a film produced from a virus's viewpoint as it infects its hosts - in fact, Shivers -his first film- took this premise and ran with it.

The premise of Shivers revolves around a scientist, Hobbes, perfecting an organism that will devolve man into his baser instincts. This parasite passes from person to person via "intimate contact" freeing its host from the social trappings that have held him back for so long. In some ways, Cronenberg seems to be saying that for all our socialisation and manners, we've lost the ability to sate our own desires and needs. We've lost something innate in our character and by being suppressed it will come out in other guises (pets; fetishes, behavioural traits and tics; unfaithfulness, etc).

"Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab."
Rabid, his next film, takes his fascination with the "changing architecture of the human body" another stage further and looks at the world of radical organ transplants and micro-surgery. Although not clear in the original film it's through pioneering surgery that Marilyn Chambers character develops a bloodlust because of a new form of "morphogenitcally neutral" tissue that is grafted on to replace, not only the skin -following a horrific bike accident- but also the damaged organs. The grafting holds, almost too well, for it develops an orifice from which a stinger is hidden, which is used to suck the blood out of anyone who comes too close

The themes that were introduced in Cronenbergs first two films would crop up again and again, and they would also morph and mutate into many different guises. In fact, his next film "The Brood" would become the epitome of Cronenbergs body conscious horror as it explores the relationship between the body and the mind to shocking results.

"For me, the first fact of human existence is the human body."
In many ways The Brood is Cronenbergs most personal and visceral film. The Brood unleashes "Psychoplasmics" on the world, a revolutionary therapy which enables patients to physically manifest their repressed or suppressed emotions, in a form such as skin cancer, which can then be treated.
In many ways, this is exactly what we all do with our behaviour - of course, in Cronenbergs film this is taken literally; but often we will act in accordance to whatever our underlying emotions are - even though we might not always be conscious of this.

Scanners follows a group of rogue telepaths who have been created by a vaccine, Ephemerol, that was initially used to combat morning sickness but was found to have side effects (such as telepathy and telekinesis). There are still Cronenbergs motifs -that of the mad scientist; physical manifestations / transformations through psychic / emotional means but they are less obvious, more subdued in the genre trappings.

"Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion."

Videodrome blurs the line between reality and hallucination because from early on reality is seen purely from the main characters point of view -Max Renn (James Woods). This adds another layer to Cronenbergs oeuvre: that of subjective reality. It is an unspoken concept that for the majority of films there is an objective reality - one that all the characters share (whether it's a science fiction film; a horror or a romance... there is a consensual reality)- however in Cronenbergs cinema that can not be taken for granted at all.