VID: A Quite Serious Thematic Analysis of the Works of David Cronenberg

[jetpack_monkey]

Title: A Quite Serious Thematic Analysis of the Works of David Cronenberg
Source: The films of David Cronenberg
Song: Justin Timberlake feat. Timbaland - SexyBack
Warnings: NSFW nudity. Gun violence with muzzle flash. Strobing lights. Violence, sexualized violence, body trauma, gore... pretty much everything, to be perfectly frank.

Summary: Visceral sexuality in cinema.

Password: shapeofrage

Watch on Vimeo

File download: 25.9MB MP4 (right/ctrl-click and "Save link as...")

Premiered in the Glitterguts show at Vividcon 2013.

To give some background: David Cronenberg is a Canadian-born director who used to be known for a peculiar genre known as "venereal horror". There were a couple different threads running throughout his work, starting with his experimental films in the late 1960s/early 1970s and running through eXistenZ in 1999. They occasionally still pop up in his newer films, but much subdued.

What themes? Let's see... the revolt of the body against the mind, the melding of man and technology, the line between attraction and revulsion, transformation as a form of death, and, most importantly, how to put sexual organs in places they should not be.

Cronenberg's a wonderful case study when you're a budding film critic trying to get some ideas on how movies work put together, because he's basically a massive proof for auteur theory. Even in films he didn't write, like The Dead Zone, his themes come out very clearly.

I use pretty much every horror, science fiction, and fantasy film in Cronenberg's commercial oeuvre in this vid. Here's a complete list of sources:

Shivers (1975)
Rabid (1977)
The Brood (1979)
Scanners (1981)
Videodrome (1983)
The Dead Zone (1983)
The Fly (1986)
Dead Ringers (1988)
Naked Lunch (1991)
Crash (1996)
eXistenZ (1999)

I did also consider including A Dangerous Method and Spider, but couldn't find enough material in either film to justify their inclusion.

I would say that Shivers, Rabid, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, and Crash are my primary sources, and then I sort of filtered in supporting material from the rest of the sources.

Thanks to sweetestdrain  and absolutedestiny  for beta work and cheerleading.

Comments

[lilly_the_kid]

Mesmerizing! I only saw Videodrome and that was quite a while ago, but I still enjoyed this very much. Great vid!

[jetpack_monkey]

Thanks! I really recommend most of the films in the vid if you have the stomach for them.

[paxpinnae]

That was DISGUSTING yet completely fascinating. I loved the final clip, with the viscera bursting out of the TV - it worked both in the narrative and as a summary shot. Great work!

[jetpack_monkey]

I was really trying to nail the attraction/repulsion ambivalence as much as possible. Sounds like it worked!

And yes, the last shot was very deliberate.

[jb_slasher]

Oh Cronenberg you sick twisted individual. Brilliant vid!

[jetpack_monkey]

Thank you!

unfortunately I don't have any creepier icons

[redcirce]

So this was purposely one of the first vids I watched when my Vividcon disk arrived and it's brilliant! I love how eloquently you tackle the, um, seriousness and importantness of the source material. ;) Fun and funny and gross and beautiful. Great job.

This also reminded me to watch the Cronenberg movies I haven't seen yet- Dead Ringers is definitely next on the list!

Re: unfortunately I don't have any creepier icons

[jetpack_monkey]

Dead Ringers is probably the most maturely realized of these films, which makes the fuckupedness of it even moreso. I highly recommend it.

Thanks for your lovely comment!

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

That is really remarkably well done. And you hit the nail on the head pretty firmly, roughly, slickly there with the visceral sexuality. I used to talk in film school about the mix of sex and violence in horror that is a particularly a teenage medium. Based, I feel on the preoccupation teens have with life and death and how imminent both seem for them. Though here we have mostly older actors...desperate for work. LOL Great job. I hope it gets backpacks full of kudos at Vividcon.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

"Slickly." Hur hur. Part of me may still be 12.

I think David Cronenberg's preoccupation with sex and violence is decidedly more mature than the kind of sex and violence mix we see in a lot of stalk'n'slash movies.

There is an undercurrent of juvenilism throughout Cronenberg's work, especially prior to Dead Ringers, but I don't think that's a bad thing, necessarily. I am a huge fan of his films, even though the process of picking them apart for this vid made me realize that there were problems in some of my favorite films of his that I hadn't fully considered before.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

I love how these director study vids bring out all sorts of terrifying parallels in the sources. They're utterly captivating visuals and they're made even more so apparent when placed together and intercut by your editing.

LOVES IT.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

That means a hell of a lot coming from you! *high fives*

Thanks, GLAMF.

[kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com]

LOL, I'm watching this again, then Seven (the David Lynch one). Too bad there's not more of these to make a vidshow. Vidders need to get on that for me.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

Right? I love these directorial breakdowns. With the right inspiration, I might do one every year or two.

VIDS RECS from within Vividcon 2013 vidshows

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User kiki_miserychic referenced to your post from VIDS RECS from within Vividcon 2013 vidshows (http://kiki-miserychic.livejournal.com/222055.html) saying: [...] of images are fantastic. 's A Quite Serious Thematic Analysis of the Works of David Cronenberg [...]

[littlecatk]

really cool vid, thanks for making and sharing!