This sixth feature film by David Cronenberg, released in 1983, is actually a pure masterpiece - even if HIS absolute masterpiece, in the sense that there are already nearly all his favorite themes, that it whether duplication ( Scanners , False Semblants , M. Butterfly , Spider , A History of Violence ) virtual reality ( eXistenZ), and of course his favorite obsession: the transformation of the human body through (or because?) Technology ( The Fly , eXistenZ, Crash and even Naked Lunch, of somehow).
To make a comparison with what I know best (the world music), there are countless ways of making art, which stand out, however these two tendencies: on one side, the artists never met who spend their lives to change his style and manner (Satie, Stravinsky ), on the other, the artists never met them either (but for quite different reasons), and digging tirelessly recreusent the same path (Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler, etc.). and, of course, I am firmly convinced that Cronenberg, like Lynch, falls into the latter category, as are many recurring elements in his films. Would that
as, for example, his horror of unnecessary transitions meaningless, which finds its perfect counterpart in the overinvestment of most plans, starting with the only generic
Where already somewhere Anything is said (but we really do not notice that the second vision of the film)!
difficult to talk about this film without making a big SPOILER, but I'll try anyway ... at least in describing his two scenes actually founders, from which everything else grows. The first, where Max Renn, Director of Civic TV a television channel focused mainly on marginal porn (fantastic James Wood, as well as in Cop is to wonder why the castings do not have it more often given leading roles ???), discovered thanks to his "friend" a terrible pirate show Snuff Movies (NB: not simulated SM movies, where victims are not supposed to be consensual), which will soon to completely obscure:
The second, even where Max Renn, during an ordinary TV set, will be confronted with two of the most important protagonists of the film, the famous professor and media theorist, Brian O'Blivion (note, for Latin scholars, that the name has of course been chosen at random, the verb Obliviscor meaning "forget"):
And the beautiful and very sulphurous Nicki Brand (Deborah Harry the singer of Blondie, for those who still remember the time):
If possible even more fascinated by the DM as him, so that their first night in bed will be peppered with a number of things which, although not necessarily amused everyone:
short! From that moment (where Max Renn will eventually discover that the famous show Snuff Movies was not from Malaysia, but stupidly Pittsburgh), it will ultimately decide to do its own investigation, for find this very strange place, a sort of "restaurant" of the heart for STF ("Without TV Set", lol!), supervised - by chance - by the daughter of Professor O'Blivion itself:
There is exactly the moment when the viewer lambda, which hitherto had not noticed anything too unusual about the logic and credibility of the scenario begins to say: "But damn, what This film phew, with VHS, which seem to have some sort of independent living? " :
Interrogations at least prescient (in 1983, imagine! Even if the film is very inspired by the theories of McLuhan , very much in vogue at the time):
and above who live television, talking, and even that appeal:
Even 25 years later, that scene still cult ... At that point it's entirely appropriate time to swing a small trailer (note, however, that all the passages of animation does not appear absolutely in Cronenberg's film, and had to be added by fans in search of imagination!):
Incidentally, an influence which I very rarely heard talk about Cronenberg (who is also perhaps not conscious, but for my part, I think obvious) is that of Salvador Dali, including those regarding weird VHS soft and breathable. Yet I remember well a very strange experience, I lived in I do not know what year (around 1984 I think) at a Dali major retrospective at the Pompidou, where it entered at a point in a piece entitled, precisely, "soft and breathable room", all in black tight, and the walls swaying in the wind, it was great, but quite disturbing at the same time ...
Anyway. Let us return to the film, which is becoming increasingly "strikethrough" (but also more and more symbolic, and even dream in the true Freudian sense of the term, at any level of reading whatsoever), when Max Renn O'Blivion realize that the professor, he thought real, is not really that Thousands of VHS saved by his daughter - and poses the crucial question, more and more true today, especially with the Internet: what is real and what is not ? Or better (or worse) what kind of things are we willing to give the adjective "real" ?
Good. Very difficult to prosecute (as already mentioned at the beginning) without a huge SPOILER. I confine myself to quote some of the most famous scenes of the film, starting with this one, which of course is a foreshadowing of the gun bone that shoots human teeth that you will discover with astonishment in eXistenZ (the only two films, incidentally, that Cronenberg has written the full script, which probably explains the many common):
Television more "alive" and the soft VHS and organic growing concern:
And of course, some scenes "Gore" absolute ( just for fun, lol!), Without which a Cronenberg film is not really a film by Cronenberg, is not it?
Anyway, the film ends without surprise exactly the same way that eXistenZ , as always with the dilemma between the real flesh , and the supposed unreal, but that can sometimes seem more real than real:
Well, now ... I'm finally at the end of this article, that despite everything I still have a little "light", so there would be many things to say about this film (which opened a whole blog nothing but this, as has already been someone I know, about the very complex Mulholland Drive by David Lynch, with an outright shot by shot analysis, very subtle, and more)!
Just two things in conclusion ... Given the release date (1983), when at least half of the homes had no television, it is truly amazing see how this film proved prescient, if not visionary, especially now that we all know of kids for whom the remote appears to have become an integral part of their hand, like the gun of Max Renn. Without even mentioning the phrase of Professor O'Blivion at a time when the Internet did not exist as a concept, and where of course, nobody (except Cronenberg, exactly!) Could have predicted this habit now commonplace, often have multiple "nicks" different, none of which is its real name:
And finally for good: the one thing that David Cronenberg does not (or at least very little, no one is perfect, is not it?) Is the sense of humor. But I liked this pretty pass (which, however, made me rethink a silly sentence Jacques Villeret in The Dumb : "For the large skylight, eh, not for the little window! "):
Good. It's humor with Cronenberg, of course: that is to say, though, is over-invested in meaning (and the other David Lynch, I mean, is capable of roughly the same thing, especially when the whole crazy scene of Mulholland Drive , where the director floods all jewelry from his wife a huge pot of pink paint, lol)!
Anyway, buy, rent or download this movie urgently (just type "videodrome vost" on Emule, and it's all good - I checked)!
not only a masterpiece of Cronenberg, but a pure masterpiece of cinema at all, if you believe me!
To learn more, I would strongly recommend the beautiful Book by Serge Grünberg (Editions des Cahiers du Cinema), which I mentioned many times in these pages not only for the sublime quality of his photographs, but also because it is essentially a book of interviews with the director himself - as indeed all the rare and wonderful albums released in this collection (which for now I only have "only" Eastwood and Lynch, I do not know if are many others ... A Kubrick, perhaps)??
