David Cronenberg
From Robo Culture Wiki
David Cronenberg (Born: March 15, 1943)
Canadian film director David Cronenberg is perhaps best known for his brand of 'body horror,' which is particularly concerned with exploring the effects of social institutions and technology on the human body.
In films as diverse as Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Crash and eXistenZ, Cronenberg explores the spaces and boundaries between flesh and machines. His films showcase fears and desires around the roles of science and technology in society and culture, especially in connection to issues relating to gender identity and sexuality.
Contents |
[edit] Abjection and the Body
Barbara Creed has discussed Julie Kristeva's concept of abjection in relation to the horror film.
Kristeva is quoted in Creed's The Monstrous-Feminine: "abjection (is) that which does not ‘respect borders, positions, rules’… that which ‘disturbs identity, system, order."[1]
The abjection that takes place in the horror film, particularly in Cronenberg's work, places an emphasis on the body and the grotesque. In abject horror, boundaries are blurred and crossed (ie. inside/outside) and there is often a focus on the transgressive properties of bodily functions: defecating, bleeding, vomiting, etc. All of these elements are central to Cronenberg's horror films and they are often depicted as posing a threat to a social subject that is ‘whole and proper.' [2]
Abject fear in horror films results from facing 'the other' - that which is different from us and threatens our subject position. Cronenberg's cinema often links abjection to the 'invasion' of the human body by modern technologies, and even some of his early films (Shivers, Rabid, The Brood) show a concern with the relationship between technology and the body, and display the grotesque abjection that he has become known for. In Cronenberg's work, technology and the body are abject: they are both familiar and alien to us, their boundaries become blurred and the role that they play in creating our sense of identity as humans evokes anxiety.
In the late 1980s, Cronenberg's work began to shift from a strict emphasis on body horror to an exploration of the mind and its intricacies. Though they still contained plenty of grotesque imagery, films like Dead Ringers examine the perversities of the mind as well as the body.
[edit] Gender and Technology
As his career was taking off, some film scholars began to criticize Cronenberg's work for depicting monstrosity and the abject in direct relation to the female body. Films like The Brood, for example, contain monstrous depictions of women and motherhood, with the abject imagery emphasizing the female body as a site of horror. However, throughout the years many film scholars have come to regard Cronenberg as a director that is particularly interested in exploring gender issues in both his horror and non-horror narratives. It is notable that the gender issues that are addressed in Cronenberg's films are often connected to issues regarding the uses and abuses of technology under social structures, structures which, when following a gender discourse, can be said to be a part of, and benefit, patriarchal dominance.
1982's Videodrome deals with Max, a cable television producer looking for the latest in sensational and shocking programming, something he finds when he comes across the pirate TV show Videodrome, a show that airs what are essentially snuff films. In Videodrome, the male psyche becomes monstrous, and when sexuality and technology come together they create much confusion and anxiety for Max. Likewise, in 1988's Dead Ringers the male characters pride themselves in their control of the female body through technology, only to find out how ineffective their phallocentric power is in the face of nature.
[edit] Monsters, Minds and Machines
Modern horror arguably began with Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho, in which the 'monster' was no longer a horrific looking creature, alien, or giant insect, but rather a human subject like any other. The gothic horror films of the 1930s often depicted horror as an outside threat, in which the death of the monster usually meant an end to this threat and a return to the status quo.
After Psycho the horror film would shift to focus on 'ourselves' as monstrous: the threat in the modern horror film might be said to come from within, rather than from outside. In Cronenberg's films the fear comes from the fact that we are, or may become, the monster. The status quo itself can be seen as the monster, not just the self, and anxieties around who has control over technology and the body are at the forefront of Cronenberg's narratives. For example, Cronenberg's 1996 film Crash does not draw a clear division between monster and hero(es), rather, it depicts a society overwhelmed by its technology, though it cannot be said that the technology itself is monstrous.
Please consider the environment before
printing this page.