Fiction and reality melt into one in David Cronenberg’s 1983 film, Videodrome.
What would it feel like?
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Its Harlan who first intercepts an initially scrambled signal apparently originating from Malaysia.
Videodrome has been seized by an entity called Spectacular Optical.
North Americas getting soft, one of Convexs cohorts tells Max.
The rest of the worlds getting tough.
Were going to stop that rot.
The line Long live the new flesh could serve as Maxs new beginning or his epitaph.
Videodromeis loaded with possible meanings and interpretations.
On one level, its a satire, a slyly literal exploration of contemporary fears.
In this sense,Videodromeworks like a blackly wry comedy, in which the worst conservative nightmares come true.
WithVideodrome, Cronenberg merged his body-conscious preoccupations with narrative perfectly.
Again, we sense that Cronenberg is there, just out of shot, grinning.
ButVideodromereaches past the boundaries of 80s technology.
Why did you watch it, Max?
more pressing than ever.
The film implicates us, and forces us to ask the same questions of ourselves.
Why do we enjoy violent and disturbing movies?
Should we be disturbed or ashamed?
Is it part of our animal nature, or an early symptom of a modern sickness?
Its Cronenbergs richest film, perhaps, both visually and thematically.
Theres so much going on in the sets, the character motivations, the subtexts.
Its in Woods eyes: what Cronenberg called Dangerous, paranoid intellectualism.
UnlikeScannerstwo years before,Videodromewas not a hit when Universal Pictures placed it in cinemas in 1983.
Its violence, carnality and downbeat ending, it seems, were not as widely enticing asScanners exploding heads.
Why would anyone watch a scum show likeVideodrome?
Because once its irresistible imagery begins to flicker across the screen, its impossible to look away.
