It’s fair to say that David Cronenburg has changed somewhat over time. The King of Venereal Horror (Baron of Blood to close friends) has changed his approach to humankind since the early, heady days of Scanners and Videodrome. Whereas early cinematic creations were responsible for earning him his affectionate nickname, his interest has apparently wavered over the years, moving away from body horror and gore to matters more closely linked to the mind. And yet, all of his films are so distinctly his. Whilst his cinematic ideas literally burst from the protagonists’ bodies in films such as The Fly, they are kept much more in check in recent works Cosmopolis and A Dangerous Method.
There’s no denying, though, that Cronenburg is unabashedly fascinated with all things human. Moving between body horror and mental unrest like there’s no time to lose, Cronenburg’s cinematic back catalogue reads more like a scientific study of the human form. Whilst some films are more memorable than others, Cronenburg has been unintimidated to go wherever he feels fitting. And, indeed, in his work, we can learn more about ourselves than we ever knew possible.
Scanners (1981)
Before everything else, we had Scanners. Introducing us to a breed of men and women who have the power to ‘scan’ the minds of others, the plot puts forward the age old question of mind over matter. And when there are people who can literally make your head explode with the power of their thoughts, it seems that perhaps the two are more closely intertwined than we at first thought. By no means Cronenburg’s finest film, Scanners nonetheless introduces us to his obsession of the power of mind over body. Cronenburg begins to question, is the mind the superior force we once thought that it was? When greed and evil thoughts lead us astray, what is to become of the body? For Cronenburg, the body is often the fall back guy for the matters of the mind, taking its slack when it runs awry. And, in some cases, it isn’t exactly pretty.
Videodrome (1983)
Videodrome looked at the danger of man’s creations, how the hunger of the mind for more could eventually cause humankind as we know it to become eradicated. Set in Cronenburg’s beloved Toronto, the film follows a CEO of a television station who happens over a random broadcast signal. Brought face to face with some of the most violent imagery that he has ever seen, he soon starts to lose awareness of reality and the world around him distorts into a place in which nothing is as it seems. Cronenburg looks at the difference between man and his creation, in this case, the television set, the hallowed object of our living rooms. Through his nightmare vision, Cronenburg makes it unclear whether the machines we have created are more human than we are or that we merely have imagined it that way. One thing is for sure though, the mechanistic creations of the mind have a part of human life inside of them and it won’t be too long until they have lives of their own.
The Fly (1986)
Once again troubling over matters of the human body, The Fly infamously sees Jeff Goldblum grotesquely transformed into the film’s namesake. Initially granting him superhuman strength and perception, Goldblum’s Seth Brundle soon becomes infected by the change, mutating and bursting open into a creature unlike anything we have ever seen. Cronenburg seems troubled by the figure of the human. Unable to contain it in his early works, he wants to change it and transform it into something other than it is. Perhaps it is not that Cronenburg is unafraid of what will happen to the human form but rather, what will not.
A Dangerous Method (2011)
Not one of Cronenburg’s best moments, A Dangerous Method sees the direct move into relatively cleaner fare. Exploring the relationships between Freud, Jung and their patient (and eventual colleague) Sabina Spielrein, the film divulges information during the first discoveries of the notion of the consciousness. Apart from indulging Michael Fassbender in somewhat questionable activity, the film also looked at the relationship between the mind and the body, this time from a perspective rooted in historical psychology. Moving sharply away from the visceral reality of body horror, Cronenburg instead focuses on the horrors of the mind and the pain and torment present within the heads of his protagonists. Introducing Freud’s ‘talking cure’ Cronenburg looks at how the mind can be compartmentalised, one part ‘ill’ and another ‘sane’. The mind, it seems, has a humanity entirely of its own and is perfectly capable of harbouring a number of individuals within it. The body, in this case, is secondary.
Maps to the Stars (2014)
Most recently, Cronenburg has looked at the age-old Hollywood problem. Interweaving the lives of a number of seemingly disparate characters, Cronenburg shows that, when in the same place, we all start to become like each other and under the right circumstances, we can all lose our minds. Following the lives of the affectedly rich (and the not-so rich), Maps to the Stars shows its characters’ relationships as inherently infected. The people interact with one another but they seem almost disgusted by their mutual presence; ever trying to outdo the other, they are haunted by the dead of those who have left them, perfectly preserved in their ghostly corpses. The real people, however, are falling apart, growing older, getting injured and embarking on questionable affairs. In the constructed farce of the Hollywood lifestyle, the bodies of the people start to decay as their minds do the same.
Whilst Cronenburg’s perception of the mind and the body have mutated somewhat over the course of his career, there is one overwhelming message that we can take from his films. When the mind starts to lose control, the body is the first thing to go. When the mind is pushed too far, the body pays the consequences. The body is the mere plaything of the mind. So let’s have some fun.