One of the things that make David Cronenberg a great writer/director is that no matter how whacked-out his premises are, they come from a place of uncomfortable truth.
The director known for pioneering the “body-horror” subgenre frequently constructs his visceral nightmares as allegories for all-to-human anxieties, from disease and decay to familial conflict and divorce.
When he made Videodrome, Cronenberg was in between his creative breakthrough and his commercial one. He had recently made The Brood, which, in addition to being his most mature and sophisticated horror effort to date, drew on personal pain of the director’s own divorce. It balanced expert technical direction, genuine emotion, and pure terror. A few years after Videodrome, Cronenberg would again bring together his blend of human drama and inhuman mutation with The Fly, one of his few big budget studio films. The blend of creatively grotesque imagery (rendered with state of the art, Oscar-winning makeup effects) and personal tragedy made it a hit.
In the arc of Cronenberg’s career, Videodrome represents a point where the director was moving out of his 70’s horror phase (Shivers, Rabid, culminating with The Brood) and into a decidedly more sci-fi arena. Scanners, the first film of this streak is long on ideas and effects but unfortunately short, for the most part on good performances, with the exception Michael Ironside’s enjoyably campy Darryl Revok. Videodrome is in some ways similarly scattered, as it deals, like Scanners, with a far-reaching government conspiracy. But its occasionally convoluted plot is carried well by some brilliantly realized effects, smart sci-fi concepts and great performances. Videodrome represents the point where Cronenberg hit his stride with humanistic, character driven sci-fi. For a series of films, Cronenberg had arguably the best streak of his career, with each outing (Videodrome, The Dead Zone, The Fly, Dead Ringers – despite the latter being more of a skewed psychodrama) sporting a stellar leading man, an ever-deepening grasp on emotion, and an inventive, well-realized fantastical concept.
When writing Videodrome, Cronenberg began with images rather than a plot (breathing TVs and cassettes, stomach vulvas, weaponry fused with flesh, decidedly proto-cyberpunk stuff), and they frame an often tangled storyline. But James Woods does a fantastic job pulling it all together as Max Renn, a likeable sleaze who runs a pirate TV station. He becomes intrigued by what appears to be another pirate broadcast called Videodrome, which shows nothing but extreme violence and torture. But the more he finds out, the more sinister Videodrome appears to be, before it is revealed to be a tool used to destroy the elements in society that would be drawn to such programming in the first place, elements that are weakening and “rotting” society from the inside out.
Cronenberg had long been taken to task for the extreme violence in his films, and Videodrome seems to be his way of exploring what the different reactions and attitudes towards televised violence mean. The powers that be see that society is drawn to the thrill of experiencing such violence through television. The film reflects the real world’s attitudes toward the issue, as Max appears early in the film on a panel show to defend the filth he sells for a living. But Cronenberg envisions a world where those in control use that fascination with violence to control and “purify” the population, with the end result being international supremacy.
It’s a disturbing concept, and more so because of its grounding in reality, where media is constantly used as a means of influencing, even controlling the population. Marketing research draws on sociology and psychology to design advertising with a subconscious as well as literal appeal. It depends on how paranoid you are, but it’s not difficult to find examples of the public being “programmed” in everyday life. The genius of Videodrome is the marriage of that concept with the film’s brilliantly rendered alternate universe. As one character says, “the TV screen is the retina of the mind’s eye . . . therefore TV is reality, and reality is less than TV.” As Max suffers from increasingly tangible hallucinations, he begins to realize just how true this is. The film is actually one of Cronenberg’s less personal in its focus, but it does not fail to endear us enough to Max that his is a believable and sympathetic guide for such a surreal adventure. Or, as he gingerly probes his breathing, freshly opened stomach vulva with the barrel of his gun, you think “yep, that’s pretty much how I would react”
Videodrome is one of the best-known and best-loved films of David Cronenberg’s career, and for good reason. It requires a couple viewings to assimilate all of the themes and mythology, but its sensibility and appeal practically defines the term “cult film.” It may not be his greatest work (I vote Dead Ringers – sadly absent from most video stores, try Netflix) or his most accessible (definitely The Fly) but it’s one of his most crazily inspired. Just remember, don’t sit too close. It gives you cancer.
