What has happened to this guy? Anyone?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — David Cronenberg
EpicalypseAfter — 12 years ago(March 01, 2014 10:45 AM)
Maybe a die hard fan, maybe you've read his biographies, listened to a couple of interviews can fill me in..?
I doing a Cronenberg "festival" at home and decided to watch all of his movies in order of release starting from Shivers, (I've even seen Fast Company), i'm at Naked Lunch now but i've seen A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method, and Cosmopolis also
and since Spider, this guy has completely changed in direction
Despite A History of Violence and Eastern Promises being considered as hits, I don't feel anything Cronenbergian about them
and i get the argument that artists evolve , but David Lynch for the most part has remained David Lynch Scorsese films still have that Scorsese feel to them
Cronenberg went from showing us the horrific, the weird and the unexplained to just straight forward drama storytelling or even more or less a biography (i.e. A Dangerous Method)
what caused this shift? and frankly it sucks because i loved the challenges that movies like Shivers, Rabid, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash would bring to the viewer. his last 4 movies does nothing to provoke my mind
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franzkabuki — 12 years ago(April 02, 2014 09:32 AM)
"David Lynch for the most part has remained David Lynch".
David Lynch kept becoming more and more David Lynch until he found his purest essence and summited with Inland Empire.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan -
kepotaz — 12 years ago(April 05, 2014 11:31 AM)
Probably just wanted to try different things. He made a car racing movie in the 70's (Fast Company) and the early 90's M. Butterfly is also very different from the usual Cronenbergian stuff. Although those two are his weakest movies.
Maybe something similar happened to Lynch. He got bored of the usual Lynchian stuff and instead of making different kind of movies now he's making music and paintings and everything else but movies. -
Fake_Plastic_Love — 11 years ago(April 08, 2014 10:03 PM)
You're completely wrong. Just look at A History of Violence. Yes it's a deceptively simple mob tale, but Cronenberg is definitely saying something substantial here that he's been toying with for years, the relation between the viewer and violence. (Here's a post I stole off reddit)
Let me compare it to Crash.
With Crash, you're supposed to go "wow, what the beep, they get into car accidents to get their rocks off - that's absurd" and then go have a beer afterward to wind down.
Crash isn't really just about the cars/sex (though there are statements). Cronenberg is using an absurd example to speak about addiction (programming). Your addictions are just as absurd as the ones he shows in the film. He is demonstrating different scenarios of addiction. At some point you're supposed to go "WHAT THE ACTUAL beep?" and say it's too much. But if you never look in the mirror and say "if you take the car crash out of the equation and put my daily pot habit in there, I'm just like they are."
That's what he's trying to say. It's a method where he keeps demonstrating different stuff until you get it.
A History of Violence follows the exact same formula.
Did you get off on the bully revenge? How about the violent sex? Or did one of the other acts of violence bother you?
So, what's your problem then? When is violence gratifying to you and when does it disgust you? It's supposed to tell you something about yourself. As you go through each contrived scenario we've all seen a thousand times before, which one is the drug that gives you your violence fix?
Think about Videodrome, where he's talking about programming and media. Dude, you're already way beep programmed for violence. Videodrome has rotted your brain as he predicted. You accept the programming for some violence he displays readily, others you reject. Sex is bad, violence is good, right? Violence is OK when the bad guy gets it, right?
He's following a path. eXistenZ, Videodrome before ithe's asking you how you're programmed to accept your reality.
Like Crash, A History of Violence is seeing what you will accept. It's far more subversive than Crash because we accept part of what he's saying as mainstream and acceptable.
A History of Violence is probably #2 for me after Crash. He is absolutely testing the audience and you don't even know it. Go watch it again, but watch Crash first. Then ask yourself if you should be disgusted, or if you can't help yourself being turned on or getting a charge from what he's doing on screen. -
LifeVsArt — 11 years ago(April 09, 2014 03:54 PM)
Excellent points, Fake Plastic Love, Cronenberg is exploring fertile ground - a lot of it has to do with the true nature of identity, who we really are, and what we are capable of doing. I feel a lot of people look at his work from a superficial level, the whole shock and gore bit, which he does fantastically, but there's a lot going on within that. He doesn't need to do just that in order to explore what he's interested in. Cronenberg is VERY psychological - the guy is brilliant and he's still got his balls. At the age of 70 (in the movie business) that's quite an accomplishment.
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ketamineman — 11 years ago(July 03, 2014 09:01 PM)
dude, you are like really wrong. i am going to assume that AHOV is your first cronenberg film.
crash is not about your programming just like videodrome is not about your programming just like ahov is not about your programming.
videodrome is in a way about violence and the media, but it is not about how we are programmed for violence. -
Disardor — 11 years ago(July 05, 2014 01:12 AM)
A History of Violence and Eastern Promises actually share similar themes as some of his earlier films, particularly The Fly. Think of Brundle's line in that film about being a fly and dreaming he was a man and then look at the storylines of AHoV and Eastern Promises in the former a violent criminal assumes a new identity as a mild-mannered family man but circumstances force him to confront his past/true self and the latter also deals with questions of identity.
I like pretty much all of Cronenberg's movies and many of my favorites pre-date the 2000s, but he's still doing some of the best work out there today and I would definitely rate Spider as one of his top films. I would also say that if you thought A Dangerous Mind was just a "straight forward drama" that you may want to give it a second chance there's a bit more there than you're giving it credit for, I think. -
mattiasflgrtll6 — 10 years ago(May 20, 2015 06:15 AM)
A History Of Violence actually feels very Cronenberg in my view. The directing style is the same as always and the subject matter is something that feels very close to the director's own views on violence.
Eastern Promises is probably the least kind of Cronenberg movie I've seen so far, but his vibe is still very present throughout it.
Cronenberg is like no other director out there. He has one of the most unique styles I've seen and is one of my favorite directors.