Director- David Cronenberg
Cast- James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky, Leslie Carlson, Jack Creley, Lynne Gorman, Julie Khaner, Reiner Schwartz, David Bolt, Lally Cadeau, Henry Gomez, Harvey Chao, David Tsubouchi, & Kay Hawtrey
(I have been so far behind of my movie reviews that I don't necessarily remember this film, because I watched it 4 months ago. Oooops! So I am going to write down what the film critic, R. Barton Palmer wrote about Videodrome; direct quote from the book.)
"A groundbreaking film of the commercial/independent movement of 1980s Hollywood, David Cronenberg's story about the horrible transformation wrought by exposure to televised violence wittily thematizes the very problems that the director's exploration of violent sexual imagery in his previous productions has caused with censors, Hollywood distributors, and feminist groups. Max Renn (James Woods) is a cable-station operator whose cynical marketing of sex and violence backfires on him when his abdomen suddenly grows a vagina-like opening into which, among other objects, audiocassettes can be inserted. The film, in which such sado-masochistic fantasy and transgendering play key roles, ends tragically, with Max's self-destruction.
In many ways the most audacious formal incarnation of Cronenberg's characteristic themes, Videodrome begins as a fairly standard commercial thriller, only to be transformed, at midpoint, into subjective fantasy of the most outrageous and unusual kind. Visually rich, Videodrome is also thought-provoking in its startling meditation on both polymorphous perversity and the interpenetration between public and subjective realms of experience. Cronenberg has been both praised and condemned for his fluid treatment of gender (a closing sequence in which two female characters grow penises in a kind of riposte to Max's "vagination" was cut from the release print as too disturbing). Even in its edited form, Videodrome remains one of Hollywood's most unusual films, too shocking and idiosyncratic to be anything but a commercial failure." - R. Barton Palmer holds a Ph.D from Yale University (Medieval Studies) and New York University (Cinema Studies). He is a professor of Literature at Clemson University and Director of the South Carolina Film Institute
Even though I gave the film a 2 out of 5 stars, I do believe that this movie deserves to be in the book and it does stick out like a sore thumb in my mind as perverse and groundbreaking and I will never forget it. Videodrome reminded me a lot of Blue Velvet & Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Here are some of the still shots from the film...I decided to watch the film because the photos intrigued me. Just be aware, this movie is gross and stretches the comfortability of the audience (which is why this movie deserves to stay on the list).
Happy viewing!
No comments:
Post a Comment