Naked Lunch

 Year:  1991

Director:  David Cronenberg

Screenplay:  David Cronenberg, based on the novel Naked Lunch by William S, Burroughs

Starring:  Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, Julian Sands, Roy Scheider

Running Time:  115 minutes

Genre:  Science-fiction, fantasy

New York City, 1953:  Pest exterminator William Lee (Weller) discovers that his wife, Joan (Davis), has become addicted to the yellow powder he uses to kill bugs.  Lee is contacted by a giant talking insect that claims that he is a secret agent and that the bug is his boss.  It further informs him that his wife is a non-human agent of the sinister Interzone Incorporated.  Lee accidentally kills Joan while attempting to shoot a glass off her head.  Lee flees to Interzone, a "notorious free port on the North African coast", and finds himself in a surreal nightmare of giant, talking bugs, shapeshifting typewriters and monstrous "Mugwumps".

William S. Burroughs' controversial novel, Naked Lunch, was first published in 1959, and has baffled, appalled and fascinated readers ever since.  The "novel' (for want of a better term) is a bizarre and often incoherent mishmash of vignettes and stories without any conventional structure or plot, and had been widely considered unfilmable.  However directors such as Stanley Kubrick had attempted to crack it.  In the 1960s experimental filmmaker Anthony Balch attempted to make a musical adaptation with a script written by Burroughs himself starring Mick Jagger, and, at one stage, Dennis Hopper.  Cronenberg solved the problem by largely jettisoning the book.  The film instead is more structured around Burroughs' life and the writing of the novel, mixed with various elements of Burroughs writing, not all of which come from Naked Lunch.  Cronenberg stated that the difficulty of making a film about a writer, is that the act of writing itself is not particularly exciting to watch.  He solved it by merging Burroughs' life with his fantasies.  The name William Lee was often used by Burroughs as his alter ego, and sometimes a pseudonym on some of his books, and Burroughs did kill his wife while trying to shoot a glass from her head, and Burroughs considered this incident the start of his life as a writer.  Some of Burroughs friends, such as writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Paul Bowles, appear in thinly disguised portrayals.  The cadaverous, pale-eyed Peter Weller, who is probably best known for RoboCop (1987), is well cast as in the  lead role, looking and sounding a lot like a 1940s film noir gumshoe.  Judy Davis plays the dual role of Joan Lee and Joan Frost, a double of Lee's wife who he meets in Interzone.  Ian Holm plays Joan Frost's husband, the sinister writer Tom (based on American writer Paul Bowles), and Roy Scheider plays the evil Doctor Benway, one of Burroughs' most memorable characters.  Interzone itself was a frequent setting for Burroughs' writing, and was the title of 1989 book of short stories.  It's based on the International Zone of Tangiers, where Burroughs lived for a time.  The fact that Interzone is very obviously created on soundstages, helps make it seem less a place than a state of mind.  The film features some startling special effects and creatures.  As bizarre and graphic as the film is in places, it is still much more restrained than Burroughs' imaginings, which displeased some fans.  Certainly the film is more David Cronenberg than William Burroughs, in it's tone and style, reducing the novel's themes of drugs and particularly toning down the novel's sexual elements, and making it more a film about writing, however Cronenberg's detached style of directing, chimes well with Burroughs' dry, dispassionate prose style.  It is also possibly the best introduction to Burroughs for a mainstream audience.

They were both disappointed with their Tinder date:  Peter Weller and friend in Naked Lunch

  

Dead Ringers

Year of Release:  1988

Director:  David Cronenberg

Screenplay:  David Cronenberg and Norman Snider, based on the book Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland

Starring:  Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold

Running Time:  115 minutes

Genre:  Drama, thriller, horror

Identical twins Beverly and Elliot Mantle (Irons in a dual role) are both gynaecologists and run a clinic in Toronto.  The Mantles live together and frequently pose as each other.  The more ruthless and callous of the two, Elliot, often seduces his patients and, when he grows bored, allows the more gentle and passive Beverly to adopt his identity to sleep with the women, without them having any knowledge of the exchange.  This works for them until Beverly falls in love with glamorous actress Claire Niveau (Bujold). The relationship begins to drive a wedge between the bothers who soon learn that "separation can be a terrifying experience."

This film marked a change in the career of Canadian director David Cronenberg who made his name with such gruesome fare as Shivers (1975), Rabid (1977), The Brood (1979), Scanners (1981) and Videodrome (1983), before moving to more mainstream work such as the Stephen King adaptation The Dead Zone (1983) and the remake of The Fly (1986).  With Dead Ringers Cronenberg moved into more complex, psychological material, which didn't necessarily fit into any particular genre.  The most traditionally "Cronenbergian" sequence in the film is a very brief scene in which Beverly has a nightmare of himself and Elliot being attached to each other by a thick, fleshy cord, which Claire proceeds to bite in order to separate them.  While this lacks the trademark blood and guts that Cronenberg was known for, it is possibly his most disturbing work.  Jeremy Irons delivers a career best performance with his dual turn as the twin brothers, delineating the subtle differences in their personalities, making each distinct while showing that they are two separate halves of one whole.  The impressive special effects makes the scenes of the two twins together look seamless.  Geneviève Bujold is a little underused, particularly in the film's second half, but she is good as the woman that comes between the twins.  The film takes place mostly indoors, in the spotlessly clean environment of the Mantle's clinic and apartment, which seem almost one and the same, all gleaming metal and soft lighting, and the opulent hotel rooms and expensive restaurants that Claire inhabits.  As the Mantle's mental condition deteriorates, so too does their  living space, buried under increasing amounts of trash and debris.  The film was adapted from a book called Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland  which was inspired by a true story in which identical twin gynaecologists, Stewart and Cyril Marcus, were found dead together in their New York apartment in 1975.  I can't say anything about the book as I've never read it, but the working title for the film was Twins, after the book, but it was changed to avoid confusion with the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito comedy which came out around the same time.  This is a film which won't be to everyone's tastes, it's slow, and has a strangely alienating quality to it.  Even in the emotional scenes, the way the shots are framed and the scenes performed seem designed to push the audience away rather than draw us in, the sombre classical score by Howard Shore reinforces that feeling.  The film however has a distinctive and impressive chilly atmosphere and will linger in the mind for a very long time after it is over.     

Double trouble:  Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold and Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers

Crash

Year of Release:  1996

Director:  David Cronenberg

Screenplay:  David Cronenberg, based on the novel Crash by J. G. Ballard

Starring:  James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette

Running Time:  100 minutes

Genre:  Drama

Film producer James G. Ballard (Spader) and his wife Catherine (Unger) lead very active but dull sex lives where they each indulge in numerous casual affairs which they recoup in detail to each other.  On his way back from the studio, James is involved in a violent car crash, in which the driver of the other car is killed.  The dead man's wife, Dr. Helen Remington (Hunter), was in the passenger seat and is badly hurt.  In the hospital, James encounters Helen and they begin an affair.  They encounter a strange man named Vaughn (Koteas) who leads them into a strange subculture of people who are sexually aroused by car crashes, and recreate famous crashes.

This is an adaptation of British author J. G. Ballard's cult 1973 novel Crash, and like. a lot of Cronenberg films deals with the complex relationship between humanity and technology.  The topic here is broken machinery and broken bodies and the connection between the two.  In an early scene we see Ballard in hospital, with his leg in a complex surgical splint, and we see a close up of his badly bruised, broken leg penetrated by the metal of the apparatus.  Rosanna Arquette plays a character who wears metal braces, designed almost like fetish wear.  Despite the frequent sex scenes it's a surprisingly dispassionate films, almost clinical, it often feels like a kind of strange scientific documentary, the characters are never judged but the film merely observed.  There is little to no chemistry between the actors, which is intentional.  They are all isolated, lonely people trying to find some kind of connection.  The imagery is cool, set largely around wintery Toronto motorways and anonymous high rise buildings, garages and parking lots.  Even the colours seem washed out, with greys, and pale blues predominating.  The film was hugely controversial even though, despite it's explicit content, it is in no way pornographic, more chilling than arousing.  The film won a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for "Originality, Daring and Audacity".  In 1996 the notorious British tabloid press whipped itself up into a vehement campaign to get the film banned, although it was released uncut in the UK in June 1997.  In the USA the film was released in both an uncut NC-17 version and an R-rated version with ten minutes cut.

Needless to say, this won't be to everyone's taste, but if you're in the mood for something challenging and provocative, this is well worth a test drive. 

James Spader in Crash

   

Videodrome

Year of Release:  1983
Director:  David Cronenberg
Screenplay:  David Cronenberg
Starring:  James Woods, Sonja Smits, Deborah Harry, Peter Dvorsky, Les Carlson, Jack Creley, Lynne Gorman
Running Time:  89 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, horror   

Max Renn (Woods) is the president of a small cable TV network in Toronto which specialises in soft-core porn and gratuitous violence.  Unhappy with the current line-up, Renn is looking for something that will "break through".  He thinks that he has found it when he stumbles upon a broadcast called Videodrome, which depicts relentless torture and murder.  Renn becomes increasingly obsessed with Videodrome, and finds himself undergoing bizarre physical changes.

This is one of the definitive works of director David Cronenberg, and a classic of what has become known as  "body horror".  The film began life as a script called "Network of Blood" which Cronenberg wrote inspired by his childhood memories of watching TV late at night, when the Canadian stations went off air he would sometimes pick up faint broadcasts from the US, and the young Cronenberg worried that he might stumble across something dangerous or subversive.  The film initially begins as a conspiracy thriller before becoming a surrealistic nightmare.  James Woods turns in a powerful performance as the shifty, nervy Max Renn, and pop singer Deborah Harry is impressive as radio host Nikki Brand (who lives up to her name with her taste for burning her own breasts with cigarettes).  The film is full of memorable and disturbing images, such as the gaping mouth-like hole that opens in Renn's chest and functions as a VCR, and the handgun that fuses with Renn's hand. 
Looking at it today, while a lot of the technology seems inevitably dated, it's still remarkably prescient and ahead of it's time in it's depiction of a world where media manipulates and controls the minds and bodies of it's consumers.

James Woods and Deborah Harry take in Videodrome   

A Dangerous Method

Year:  2011
Director:  David Cronenberg
Screenplay:  Christopher Hampton, based on the stage play The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton, and the book A Most Dangerous Method by John Kerr
Starring:  Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley, Vincent Cassel, Sarah Gadon
Running Time:  94 minutes
Genre:  Period drama, 

This is another departure from Canadian director David Cronenberg, after moving away from the blood drenched science-fiction/horror movies that made his name (such as Shivers (1974), Videodrome (1982) and The Fly (1986)), to violent crime and gangster movies (such as A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007)), to the restrained genre of the period drama (a genre which he had approached before with M. Butterfly (1992)).  Set in the early 1900s, the film opens when Carl Jung (Fassbender) treats a hysterical patient, Sabrina Spielrien (Knightley), using the controversial theories of psychoanalysis devised by Sigmund Freud (Mortensen).  The treatment appears to be successful, and Spielrien goes on to train as a psychiatrist herself.  Learning of Jung's success, Freud quickly befirends him seeing Jung as a potential disciple.  However Jung's interest in spirituality and the paranormal against Freud's stringent pragmatism and rationality, as well as Jung's interest in the beautiful but volatile Spielrien soon threatens their professional and personal lives. 

This elegant film is artfully directed by Cronenberg who photographs his characters in long, lingering shots, alsmost as if they are the subjects of his scientific study.  At first glance there is very little typically "Cronenbergian" about the film, no killer parasites, or exploding heads, no killer TV networks, or mutant insect creatures, or even people getting their kicks from car wrecks.  However, the ambivalent depiction of sex and sexuality as forces both essential and dangerous is very Cronenberg.  The film is slow and deliberately paced.  The cast are excellent, especially Keira Knightley who provides an astonishing depiction of a hysterical attack at the beginning of the film.  Vincent Cassel also gives a striking performance in a small role as an "unconventional" psychiatrist who advocates the therapeautic value of sleeping with the female patients.  The script is intelligent but also accessible to those viewers unfamiliar with Jung and Freud and their theories, and the period design is immaculate.

The film might be a little too slow-moving for some and it certainly demands a lot of attention from the viewer.  Also it might alienate fans of Cronenberg's more traditional movies.  In a way it is a pity that he seems to have abandoned his horror/science-fiction subjects, but every artist needs to progress and develop, and Cronenberg is one of the most consistently interesting directors working.  In the end this film is worth checking out for anyone interested in a little more intellectual drama.

It's all in the mind:  Keira Knightley and Michale Fassbender use A Dangerous Method

A History of Violence

Year:  2005
Director:  David Cronenberg
Screenplay:  Josh Olsen, based on the graphic novel A History of Violence by John Wagner and Vince Locke
Starring:  Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt, Ashton Holmes, Peter MacNeill
Running Time:  96 minutes
Genre:  Crime, action, drama, gangsters

Canadian director David Cronenberg is probably most familiar to audiences as the "King of Venereal Horror" with films such as Shivers (1975), Rabid (1976), The Brood (1979), Scanners (1980), Videodrome (1982), The Fly (1986), Dead Ringers (1988) and the hugely controversial Crash (1996).  Here he makes his first entry into the crime thriller genre, with largely successful results.

In the small town of Millbrook, Indiana, Tom Stall (Mortnesen) owns the local restaurant and is a well-liked family man.  After he is forced to kill two gunmen in self-defense, when they attempt to rob his reatuarant, Tom is hailed as a national hero.  However, before long he is is visited by a group of mobsters led by the sinister Fogarty (Harris), who threaten him and his family.  Fogarty insists that Stall is not who he claims to be, and Tom is forced to confront his own dark history of violence.

On one level this is a gripping crime thriller, full of action and suspense, and on another level it is a meditation on how violence affects those who commit it, and the way it both attracts and repels, frequently at the same time.  Maria Bello puts in a strong performance as Tom's initially loving wife, who is terrified by the changes in her husband, but is at the same time aroused by the previously latent savagery that she glimpses in him, while their bullied son (Ashton Holmes) shows that his father's potential for violence is also within him enabling him to strike back against his high school tormentors. 

The film is well made effectively depicted cluttered small town domesticity, and the cast give strong perfomances throughout, with Viggo Mortnesen being a particular stand out in the lead.  As fun as the gangster thriller scenes are, the film is strongest when it deals with the Stall family.  The climax is too abrupt but the film ends with a powerful and ambiguous scene.

As you might expect from the title and the plot there is a fair amount of violence here and Cronenberg has never been known to back away from the depiction of violence, but as usual in his films, the violence is not glamorised or particularly dwelt upon. 

Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello confront A History of Violence