Rating: 5/5
We gorge ourselves on [stimulation]
Better on TV than on the streets
Videodrome. What you see... is real. It has something you don't have, Max. It has a philosophy. That's what makes it dangerous
cronenberg and irwin commentary, unrated version
It’s funny how the movie is functionally right-wing — the message is that violence mediated through media DOES beget violence — but Cronenberg’s lens when playing devil’s advocate turns so subjective that viewers can build whatever they want out of the wetware
“Long live the new flesh” is the spinning top at the end of the movie — a phrase that feels meaningful, but in this existential nightmare, all flesh ends at death, and so the phrase is irrelevant — Max’s interpretation is that he must die so that the new flesh lives, but why should we trust anything he says or thinks?
Stray Thoughts / Commentary Summaries
- An extra for the Videodrome broadcast kept coming back to be pretend beaten
- The TV in the background of a sex scene as the electronic fireplace
- Nicki — nicks on the shoulders, Brand — branding with a cigarette
- Brian O’Blivion built from hours of videotapes composited into a simulated, more real than real presence — machine learning acting performances
- James Woods wouldn’t put on the helmet because he was afraid of being electrocuted — so it’s Cronenberg himself wearing the helmet
- DP talks about not lighting every scene “dark and shadowy” because if you shoot every scene that way, the audience learns to see in the dark, and then “you can’t turn the lights off.”
- Rick Baker’s insane effects still look great
- Cronenberg suggests Videodrome influenced The Ring