Oh man, I am loving this series. Particularly taken with the thinking here about how Cronenberg's rep as chilly overlooks how much emotion he puts into his movies and how emotional extremes so often act as plot drivers. (And, extra blown away with the thinking on Woods' body changing in Videodrome highlighting how he's not as 'over it' as he thinks he is.)
Also really impressed with the observation about how Geena Davis' character is stuck in a total bullshit patriarchal trap - it's not subtle in the movie and I don't know if Cronenberg really intended that but it's there, and honestly, it's in a lot of his movies if you go looking, which I never have before. (Shivers has some stuff about women's expected roles, Rabid has a women who basically has a radical med procedure performed on her with no consent and little in the way of follow up support, etc.) My kneejerk take on Cronenberg has always been that he is only ever squarely focused on men, but, this has me questioning that a bit.
I'd agree that The Fly is a really interesting mix of Cronenberg's themes and more mainstream horror of the time, but, less convinced that it truly stands apart from other things happening in the same era - the most obvious comparison is probably Carpenter's "The Thing", which in synopsis does the same thing ("update a classic horror movie with modern effects") but also acts equally well as a horror movie or something else more nebulous.
Oh man, I am loving this series. Particularly taken with the thinking here about how Cronenberg's rep as chilly overlooks how much emotion he puts into his movies and how emotional extremes so often act as plot drivers. (And, extra blown away with the thinking on Woods' body changing in Videodrome highlighting how he's not as 'over it' as he thinks he is.)
Also really impressed with the observation about how Geena Davis' character is stuck in a total bullshit patriarchal trap - it's not subtle in the movie and I don't know if Cronenberg really intended that but it's there, and honestly, it's in a lot of his movies if you go looking, which I never have before. (Shivers has some stuff about women's expected roles, Rabid has a women who basically has a radical med procedure performed on her with no consent and little in the way of follow up support, etc.) My kneejerk take on Cronenberg has always been that he is only ever squarely focused on men, but, this has me questioning that a bit.
I'd agree that The Fly is a really interesting mix of Cronenberg's themes and more mainstream horror of the time, but, less convinced that it truly stands apart from other things happening in the same era - the most obvious comparison is probably Carpenter's "The Thing", which in synopsis does the same thing ("update a classic horror movie with modern effects") but also acts equally well as a horror movie or something else more nebulous.