Videodrome
When Max Renn goes looking for edgy new shows for his sleazy cable TV station, he stumbles across the pirate broadcast of a hyperviolent torture show called Videodrome. As he struggles to unearth the origins of the program, he embarks on a hallucinatory journey into a shadow world of right-wing conspiracies, sadomasochistic sex games, and bodily transformation. Starring James Woods and Deborah Harry in one of her first film roles, Videodrome is one of writer/director David Cronenberg’s most original and provocative works, fusing social commentary with shocking elements of sex and violence. With groundbreaking special effects makeup by Academy Award®-winner Rick Baker, Videodrome has come to be regarded as one of the most influential and mind-bending science fiction films of the 1980s.
posted by Lee Arnold @ 12:58 PM
2 Comments:
I thought Videodrome was great. Most of the time when I watch movies from this time period, the effects are so outdated it takes away from the experience of watching the film - but not here and I'm not exactly sure why. I guess great makeup effects are still better than poor computer graphics effects, more organic even if not perfectly integrated with the rest of the shot. Or possibly now my eye is trained to look for bad cg in films. After watching the commentary on Vieodrome, I was even more impressed. Directors are essentially problem solvers. Problems like how can a person "make love" to a television screen, or making guts fly out of it. Before cg, directors had to be so inventive, things were much more time consuming, left up to trial and error, and fooling the camera, and quite honestly a bit more fun to work on. Sure I love sitting on my butt in front of a monitor for twenty hours straight, but if i had the option of packing sheep guts into a cannon, or writing a script for maya particles.... is there really any comparison?
Videodrone esplored the darker side of human psyche, sexual fetishes, and media in general. Why are we so attracted to things we haven't seen before, especially vionlence? Even turned on by them?
Cronenberg explored in this movie some freudian notions of violence and sex, mixed together with some of his thoughts about mass-media, TV to be specific. Wood delivers a convincing performance as a guy who gets addicted to the thrill of watching the darkest things the human mind is capable of percieving. The movie raises some important questions. Where do we draw the line when it comes to freedom of speech? Should TV be allowed to answer ALL the demands of the viewers, even if they involve unspeakable vulgarity and violence (given of course it's not real - if actual crimes are shown on TV, people would watch the show, but the makers would definately be arrested and prosecuted for the crime they so foolishly documented. And what if it is real crime broadcasted from an obscure place? Should people be allowed to watch it? Would it promote more violence? Is that such a bad thing from society's point of view?)?
Oh man.... I should watch that movie again...
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