This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown”. To read more about that check out my first Spout filmblog entry.
Videodrome
I feel like I've discussed this film a fair amount already in different groups around Spout, but I'll try to do a little recap here.
I've only seen three Cronenberg movies but I get a sense from them and from hearing him and other people talk about his movies that his movies are spread out with intellectual ideas both wide and deep. And as is often a virtue in art, it is open to many different interpretations and can lead to many different fruitful discussions. But I am finding that the discussions and ideas his movies lead to are often much more interesting than the movies themselves.
Do you ever find yourself talking and thinking about a filmmaker quite often, but not necessarily ranking them amongst the best or your favorites if you had to make a list? I think Cronenberg may be like this for me. Maybe also Peter Greenaway. Or even Werner Herzog. Although it is impossible for me to say I don't love Herzog.
Many people involved in Videodrome have commented on how prophetic it was. When you think about the time in which is was made, yes it is in many ways. I wonder how much of a stretch it was to prophesize the fact that technology would continue to suck us into no only a world of fantasy, but would also help turn that fantasy into a reality. Where the medium is the message. And where even our own physical being has started to become part of the technology.
I do find it horrifying in a way. I was born at a time where I am just able to remember a time when no one had heard of the internet and when having a home computer was rare. People born soon after me will not have a personal memory of what that world is like. I personally have never know what is is like to be an adult in a world without computers. And it is almost impossible for me to imagine how I would spend my time in a world where TV and computer screens are not around. That's pretty sick.
Well actually I could imagine it. And recently I have been trying to focus more on God and that he is all I really need. Technology has become a new God in our society and for future generations it will be a struggle that people are born into.
People are given instant access to what they want and because they don't even know what they want or need it often turns to a passive indulgence in all kinds of pornography, violence, and other selfish experiences. But what I find interesting is that Videodrome itself and Cronenberg's movie sometimes seem to provide these actual things. Although I am not condemning him, I find it an interesting aspect.
Rating: 8/10