Risselada
Posts 1235
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6/6/2007 4:06 PM
posted awhile ago
Videodrome
I just saw Videodrome not too long ago and found it very interesting in that it seems to make some comment on schock and gore in the media. Well it's interesting because it seems to be an indictment of this type of thing in a way. But also as we know Cronenberg has made movies himself that often show extreme shock and gore. This movie itself may be one of them? I feel like this movie has something very relevent to say in regards to a lot of the discussions and fascinations that go on at this site with gore and the extremity of violence and horror. Does anyone have any feelings about this movie? Robert? Dr. Gor? Anyone?
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Phantasma-gore- ia
Posts 85
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6/6/2007 9:11 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Videodrome
Honestly, it's been a fair bit since I've seen it, but I do recall a few things, one of them being that it was extremely difficult to discern any "messages" at all. I've found Cronenberg films (with the distinguished due exception of Dead RIngers) to be characteristically pointless. Existenz was frustratingly inconclusive, meandering and underdeveloped; Naked Lunch was...everything (disorganized, complicated and impossible to follow and Videodrome: incomplete, convoluted and frustrating. So, as far as its messages on violence and its role in media and popular culture including television and film, more meaningful, direct and coherent stories on this, I reference The Running Man and, perhaps more to the point, the brutally fearless Series 7: The Contenders and The Last Horror Movie. They more purposefully address the issues concerned than Videodrome, and their stories are complete, fully thought out and provocative.
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Risselada
Posts 1235
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6/10/2007 9:18 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Videodrome
Well I think it has something to do with the idea that any kind of new technology always eventually turns from being something useful externally to something that actually modifies our own bodies and psychies. I guess there's a lot we could go on about it, but I guess since you don't remember it too well or didn't see much in it anyways, it's kind of pointless. But I'm glad to get some new recommendations!
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Phantasma-gore- ia
Posts 85
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6/11/2007 3:05 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Videodrome
I can see that theory at work (technology eventually changes us) and can appreciate the plausibility of it. That may very well have been the point Cronenberg was trying to make, but his slapdash style of handling the narrative flow was rocky and inconsistent. It provoked scads of questions that it never answered and its thoughts seemed to phase in and out like spectral beings in a haunted house. I do actually remember a fair bit from it - the chip in the shoulder, the gun from the guts, the tapes and 'plugging in' or something, the suicide (?) scene at the end and various bits here and there. What the whole was supposed to mean, however, and where the coherence was escapes me. I'm not panning Cronenberg as a filmmaker, I just think he tends excessively to the abstract, the impulsive and the just plain bizarre. His messages, whatever they may be, and their contexts seem to get swallowed up in his stylistic flourishes and over-philosophical ideas and he tends to play up too far the main points and overlook others that may have given the story a tighter, leaner structure.
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Risselada
Posts 1235
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6/14/2007 1:05 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Videodrome
Well it's obviously an opinion of preference of style because I think if you asked him he would say the fact that it "provoked scads of questions that it never answered" was not a bad thing. I know also that the script was not completed when they started shooting, so they were writing it and messing with it as it went. But from the commentary they all seemed to think it came out for the best anyways. I'm not saying I disagree with you though, in fact the opposite. I would connect more with the movie if there was some kind of tighter structure or connection between things. But somehow his movies still always make me think and wonder about them all the more because they don't do that. So if that is his intent, then I think he's one of the best at it.
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Dr_Gor
Posts 838
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7/22/2007 3:30 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Videodrome
I have watched "Videodrome" three or four times just to try to get tha 'point' of it... I don't think there is one. The best part of this movie is Debbie Harry in her black undies... (yummy!) ... the same was true of 'Naked Lunch' and whatever that one with Robert Blake was... I could discern no 'point' whatsoever in any of these movies... still kinda fun, though...
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Risselada
Posts 1235
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7/23/2007 3:51 AM
posted awhile ago
Re: Videodrome
 Dr_Gor: I have watched "Videodrome" three or four times just to try to get tha 'point' of it... I don't think there is one. The best part of this movie is Debbie Harry in her black undies... (yummy!) ... the same was true of 'Naked Lunch' and whatever that one with Robert Blake was... I could discern no 'point' whatsoever in any of these movies... still kinda fun, though...
I don't know if there is necessary a single "point" to be made. Although I think there are some definite themes or concepts that are explored. Videodrome definitely has a number of different themes it explores and weaves together and many of them seemed ot be relevent here. Max Renn is trying to find the next most schocking image on screen. The relationship between a society that continues to seek this kind of more extreme images and a section of the media that is determined to bring it to that society seems like something pretty relevent to this Gorrible group. Naked Lunch might make more sense to you if you have read the book and done a little bit of research about the life of William S. Burroughs. I still don't think it's that great of a movie though. I'm not sure about whichever one has Robert Blake. I haven't seen it.
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Dr_Gor
Posts 838
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7/27/2007 6:53 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Videodrome
Oops! My bad. The one with Robert Blake I was thinking of was "Lost Highway" , a film by David Lynch! For some reason I always get those two confused.... perhaps because they both direct such 'strango-bizzarro' movies! VERY different styles, though...
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Risselada
Posts 1235
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7/31/2007 2:34 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Videodrome
Dr_Gor: Oops! My bad. The one with Robert Blake I was thinking of was "Lost Highway" , a film by David Lynch! For some reason I always get those two confused.... perhaps because they both direct such 'strango-bizzarro' movies! VERY different styles, though...
Yeah they are pretty different styles, but both very cerebral and hard to discern sometimes. I thought they might both be Canadian for some reason but I looked it up and it's only Cronenberg.
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