Cronenberg (pt. III)

Crash

The Fly

When in doubt, we’re doing a Cronenberg night. I have many favorite freaky filmmakers, but I always find myself coming back to Cronenberg. And no matter what he throws at the viewer, he never ceases to amaze this audience member. He is someone who combines intriguing and unique premises with something unexpected, and grotesque even, in effortless and fearless ways. We’re 6ish months away from Halloween and while I likely won’t do a Halloween in May (a la Christmas in July), I felt like this blog needed a shock to its system. And tonight’s films, though from two different genres, were nothing if not utterly shocking. I’ve viewed a total of 5 of his films on this blog (Eastern Promises, The Dead Zone, Videodrome, Scanners, and Dead Ringers), so tonight we’re adding two more and making David Cronenberg the most-viewed director on this website, because I have serious mental issues and because I just can’t get enough. In both his horror films and his dramas, Cronenberg loves to feature some form of body horror and some form of sexual tension. The amalgamation of all of his insane, stylized, sexualized anxieties is his 1996 film Crash. This is not to be confused with the 2005 film Crash, the Best Picture winner that was more than unexpected, considering its one of the lowest-grossing films to ever win. It’s also thought to be rather problematic in its depictions of race but that’s neither here nor there. In this Crash, James Spader stars as a film producer named James(…) who, after getting in a brutal car crash, joins a group of symphorophiliacs—people who have a kink for surviving car crashes. Him and his wife (Deborah Kara Unger) have an open marriage and each indulge in many partners, so when James learns that he can make near death experiences sexy, they are the perfect candidates for this dangerous desire. Crash is basically soft-core porn, with a bizarre and anxious spin. Even when people weren’t having sex in cars, bodies were everywhere: splayed out and tangled up and exposing pretty much everything that can be shown except male frontal nudity. Figures. 🙄 Cronenberg loves body horror, and bodies in general, and in Crash, the human body was explored in incredibly intimate and obscene ways. It was shocking. It was uncomfortable. It was kind of amazing? Like, I get it. There’s a level of shock I can tolerate and even love, and Cronenberg typically finds a way to achieve that. And when a young James Spader is involved? I can’t deny myself the pleasure of seeing him mostly nude, saying wild things. I can absolutely see why there is both such a disdain and a cult following for this movie that was just violent and sexy the whole time. Each time Deborah Kara Unger or James Spader spoke, each time a car comes into frame, each scene, it all oozed eroticism. Crash was appalling and ridiculous and so ambitiously horny that I was just in awe of its existence. I’m not saying it was a slam dunk, some of the dialogue felt a little clunky and the way it was paced and cut together felt disconnected pretty much throughout. Maybe it was hard to follow because the premise is so odd and unwieldy, but I felt like the transitions from scene to scene were disjointed. Coherency likely wasn’t the main objective in making this film, but it is the first of Cronenberg’s films, at least that I’ve seen, that felt disorganized and completely disinterested in pleasing anyone—in the typical cinematic way I mean. As a piece of art, it was just so unafraid and so deliciously impure. It’s likely the least disgusting example of Cronenberg’s ability to find sexual energy in everything, and yet it was just as disturbing. Like in most of his films, sex is not a source of satisfaction, but a sign of danger. The way limbs and flesh became intwined with metallic mechanisms, the way each human and each machine devoured one another, it subverted any and all lustful expectations in a way that could likely never be replicated in this day and age (although Titane feels like the closest thing). For that reason, and for its boldness alone, I can’t help but appreciate this crazy film. My appreciation carried right over to Cronenberg’s 1986 version of The Fly—a film I’d only seen once, very young, likely before I could even fathom or process what I was seeing. Given my newfound adoration for Cronenberg, I had to revisit this film, and the original, 1958 version by Kurt Neumann. In the original, we’re presented with a mad scientist who accidentally mixes his genetic code with a fly when the titular insect is caught up in the man’s teleportation device when he tests it on himself. The result ends up being a man with a fly’s head and a fly with a man’s head—a concept that is executed rather well for 1958, with an exciting technicolor aesthetic and impressive makeup. In Cronenberg’s version, when our mad scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldlum) enters his teleportation device with a fly, the genetic codes are combined—causing Brundle and the fly to become one. There are so many ways Cronenberg could’ve achieved this, but he chose the most disgusting and disturbing way possible… and I love that about him. If you despise bugs like I do, the mere sound of a fly buzzing is enough to send you over the edge. But The Fly found new ways of making these winged creatures, and human beings, terrifying. Geena Davis stars as Veronica, a journalist who meets Brundle, and once she sees the teleportation device he’s working on, wishes to write about him. Geena and Jeff were dating at the time, and it shows. Their chemistry is real, and thus the budding relationship between these two characters feels real. I’ve seen a lot of scary movies and sci-fi dramas and all manner of weird, experimental, gross films, but this version of The Fly really captivated and shocked me. As Brundle becomes more beastly and as Veronica becomes more desperate to help him, you can’t help but feel the same sense of urgency and terror that they do. I expected this film to be gross and fucked up, and it was, but what I didn’t expect was how invested I’d be in the characters involved. The romance of The Fly was perhaps not the focus of this film, but it felt viable and natural, and by virtue of its terrible outcome, it felt heartbreaking. The love between these two characters, and the performances from Jeff and Geena allowed this story to be so much more than grotesque, it added a human element that makes the final act of this movie harder to watch. Another unexpected element of this film that I should’ve seen coming was Cronenberg’s emphasis on toxic masculinity, and the simultaneous power and weakness that men inhabit within it. Brundle is as mad of a scientist as they come: brilliant, relentless, and fucking crazy. But as the genetic code of the fly occupies more of his body he deteriorates, and becomes helpless and unrecognizable. To have both of the men in Veronica’s life (her ex boyfriend and her new boyfriend) both take on different forms of monstrousness, and to even have it be mostly from Veronica’s POV, it was an interesting and fresh perspective on the mad scientist paradigm—and the sci-fi genre as a whole. This is, in my opinion, Cronenberg’s grossest movie—which is really, really saying something. The transformation from man-to-fly makes the 1958 version seem wholesome and downright lovely. The visual and practical effects were so repulsive it was stunning, and virtually seamless as we observe our mad scientist lose more and more of his human features. The effects were so astounding, I genuinely hope that no one ever attempts to remake this film with CGI because it just wouldn’t be the same, and it likely wouldn’t win an Oscar for makeup like this version did. The Fly is a gorgeously grotesque film that, if you can stomach it, will surprise you and unnerve you and amaze you. It’s one of those movies that will stay with me for a long time, and not just because of the disturbing visuals, but due to the devastating love story. There’s so much more heart and emotion to this film than you’d ever expect, and far more scenes with Jeff Goldblum naked than I remembered. For the faint of heart, I would recommend neither of tonight’s double features. But if you’re a freak like me? You’d be crazy not to treat yourself to these bold, baffling films. But I must warn you to be afraid, be very afraid.