Do you have a list of all the films used in your psychosexual edit?
dead ringers, crash 1996, the handmaiden, body heat, blue velvet, the piano teacher, secretary 2002, videodrome, audition, in the realm of senses, y tu mama tambien, mulholland drive, love exposure, thelma, gothic 1997, climax, possession, titane, law of desire, raw, the skin i live in, the lighthouse, 3-iron, eyes wide shut, thirst, belle de jour, antichrist, salo, possessor, black swan, repulsion, dogtooth, the lair of the white worm, persona, peeping tom, phantom thread, the silence of the lambs, red dragon, the duke of burgundy, the cook the thief his wife & her lover, docteur jekyll et les femmes, the exorcist, the devils, shame, der fan, body double, psycho, quills, basic instinct, immoral tales, caligula, crimes of the future, the double life of veronique, woman in the dunes, stoker, a clockwork orange, the beguiled 1971, the innocents, who killed teddy bear 1965, the housemaid 1960, taxi driver, sisters, teorema, oedipus rex, vertigo, trouble every day, sex lies & videotape, suspiria, carrie, nbc hannibal, a dangerous method, solaris, cat people 1982, the cell, spider 2002, spider 1992
i'm not sure if you've answered this before, but since you're a pretty dedicated cronenberg fan, and i've been getting into his films lately (just started dead ringers, it seems great), i was wondering if you'd rate the films of his that you've seen from favorite to least favorite (or however you'd like to rate them)
ahhh oh my god great question :)
from favourite to least favourite of every cronenberg film i've seen, i'd go: dead ringers, the fly, videodrome, crash, eXistenZ, the brood, eastern promises, naked lunch, rabid, crimes of the future (2022), a history of violence, spider, scanners, the dead zone, crimes of the future (1970), shivers.
for more info on any of my picks, i write small things on my letterboxd but i very much welcome asks about cronenberg :) he's definitely my favourite director and i plan to watch every film he's ever made (and i'm not too far off)
no but this is so interesting actually. a month ago i made a silly list of movies to watch that i knew used meat and human body to tell a story about connection and thoughts, movies that might also be a bit erotic and/or iconic. so i obviously put saw in there, videodrome, crash, existenz, crimes of the future, dead ringers, reanimator. only to realize that more than half of them are of the same director/writer 🫡
Crimes of the Future is a film David Cronenberg first planned to make in the early 2000s, with originally Nicholas Cage and then Ralph Fiennes in the lead. As the follow-up to Existenz, this in all likelihood would have been amazing; another instant classic. The story, of an artist in the future growing unique organs from his own body as his artwork, has a great deal in common with the world of Existenz, Videodrome, The Fly, Naked Lunch, Crash, Dead Ringers, etc.: the same surgeon's eye view of the human body, at once fascinating and repulsive.
Twenty years is a long time, though, and for many reasons this is not the film first envisioned at all: in the 21st century, Cronenberg left behind his core ideas and began making less characteristic - and more generic - films, none of which scaled the heights of his past, and so he came to this one with rusted tools. One can readily feel that it was made at least partly during COVID, with a shrunken cast, distracted performances and a cheap, unfocused feel to it all. The lighting is unnecessarily dim, and much of the pacing lifeless and dull. I don't know how much green screen was used, but there are a number of scenes that feel similarly awkward and impersonal, like strangers doing improv together on a theater stage. It's telling that the special effects look worse now than they would have in the 80s and 90s.
There are less-talented actors used at points who were obviously chosen to meet a diversity quota, which is sad, as several of the other secondary actors, like Don McKellar, Kristen Stewart and Lihi Kornowski, are very good. Viggo Mortensen is for the most part excellent, but Léa Seydoux seems a little miscast: she doesn't appear to fully inhabit her character and most of her scenes feel like early rehearsals. Which makes me think of how much of the pre-production and rehearsals must have been done remotely over skype: is that the overarching problem linking all of the above together?
Whatever the reason, it's still a fine idea for a film, even if it's subpar in the execution, and if you stick with it, you will find yourself sinking into the premise, and intrigued by the questions it throws up about our future and human evolution as a whole, in spite of all the above shortcomings. It's good to see Cronenberg back doing Cronenberg, anyway.