SPOILER WARNING
The second truly important work in David Cronenberg's career (after The Brood) and still one of his most vital, Videodrome was quite a few years ahead of its time with ideas involving the evolution of flesh into technology. The desire to connect with your television, mentally, physically, and sexually, was Cronenberg's launching pad here, and despite whether or not you agree with it, he makes it damn near impossible to dismiss. Watching Videodrome nearly thirty years after its release, I am still quite stunned a major studio had it on their slate. There's little question the execs didn't know exactly what (or who) they were dealing with.
Max Renn (James Woods) is in charged of programming at Civic TV, the kind of station whose logo shows a man lying in bed, watching television. This is a society where eyes are constantly glued to the tube, and Max is tired of giving the audience the same old junk. He wants to show people something real, something that will be so appalling they won't want to turn their eyes. When previewing potential programs, he wants to see the end first. This is a world of instant gratification...why bother with stories or characters when you can get straight to the good stuff? By good stuff, Renn means smut. If presented with sex that is handled in a tasteful manner, he proclaims it's "not tacky enough to turn me on. Too much class."
Why is Renn so obsessed with giving the world raw sex and violence? It's an outlet...if they can experience it on TV, they won't want to experience it in real life ("Better on TV than on the streets"). But what happens when it starts to work its way into your brain? When what you see on your television becomes so real the technology in front of you becomes a living, breathing thing? That what we experience on TV becomes how we really see the world? This is what happens to Max once he discovers Videodrome, a show scrambled through a satellite feed that has a very simple set up...two masked figures drag a naked woman into a room with clay walls and proceed to torture and beat her. At first, Max is annoyed by the lack of "plot." After a few minutes, he is unable to look away.
On the talk show circuit, he meets Nikki Brand (is the last name ironic?)(Deborah Harry), a radio talk show therapist. She helps people through their "real" problems. Right after hearing a theory that television is the "retina to the mind's eye," (the television is the new window to the soul, if there was ever a soul to begin with) Max goes to visit Nikki at the station and we see her booth is modeled after an eyeball. The camera then protrudes in...in other words, radio is on the same path as television. Or, given what we learn about Nikki, maybe it's already gotten there.
It's one thing to watch violence for arousal; but to take part is something else all together. Max learns this on his first date with Nikki when he notices cut marks on her shoulder and then later when she gets off having a needle stuck through her earlobe. Instead of removing this object, he leaves it. This our first glimpse of metal penetrating flesh. It is only the beginning of how far Nikki is willing to go in her quest for pain as pleasure. After seeing Videodrome, she wants to be a contestant on the show. In the meantime, Max begins to see things metamorphosize before him. Every time he views Videodrome, reality changes a little more.
How could it be real? Cronenberg constantly keeps us on edge by having Max experience bizarre events that later look like they might have never happened at all. His television begins to pulsate and moan when he touches it. The line has been crossed and interaction with technology is becoming indistinguishable from anything else. One character describes giving homeless people a TV as a way to bring them back to "the world." Which world does she mean? The reality of the world we know, or the one that exists inside the television? The movie suggests they are about to be one in the same.
Max is on his way to the other side. His stomach splits into a vaginal shaped opening in which a blood red videotape can go, and it seems to be giving him instructions on how to complete his journey to the "new flesh," a hybrid of his human self and the technology he supports. A company called Spectacular Optical created Videodrome as a means of brainwashing the viewers with its shocking footage, thereby creating a new race of people who can easily be controlled. Max is the first subject, for when the tape is inserted into him, he'll do whatever he is told. His assignments consist of destroying anyone who is a threat to Spectacular Optical's plan (how appropriate the company poses as an eyewear manufacturer).
Videodrome throws so many elements into the pot, it's amazing the movie doesn't collapse under its weight. The key to its success is Cronenberg's confidence in his material...the ideas could easily look absurd (and there certainly are moments that provoke uneasy laughs, not to mention a God-like character named Brian O'Blivion), but they are portrayed in a fashion that makes them eerily realistic. Aside from a climatic death scene that goes overboard, the special effects perfectly compliment the paranoia. Fittingly, Videodrome was only the beginning for Cronenberg's exploration of technology and flesh becoming one. As fascinating as it has been in future projects, I don't think he's ever done it this potently.
The picture's ending is an indication that Cronenberg is not done with these themes yet. Max, with a gun fused to his hand (it has grown flesh and literally become part of his hand), kills the inventor of Videodrome and then turns the gun on himself and says, "Long live the new flesh." He has killed his creator and welcomed the inevitable takeover, which opens the door for a filmmaker who will spend most of his career showing how man will become consumed by his own inventions. Our nature and our impulses are not strong enough to keep us from giving in...we are living for ourselves and our own gratification, and the end result will always be a disaster. We will never be the winner. Love it or hate it, Videodrome is a movie that drives itself into your brain and holds it hostage. The question is, will you welcome the invasion?
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