SPIDER SPOILERS AHEAD
Saw "Spider" last night... I like it much much more than Existenz, and, actually, everything since Dead Ringers. Ralph Fiennes's performance was pitch perfect... Gabriel Byrne and Miranda Richardson also did a fine job acting, which you don't see much more of anymore (mostly it's posturing for the camera)... Despite what has been made of the movie as slow and artsy, it feels more like a real movie than anything the Canuck has done since The Fly.
My only gripe is what I feel is Cronenberg's obligation to schlockify his 'serious' 'dramatic' movies... Certainly it was to a lesser extent here than in Crash, Existenz, or Naked Lunch (Roy Scheider as Dr. Benway epitomizes Cronenberg-jibing)...
Still, there was the whole Oedipal conceit with Bill, the father, killing the mother (on an off note: why is there any debate over the murder of the 'good' mother? It's obvious it didn't happen... I can't see how the movie would work if 'Bill' had actually bludgeoned his wife with a shovel...)
For the rest of the movie, 'Bill' and the whore mom have this jokey quality... the whore mom goes as far to grin and say "Yes, we murdered your mother", probably with Cronenberg smirking somewhere in the background. It just doesn't work. In fact, it undermines the seriousness of Spider's tortured psyche.
So why does Cronenberg go to such length to craft seamless performances, gorgeous sets with brilliant cinematography, only to shit on it all with a Monty Python-esque (or maybe better defined as SCTV-esque) conceit that would work better without the jokiness? His movies just don't need it... Is it guilt over his shock-horror pedigree? Does he feel no one will take him seriously anyhow?
Maybe I'm being incoherent here... but Scanners didn't need sly smiles and what not to gloss over the ridiculousness of whatever plot maniuplations. Videodrome even did without it, and that might have needed a little pressure valve (although James Woods might have played a part in that).
I'll stop raving now.
Saw "Spider" last night... I like it much much more than Existenz, and, actually, everything since Dead Ringers. Ralph Fiennes's performance was pitch perfect... Gabriel Byrne and Miranda Richardson also did a fine job acting, which you don't see much more of anymore (mostly it's posturing for the camera)... Despite what has been made of the movie as slow and artsy, it feels more like a real movie than anything the Canuck has done since The Fly.
My only gripe is what I feel is Cronenberg's obligation to schlockify his 'serious' 'dramatic' movies... Certainly it was to a lesser extent here than in Crash, Existenz, or Naked Lunch (Roy Scheider as Dr. Benway epitomizes Cronenberg-jibing)...
Still, there was the whole Oedipal conceit with Bill, the father, killing the mother (on an off note: why is there any debate over the murder of the 'good' mother? It's obvious it didn't happen... I can't see how the movie would work if 'Bill' had actually bludgeoned his wife with a shovel...)
For the rest of the movie, 'Bill' and the whore mom have this jokey quality... the whore mom goes as far to grin and say "Yes, we murdered your mother", probably with Cronenberg smirking somewhere in the background. It just doesn't work. In fact, it undermines the seriousness of Spider's tortured psyche.
So why does Cronenberg go to such length to craft seamless performances, gorgeous sets with brilliant cinematography, only to shit on it all with a Monty Python-esque (or maybe better defined as SCTV-esque) conceit that would work better without the jokiness? His movies just don't need it... Is it guilt over his shock-horror pedigree? Does he feel no one will take him seriously anyhow?
Maybe I'm being incoherent here... but Scanners didn't need sly smiles and what not to gloss over the ridiculousness of whatever plot maniuplations. Videodrome even did without it, and that might have needed a little pressure valve (although James Woods might have played a part in that).
I'll stop raving now.
