Cronenberg

by Jessica Pyle

David Cronenberg’s films often seem on the surface to be rather simplistic gore or horror films, for example The Fly in which Seth Brundle’s monstrous half-fly, half-human body “does not speak except through the pure image of horror”. (Sanchez-Biosca pg295)  However this pureness of image is a highly functional technique through which the audience can be effectively manipulated and guided.  If “film is perhaps more guilty than other art forms of literalizing and reducing Freudian motherhood theory” (Kaplan pg128) and other high profile theories such as those of the abject, the monstrous feminine, the famous Oedipal Complex and the controlling patriarchal culture, then Cronenberg’s highly simplified tableaus serve to interrogate the complex theories they represent.  Indeed, their very simplicity invites further dissection and a closer look.

One important aspect of filmic criticism and academic discourse that films such as The Brood, Dead Ringers, The Fly and indeed most of Cronenberg’s body horror films deal with is that of psychoanalysis and the connection between the body and the mind.  The representation is often not at all subtle such as naming Raglan’s process of therapy in The Brood psychoplasmics and this lends to the idea that Cronenberg’s images are purposefully obvious references.  Often the conclusion is that body and mind are inextricably connected – as Seth Brundle’s body changes shape so inevitably does his mind – and that both are incredibly fragile and incredibly complex, difficult to describe or cure with a filmic representation of psychoanalysis or other scientific method.  For it is important to note that Cronenberg’s films deal not with actual scientific investigation and treatment of the mind but a reductive image of pure – and old-fashioned – psychoanalysis that has been filmicly created and become ‘real’ psychoanalysis.  The viewing public have been trained to view the study of the mind through simplistic theories esposed decades ago for example ideas of the son sexually desiring the mother or vice versa, an overbearing mother producing a damaged child such as Norman Bates or the idea that psychological problems are passed down through doomed families. E. Ann Kaplan encapsulates this when she writes of “a simplistic and reductive Freudian scheme of revelation of the “trauma” followed by the instant “catharsis” and “cure” – a pattern familiar from many Hollywood films of the post-war period”. (Kaplan pg137)  Filmic representation therefore has begun to overtake an audience’s view of a discipline such as psychoanalysis, creating a dominant view of a simplistic and effective therapy session or “the angel and evil mother paradigms that pop-Freudianism articulated.” (Kaplan pg134)  This can be seen in the opening therapy scene of The Brood; Raglan berates a male patient in character as the overbearing father followed by said patient experiencing a dramatic moment of revelation followed by catharsis and then a both extremely literalised and somewhat problematic representation of a ‘cure’ as open sores emerge all over his body.  This scene is even framed as dramatically spot lit on a stage referencing the idea of a filmicly created idea of therapy and its effects.  The beginnings of Cronenberg’s problems with this idea can also be seen emerging; the patient’s catharsis, his eventual voicing of emotional problems deeply hidden do not result in an easy cure but in visceral and disgusting open sores and this can be seen later and more dramatically through Nola and the titular Brood and Jan who develops fatal cancer through his therapy.

Psychoanalysis has played a large part in both filmic and feminist criticism and indeed has been questioned within films themselves as shown by “the centrality of the role of the analyst as a problem, and of the concomitant weakening of psychoanalytic authority.” (Walker pg150)  There was therefore a widening sphere of films and criticism which directly engage with both feminism and psychoanalysis permeating the public consciousness as Cronenberg was working.  Indeed, filmic representation can be said to have progressed from one disturbing psychoanalytical theme to another; “if the myth of the “angel-in-the-house” and her corollary “phallic” opposite no longer prevail, we have an equally disturbing recoiling from the obscenity of biological mothering”. (Kaplan pg141)  This is especially relevant when considering Cronenberg’s unique oeuvre of films focussed on visceral bodily horror, pregnancy, disease and sexuality and obviously explored through the gynaecologist Mantle twins who star in Dead Ringers in which “the main character’s disease is literally her ability to make babies”.(Campbell pg314)  Because of these themes he has often been accused of misogyny or a troubling and conservative view of women by critics such as Robin Wood or Barbara Creed who writes concerning Crash that “it is disturbing to note that in all of the sex scenes the woman offers herself to be penetrated: she bears the ‘wound’ that is fucked and she is represented as the prosthetic Other.” Creed concludes that Cronenberg’s view of women is extremely regressive and that he prioritises male sexuality and power.  It is interesting to note however that science and feminist critiques have often intersected with psychoanalysis, particularly in its filmic representation, being accused of “the imposition of socially legislated behaviour on a reluctant person by an authority figure so that feminine adjustment becomes a process of gender normalization”. (Walker pg145) A process which results in the case of a woman being ‘cured’ of neurosis through being made to fit into a more traditional gender role than her original desires, a narrow role which has been created by society for her and bourne out by the history of ‘hysteria’ diagnoses in women and their subsequent suffering.  Indeed, often on film “the narrativized doctor-patient unit reiterates a configuration of power where the doctor is the authority who adjusts the help-seeking patient to a traditional marriage that she has somehow threatened.” (Walker pg152)  Within this context of psychoanalysis being accused of regressive gender politicking and Cronenberg’s technique of interrogating through simplification a more detailed and nuanced analysis of the women in his films can be attempted.  One example of a scene in which this dichotomy is brought to a head is in The Brood when Nola gives birth to one of her misshapen children – embodiments of her rage – and licks it clean of blood and other bodily fluids.  Frank, her husband and indeed the audience are horrified and Nola seems to embody the monstrous feminine and the abject fear and disgust of the process of birth whereas William Beard sees this scene as “a spectacle that is as much one of touching maternal tenderness as it is of the abjection of birth” (Beard pg85).  Here the power of the simplified tableau to elicit complicated questions and interpretations is shown.  Nola is quite literally birthing monsters, her husband is disgusted by her and she is covered in bodily fluids, as perfect an example of the abject as can be imagined and a “a wish to invest Nola with destructive agency and to draw on the power of boundaryless horror to dramatize that agency”. (Beard pg84) Yet within this scene is a powerful example of maternal tenderness and Beard is quick to point out that “females may be the principal ground for this destructive bodily mutation, but they are so by virtue of their oppression.” (Beard pg 83)

Cronenberg’s choice of the horror film specifically as his expressive medium also invokes questions of feminism and male and female relations.  Traditionally, “the genre presents two contrasting modes of monstrous suffering: masochism and menstruation” (Briefel pg16) and this is invoked and interrogated in his films.  The genre is also “notorious for confronting its target audience […] with cinematic images of themselves in various states of danger” (Briefel pg19) and this is perfect for an examination of not just the every-man but every man, using the tropes of horror cinema to confront and examine the human mind and body as it relates to not just the nubile teenagers of slasher movies or the mothers and fathers of Rosemary’s Baby and It’s Alive but all of these subjects and more over his range of films.  This is particularly evident in Shivers in which every class, race, gender and age is infected and transformed by repulsive parasites.  It can be seen in Nola’s unconscious use of her brood children to act out violent revenge that “female monsters do not inflict pain on themselves before undertaking their sadistic rampages.  On the contrary, they tend to commit acts of violence out of revenge for earlier abuse by parents, partners, rapists and other offenders.” (Briefel pg20)  This image fits Nola completely however those around her are also condemned for their inaction, their weakness and indeed Raglan, who created Nola’s monstrosity does so by trying to repair the damage done by her victimisation and ultimately sacrifices himself to destroy her.  Nola may be a sympathetic monster by virtue of her being female and her monstrosity coming from the fact that “the viewer is trained to expect that once the female body bleeds it will breed, a very predictable form of horror” (Briefel pg24) but her suffering is emphasised as a result of pressures from family and partner and the narrative is not one of simplistic woman is monster but interrogated through Cronenberg’s treatment of peripheral characters responsible for her suffering.

Cronenberg’s ‘body horror’ films therefore seem to seek to portray complex theoretical subjects in simplified ways that, through years of prior filmic representation, have been accepted by audiences as ‘truth’ and by virtue of this expose their foolishness or illogicality.  He also uses Freudian and Lacanian ideas to illustrate the depths of monstrosity and pain his characters descend to more effectively and map their suffering.  Mirrors are an important part of this, referencing Lacan’s mirror theory to illustrate both the Mantle twins’ extraordinary issues and Seth Brundle’s disintegration (which is again both literal and metaphorical).  With regards to the Mantle twins, “when they look into the mirror, where Lacan has argued that the child sees him or herself as an individual for the first time, the twins will not see one, since another will be present, who is always already self.” (Maher pg123) An awareness and usage of psychoanalytic tropes is thus the beginnings of the narrative conflict in Dead Ringers which goes on to explore and dramatise the woman as mother, the idea that “the female body is […] first and foremost the site of reproduction, of conception, gestation and birth” (Nguyen pg48) and the issues of identification and psychological lack this creates within the Mantle Twins.  In The Fly the image is more succinct; Seth Brundle, or Brundlefly as he becomes at a point impossible to tell, returns time and time again to the mirror to inspect and study his transformation.  When, at one point he says “Every time I look in the mirror I see someone different, disgusting, repulsive,” (The Fly) he is signalling the complete breakdown of Lacanian identification and Cronenberg’s purposeful use of psychoanalytic tropes to explore the connection between mind and body.

Also of importance is one of Cronenberg’s initial full length mainstream films, Shivers and, perhaps his most controversial film; Crash.  Shivers demonstrates the beginning of his reshaping the body to examine the mind and a fascination with sexuality and symbolism though his emerging themes may be less accomplished in their execution than in his later works.  However, even in Shivers, his first mainstream feature film the audience is shown a room in which an old man, incredibly similar in likeness to Freud himself, is sitting with a much younger girl revealed to be his daughter who is then offered up for sexual gratification.  The scene is extremely symbolic and shows Cronenberg’s willingness to play with ideas such as the Oedipal and Electra complexes and the image of Freud in public consciousness.  In Shivers “what is so disturbing is the complete unknowableness, uncontrollability, and fearful destructive power of the body (and the conscious) vis-a-vis the rational ego-subject and vis-a-vis the moral sense attached to that human subject” (Beard pg31) and Cronenberg’s preoccupation with the connection of, and power dynamics between, the body and the mind begins to emerge.  In Crash this preoccupation is explored even further through the story of a group of people who get aroused being involved or witnessing car accidents and by the scars on the body they leave behind.  Barbara Creed draws attention to how “in the early twentieth century Freud tied the significance of the bleeding wound to sexual difference; it signified the castrated female genital” and explores the ideas of the women in Crash as subordinate to the desires of men and machinery.  She concludes that “Crash thus speaks male, not female, desire; its visual style is brilliant, its subject matter is confrontational but its sexual politics are phallocentric” (Creed pg179) without taking into account its exploration of the relationship between fractured minds and fractured bodies and how they affect each other.

Cronenberg’s work therefore uses the body entirely as symbol, often of the mind that it contains, as it is deformed and remade through science in ways which mirror psychoanalytical and filmic discourses and how they are viewed by a public shown them through the film screen.  His literalizations of academic theories are often extremely simple such as Nola’s rage being born as “one-dimensional creatures, connecting only with primal rage and not with other, even diametrically opposed, feelings that might simultaneously exist in the patient”. (Beard pg76) This method however serves to interrogate the way audiences react to their ideas of representation and scientific endeavour when they are shown as simplistic and extremely literal tableaus as well as interrogating the relationship between body and mind.