I’m no sexual mastodon, but I would like to think I know which orifice my member is occupying at any given time, or maybe I’m doing it all wrong, who knows!

Screenplay By: David Henry Hwang
Directed By: David Cronenberg

As soon as I read that David Cronenberg was not the writer of M. Butterfly warning signs went off in my head. As the movie progressed what I feared would happen was happening. If this were a Cronenberg penned film as well as a Cronenberg directed film the ideas that the actual writer, David Henry Hwang, only hints at would have been explored fully. Alas, that is not the movie I received and I have to look at M. Butterfly for what it is, while always being aware of what it could have been.

The story of M. Butterfly is frankly preposterous on face value, but it is not a story meant to be seen at face value. The big question is how could René have spent twenty years with Song, had sex together numerous times and never realize that Song was in fact a man? The idea Hwang, or maybe Cronenberg, puts forth is that René knew all along, but he chose to live the lie because the lie was more appealing to him than the truth could ever be. If you are willing to accept that theory then the rest of the film loses its preposterous sheen and becomes a very believable tale.

The lack of heat or tension in M. Butterfly’s story is a problem all by itself, but that is a minor problem compared to how the message of the film is handled. The idea of a man engaging in a relationship with someone he doesn’t know is also a man, or even knowingly engaging in a transgender relationship is interesting. More than that it is a springboard for numerous topics relating to sexuality, when you take into account that René is French and Song is Chinese there are even more issues to be discussed. How their different cultures view sex, the role reversal in their relationship, the idea of sexual dominance as well as gender in sexual roles are all ideas that M. Butterfly explores. These are ideas I looked forward to seeing explored in depth, but M. Butterfly never goes beyond the surface. It hints at its sexual related issues, but when it needs to explore deeper the film shrinks back as if it is afraid to proceed any further. M. Butterfly is a classic case of a topic getting too little coverage, and that is sad to say about a Cronenberg film.

Jeremy Irons gives another good performance, he has the sexually repressed individual down pat I do believe. It’s debatable whether John Lone pulls off the role of Song. On the one hand he doesn’t need to be womanly to us, only to René, but if we are to fully believe René could fall for Song then shouldn’t we believe Song is a woman just as much as René does? I don’t know the answer to that question as I see both sides of the argument, in some ways Lone’s look worked for me but in others it failed. I know some who didn’t buy Lone’s performance for a second, or the idea that it shouldn’t matter to us whether he looks womanly or not, your mileage will probably vary on this topic.

On the scale of David Cronenberg films M. Butterfly resides near the bottom of the list. We all know what Cronenberg is capable of, and he is capable of much more than we are allowed to see in M. Butterfly. I enjoyed that the film was willing to tackle such taboo sexual subjects, but it needed to explore those subjects more attentively. Cronephiles such as myself will find the limited value in M. Butterfly, but everyone else can keep on walking, because this dude does more than look like a lady.

Rating:

***

Cheers,
Bill

Adrenaline rushes through my veins, desperate to seek an outlet.  It runs through red pulsing lines, like those drawings of the human anatomy and my 8th grade science project.  A coffee, a cigarette, upbeat music, fast heartbeat.  Visions of paradise and visions of blood, a figure dancing with knives extended threateningly, executing expert slices and passes that cause decapitation and castration.  Flowers grow from the disemboweled bodies with a white fluorescence.  It is a vision of possibilities and repressed dreams that lie dormant in the mind of every being.  The wind carries the scent of forest and musky earth.

Gallimard, if I could

but grasp this

dream

as you did.

Although the story of Hwang’s M. Butterfly maybe not seem plausible, the play is based on the true story of Frenchman Bernard Bouriscot, who fell in love with a transvestite male Peking Opera singer.  The two lovers stayed together for 20 years before the courts forced Bouriscot to recognize that the opera singer was, in fact, male.

I’m positive that Gallimard, Bouriscot’s character in the play, must have known that his “mistress” was male.  After all, how can you possibly not know the difference between a vagina and an anus?  But, nobody wants to admit to the truth when the fantasy is so good.  Then Gallimard states in Act 3, Scene 3:

“Tonight, I’ve finally learned to tell fantasy from reality.  And, knowing the difference, I choose fantasy.”

 Some might sneer and say, “Well, that was stupid.”  However, it would be hypocritical to condemn the Frenchman so quickly.  Do we not believe the image, the signifier, despite the fact that we have doubts as to whether or not it has a signified counterpart? 

Thus, this statement is also a great example of Baudrillard’s idea of hyperreality.  Where reality is the land of signified and signifiers, hyperreality is the dimension where only the image exists.  Just as Gallimard wants to believe the vision of Butterfly, the submissive, perfect woman who “says no with her mouth but yes with her eyes”, I think we often want to believe the news and other hidden promises or simulacra found on the internet and on TV.

Anyway, I’m glad Bouriscot went to jail. Not necessarily because he spied for the chinese and handed over about 150 classified documents to them, many of them regarding Vietnam, but because he let Shi (the opera singer) name their “baby” (a scam put up by the Chinese communists) Shi Dudu.  Honestly, poo?

Når jeg tenkter på at min Soton-avreise betyr at jeg ikke får se min favoritt-butikk igjen før November får jeg vondt helt ned i lilletåen. Etter å ha snakket med de som arbeider i butikken fikk jeg heldigvis vite at jeg nå kan bestille klær til Norge, så det hjalp litt på nattesøvnen.

Klærne lages av en Asiatisk forhandler, og er helt herlig unike. Elsker når butikker har ett gjennomført konsept som de kjører på med. De har så mange fine bestemor mønstre, polkadotter, striper, gøye knapper, lekkre vinter kåper, kjoler og topper at jeg blir helt gal.

Her er iallefall ett lite utvalg, men jeg vill påpeke at butikken er mye bedre i virkeligheten enn på nettet.

Ikke glem konkurransen som ligger her!!!

One of the more ambiguous highlights of my 4thianity vacation was seeing actual dead tree newspapers. They’ve all gotten smaller but reading the ChiTrib in tabloid format was like thumbing through a Tijuana Bible version of Ulysses. Getting ink all over my fingers seemed appropriate in that context. Next time I read a dead tree edition I’ll try to wear latex gloves or have a box of kleenex handy.

I ate squid ink pasta for the first time while staying with WINston & Mrs. smITh. Just a portion of the culinary extravaganza at that road stop, and my first taste of beer as I had a few home brews to go with the margueritas.

Wilcon was all about brats, which were even better without any kids around. (Or rather there were kids present, some of whom are now in their 40s. It was the still kids kids who weren’t there.)

Other kids who are now grown continue to influence our lives. Who among us would understand Sarah Palin’s latest travails if not for Ross Douthat?

She should have said no.

Fuck that’s brilliant. She should have said no. To what? I didn’t read further but I’m guessing Ross is talking about Sarah saying no to pretending to be Bristol’s first baby’s mama. I’m also guessing she should have said no to free home building supplies from a vendor building the Wasilla Sports Pyramid-Dome-Temple of the Future Gods.

Maybe she should have said no to local yahoos who convinced her to keep the bars open until 4 am. She could have said no to letting her kids go to oxycontin parties. No would have also have been a handy word when it came to Troopergate.

Only an urbanized douchebag would think that Palin should elicit any sympathy. She and her ilk make rural living hell for them that believe elsewise.

As Jimmy Carter was to the office of the ex-Presidency, Sarah Palin will most surely not be to the ranks of the elected who quit, whining all the way to Regnery Publishing.

-

There was another CBO on health care costs released last week, one that favored single payer.

Paul Krugman explains what you didn’t read in your local undersized, ink covered newspaper.

-

I hate to admit it, but our gun nuts are right. American gun laws are out of control. What else can you say when a man brandishes a gun to stop a hold up and then dies forgotten in a prison cell as a direct consequence?

-

The tide on universal coverage seems to have turned. Even the L.A. Times says it only makes sense.

Now to get them onto the single payer page.

-

140 Uighurs dead in Chinese riots.

Hey, I know! Why can’t China send them all to Palau?

-

Barack’s insanely leftwing college paper on nuclear arms.

Also from Balloon Juice:

Obama has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

Obama has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

Obama is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

Wingnuts are as American as Mormons are Christian.

-

I was out on a big Adirondack lake in a canoe this weekend while the American economy was dying — but you wouldn’t have known it for the fleets of giant power boats dragging children back and forth across the water on rubber tubes, and the giant camping vehicles crammed into every bare spot. How do people pay for these things, I wondered. For not a few, installment loans, no doubt — though that still begs the question. The sheer programming of American life runs wide and deep. We are, apparently, a people born to drag children behind hundred-and-fifty horsepower two-stroke engines, so that’s what we do, no matter what is really going on in the world….

Clusterfuck Nation

-

Symantec v McAfee.

Or you could get a Mac.

Admittedly my desk is a little cluttered, but that box below the left corner of the monitor is my computer. I took a picture of what’s behind the monitor so you could see all his little friends.

You can only see six of them, but there are seven.

Computer and Macintosh HD are the same thing in case you’re coming up with 9 total drives instead of 8.

I have a third as many hard drives as Jammie Thomas Rasset had illegally uploaded songs. The largest of my hard drives can hold almost 10,000 music albums.

And before I’m done, it will.

We are five years away from an iPod that will hold the Library of Congress. IF you have a billion trillion dollars for the licensing fees to pay to companies who treat digital content like it was water in the Sahara.

Their water, my drinking fountain. And as soon as I finish getting Papaya figured out, the redistribution will begin in earnest.

-

Shi Pei Pu, R.I.P.

La citazione dalla “Madama Butterfly” che fa da titolo al post è d’obbligo, anche se non si parla d’opera, di Puccini o di bel canto.

La storia è quella di “M Butterfly”, non “Signora” (M.rs all’inglese), non “Signor” (M.r), ma solo “M”. Indefinito.

È la storia di Shi Peipu, cantante d’opra cinese, che nel 1964 sedusse ed iniziò una ventennale relazione con Bernard Boursicot, un giovane diplomatico francese appena arrivato a Pechino. La loro relazione fu “allietata” dalla nascita di un figlio (Bertrand) nel 1965. Solo che Shi Peipu era un uomo. Ed una spia che sfruttò il povero Boursicot per i soliti traffici da spia.

Dalla storia è stata tratta una piece teatrale (ne ho visto una straordinaria edizione nel 1989 con Sir Anthony Hopkins) ed un film di David Cronemberg.

Shi Peipu è morto(a) ieri.

O’Horten (Bent Hamer, 2007). My favorite title of the year, clearly. (full review 6/19)

My Life in Ruins (Daniel Petrie, 2009). Nia Vardalos, actually in Greece this time, and like My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a movie your mother will enjoy. (full review 6/5)

The Hangover (Todd Philllips, 2009). In the hierarchy of the subgenre, funnier than Bachelor Party or Very Bad Things, and much grosser. (full review 6/5)

Poppy Shakespeare (Benjamin Ross, 2008). Ross hasn’t been heard from much since The Young Poisoner’s Handbook, but that was the kind of original, scathing movie that would make me sign up for whatever the guy was working on. This oddball item is modest (and could use subtitles),  but it works. (Screens at SIFF 6/9 and 6/14)

M. Butterfly (David Cronenberg, 1993). The DVD release gave me a reason to see a movie I missed the first time around; it’s not at all the disaster it sounded like. But an odd, admittedly reserved film.

So Long at the Fair (Terence Fisher, Antony Darnborough, 1950). As suspected: great set-up, enjoyable roll-out, inevitably flattening effect when the explanation comes (“But then why didn’t they just….”). Fun, though.

Features:
New interview with director David Cronenberg; Theatrical trailer

David Cronenberg’s cinematic intensity eviscerates this adaptation of David Henry Hwang’s passionate stage production. Based on a true incident involving a French diplomat who carried on an affair for 18 years with a man the diplomat thought was a woman, M. Butterfly begins in 1964 Beijing when French foreign service employee Rene Gallimard (Jeremy Irons) becomes smitten with Chinese opera performer Song Liling (John Lone). Before long, Gallimard is enamored with Song, and they begin an inflamed affair — bracketed by the stipulation that Gallimard will never be allowed to look upon her in a state of complete undress. Gallimard agrees to the rules, but, as he climbs up the diplomatic ladder, the communist government gets involved, corralling Song to become an informer for the government. When, at last, Gallimard’s passion demands nudity, Song flees the relationship. Gallimard, pining for his lost love, then becomes a physical and mental wreck. He leaves China and accepts a two-bit diplomatic position, but then Song appears once again to Gallimard. At that point, Gallimard is arrested and, during the subsequent sensational trial for treason, his affair is exposed for the sham that it is. Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Scene Index

Disc #1 — M. Butterfly
1. Credits [2:31]
2. Certainly Different [1:38]
3. Entrance of Butterfly [2:42]
4. Beautiful to a Westerner [2:55]
5. Piece of Beautiful Music [3:02]
6. At the Opera [5:35]
7. Wings Fluttering in the Dark [3:56]
8. Implications [4:56]
9. Unfriendly Party [2:43]
10. Letters to a White Devil [2:14]
11. Unexpected Good News [2:30]
12. Most Forbidden of Loves [5:30]
13. New Vice-Consul [1:38]
14. At the Great Wall [2:00]
15. Theories on Oriental Culture [2:17]
16. Practice of Deception [2:04]
17. Still Playing Missionary [2:33]
18. Slave’s Revelation [4:36]
19. Farwell to His Concubine [2:14]
20. What Only a Man Knows [2:00]
21. Flames of Revolution [4:23]
22. Bittersweet Reunion [2:36]
23. Demotion; Hard Labor [3:29]
24. Tear-Stained Memory [3:38]
25. Here in My Arms [2:22]
26. The Trial [5:41]
27. Loving the Lie [6:44]
28. His Biggest Performance [2:29]
29. Madama Butterfly [6:04]
30. End Credits [3:42]

Performance Credits
Jeremy Irons
(Films)(Biography)(Music) Rene Gallimard
John Lone
(Films)(Biography) Song Liling
Ian Richardson
(Films)(Biography)(Music) Ambassador Toulon
Annabel Leventon
(Films)(Music) Frau Baden
Shizuko Hoshi Comrade Chin
Richard McMillan Embassy Colleague
Vernon Dobtcheff Agent Etancelin
Damir Andrei 2nd Intelligence Officer
Deirdre Bowen Actor
Barbara Chilcott Critic at Garden Party
Viktor Fulop Marshal
David Hemblen 1st Intelligence Officer
Sean Hewitt Ambassador’s Aide
Tristram Jellinek Defense attorney
Philip McGough Prosecution attorney
Peter Messaline Diplomat at party
David Neal Judge
Antony Parr 3rd Intelligence Officer
Barbara Sukowa Jeanne Gallimard
Technical Credits
David Cronenberg Director
Suzanne Benoit Makeup
John Board Asst. Director
Deirdre Bowen Casting
Denise Cronenberg Costumes/Costume Designer
Bryan Day Sound/Sound Designer
Elinor Rose Galbraith Set Decoration/Design
David Henry Hwang Executive Producer, Screenwriter
Alicia Keywan Art Director
Gabriella Martinelli Producer
James McAteer Art Director
Ronald Sanders Editor
Howard Shore Score Composer
Carol Spier Production Designer
Marilyn Stonehouse Production Designer
Peter Suschitzky Cinematographer

Broadway star Ann Harada originated the role of “Christmas Eve” in the Tony Award winning Broadway show “Avenue Q”.  Ann also starred in the Broadway Revival of “Les Miserable” as Madame Thernardier, using her impeccable comedic talents, she made the role her own. Be sure to catch Ann this Spring (2009) on Broadway in the new musical “9 to 5″.

1. Who inspired you to become a performer? Judy Garland and Angela Lansbury.

2. What was your first professional performance? WORKING at the Boothbay Harbor Dinner Theatre. I was the Waitress.

3. What is the highest and lowest note you can sing? High C, but not prettily and low C, but not prettily.

4. Favorite Play? The Life and Times of Nicholas Nickleby.

5. What kind of skin care products do you use? I don’t understand the relevance of this question Your Honor, but Creme de La Mer, when I can afford it and Boots moisturizer (available at Target) when I cannot.

6. What are your favorite shoes? Saucony Jazz sneakers.

7. Superman or Wonder Woman? Wonder Woman.

8. Favorite Talk Show Host? Mike Douglas. oh you mean now? Letterman.

9. Favorite celebrity gossip website? I don’t read celebrity gossip online.  I prefer reading magazines at doctors offices and nail salons.

10. Favorite Animal? Bunny rabbit.

Playwright David Henry Hwang, his wife actress Kathryn Layng and actor BD Wong celebrate the 20th anniversary of M. Butterfly at the 11th annual Asian American Literary Awards Ceremony, produced by the Asian American Writers Workshop held at New York University's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Film Center in New York on December 8, 2008.

Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop at the Eleventh Annual Asian American Literary Awards Ceremony from M. Butterfly costume and stage designer Eiko Ishioka, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking play M. Butterfly at New York University’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Film Center in New York, on Monday, December 8. Mr. Hwang and Law & Order SVU actor BD Wong, who dazzled audiences in his Broadway debut in M. Butterfly and garnered the Outer Critic’s Circle Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award, Clarence Derwent Award, and the Tony Award for his star turn, read passages from the play, followed by a chat moderated by Oskar Eustis, the Artistic Director of The Public Theater.

This year’s Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s Asian American Literary Award honorees include Fiction award-winner Mohsin Hamid for The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Nonfiction award-winner Vijay Prashad for The Darker Nations, and Poetry award-winner Sun Yung Shin for Skirt Full of Black. The Member’s Choice award was presented to Ed Lin for This is a Bust.

After the ceremony, David Henry Hwang and BD Wong signed complimentary copies of M. Butterfly, published by Plume, that all attendees of the ceremony were lucky enough to receive.

“For the 11th Annual Asian American Literary Awards, The Workshop will present a Lifetime Achievement Award to playwright David Henry Hwang, who will reunite with B.D. Wong in a special reading and celebration for the 20th anniversary of their seminal contribution to Asian American culture, M. Butterfly.  Hwang and Wong will discuss their seminal contribution to Asian American culture with Oskar Eustis, the Artistic Director of The Public Theater. Every audience member will receive a free paperback of M. Butterfly.

BD Wong, Lia Chang and David Henry Hwang at the AALDEF Lunar New Year Gala at Pier 60 on February 21, 2008 in New York.

Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop at the Eleventh Annual Asian American Literary Awards Ceremony to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking play M. Butterfly on Monday, December 8, 2008 in New York. Mr. Hwang and Law & Order SVU actor BD Wong, who dazzled audiences in his Broadway debut in M. Butterfly and garnered the Outer Critic’s Circle Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award, Clarence Derwent Award, and the Tony Award for his star turn, will be reunited in a special reading and conversation with Oskar Eustis, the Artistic Director of The Public Theater.

Since 1998, The Asian American Writers’ Workshop has presented the Annual Asian American Literary Awards to some of the preeminent writers in the country, such as Amitav Ghosh, Ha Jin, Chang Rae-Lee, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, and Meera Nair.

This year, The Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s Asian American Literary Award honorees include Fiction award-winner Mohsin Hamid for The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Nonfiction award-winner Vijay Prashad for The Darker Nations, and Poetry Award-winner Sun Yung Shin for Skirt Full of Black.

All guests will receive a free paperback of M. Butterfly, published by Plume.

Monday, December 8, 2008

VIP Reception | 6-7:30 pm

Deutsches Haus at NYU

2 Washington Mews, New York

$100

Awards Ceremony | 7:30-9 pm

Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Film Center at NYU

36 East 8th Street, New York

$20 members, $30 non-members

Tickets may be purchased online at http://aaww.org/awards_2008.html.

Sponsored by The NYU Creative Writing Program, HSBC, Plume, Edelman, Verizon, Loeb & Loeb, Paradigm Talent Agency, Singha Beer, and The Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.

In the afterward to his play, M. Butterfly, David Henry Hwang explains, “For the myths of the East, the myths of the West, the myths of men, and the myths of women–these have so saturated our consciousness that truthful contact between nations and lovers can only be the result of heroic effort.  Those who prefer to bypass the work involved will remain in a world of surfaces, misperceptions running rampant.”  He explains that such misperception led to Rene Gallimard learning nothing of his lover for over twenty years, not even that his “butterfly” was in fact a man and not a woman.

Twenty years after Hwang made these observations, I find myself frustrated for it appears that as a country we still prefer to bypass the work necessary to move beyond surfaces and misconceptions.   This is what I attempted to address in my earlier post today concerning Senator Hillary Clinton. 

In 1988 Hwang argued that various elements of our culture (catalogues, tv ads, etc.) tended to reject women (he was speaking of Asian women) for what they have become– independent, assertive, self-possessed–in favor of a more reactionary model-the pre-feminist, domesticated geisha girl.”  For the modern eqivalent of the geisha you might want to take a look at some current rap videos whose messages tend to be that women are objects to be possessed and used. 

 Our culuture tends to send mixed messages.  We value equality and the puritan work ethic and believe that anyone, regardleess of race, ethnicity, or gender, can succeed in America if they work hard.  But when they achieve the success of someone like Senator Hillary Clinton , they are often reduced to what they wear instead of what they have accomplished. Many in our culture even ask if Barack Obama is “Black” enough.  Isn’t it time we moved beyond surfaces and stereotype? 

See Clinton & Obama address these issues:

Apparently we haven’t moved beyond surface and stereotype.  It appears many Americans have fallen in love with the fantasy of ourselves as “heroes” and “liberators”.  According to a recent Newsweek poll, 41 percent of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein’s regime was somehow involved in the terrorist attack of 9/11, even though there appears to be no evidence to support such a connection. 

Why is that?  Media creates artifice.  Our citizens receive their information in 30 second sound bites and no one thinks and no one questions.

Hwang’s work, however, did search for answers regarding such cultural artifice.  Through a deconstruction of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, Hwang’s work is one that questions notions of race, sex, and imperialism and leaves this reader searching wondering why, twenty years later, like Rene Gallimard, our country still finds itself in love with stereotype.

Beard, William, The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2001

William Beard’s extensive critical analysis of the cinema of David Cronenberg considers Cronenberg as a filmmaker with a strong authorial voice whose films make up a powerful body of work containing very specific re-occurring themes, attitudes and style. From Videodrome (1983) onwards Beard identifies the main theme of Cronenberg’s films as an existential-romantic ideal of “a pathfinding, transgressive [male artist/creator] figure delving into hidden or repressed realms where others do not wish to go”. (257) 

Beard dedicates a chapter to every Cronenberg feature film from the rarely seen Stereo (1969) right up to Crash (1996). Unfortunately eXistenZ (1999) was released after Beard’s completion of the book but it is discussed briefly in footnotes and mentioned in the chapter on Crash. Beard does not include Cronenberg’s early short films, television work or car racing film Fast Company (1979) which Beard describes as formulaic, uncharacteristic, and uninteresting.

Beard’s interpretation of Cronenberg’s cinema is original and unique, and he acknowledges the various existing arguments and how they have influenced his perspective. In particular Beard often refers to Julia Kristeva’s work on the abject and provides an excellent summary on her theory in the chapter on Shivers (1975). Beard also takes into account the large body of work on gender and psychoanalysis, especially Barbara Creed’s theories on the monstrous feminine, although he often disagrees with Creed’s arguments.

Beard examines the post-modern perspectives of writers such as Steven Shaviro who have predominantly written on Videodrome, and makes a compelling argument for why post-modern readings of Cronenberg films fail. Beard argues that Cronenberg is a modernist director whose films are predominantly about the internal desires and transformations of a single male protagonist who, with the possible exception of Scanners (1981), cause their own suffering and tragic end without hope or redemption.

Beard also does a very close examination of the literary sources behind Naked Lunch (1991), M. Butterfly (1993), and Crash. This is particularly valuable pertaining to the chapter on Naked Lunch where Beard argues that the film is Cronenberg’s vision of who William Burroughs was, rather than simply an adaptation of Burroughs’s writing. Beard examines the influence Burroughs had on Cronenberg, and the important differences between the way they both view the world. Unfortunately Beard’s descriptions of David Henry Hwang’s play M. Butterfly and J. G. Ballard’s novel Crash serve little purpose other than to point out the discrepancies between the original source material and their respective films. This approach in the final two chapters offer less actual film analysis and as a result are the weakest chapters in Beard’s book.

Other chapters that suffer in comparison to the general high quality of writing in The Artist as Monster are the chapters on Scanners and The Dead Zone (1983). Beard has quantitative information about these films, but he struggles to work them into his overall argument concerning Cronenberg’s cinema. Beard acknowledges this somewhat with Scanners but does not make any similar claims with The Dead Zone and struggles to interpret this film by means of his understanding of Cronenberg’s cinema.

Beard argues that Cronenberg’s first two ‘underground/art’ films Stereo and Crimes Of The Future (1970), introduce his key re-occurring concept of human sexuality being self-invented and self-signifying, where there is nothing ‘natural’ or ‘ordinary’ about it. Any attempts for the mind to further remodel the body, through ‘medical sex’ or ‘erotic research’ will always result in horrific bodily mutation and disease. The “distressed sense that the power of sexuality (and the body in general) to dissolve categories and threaten ego-subjectivity is a power very much to be feared”. (22)

This idea is explored further in Cronenberg’s next three narrative driven films: Shivers, Rabid (1977) and The Brood (1979). There is a lack of clearly defined protagonists in these films but the key figures that emerge are the unscrupulous or irresponsible inventor/scientist who begin a process of transgression that will threaten society, and the ineffectual male ‘hero’ whose actions to fight the results of such transgression are failures. The men of early Cronenberg films were one or another extreme: “ineffective, diffident impotent inaction, or powerful disastrous action”. (90) From Videodrome onwards these figures merged into one clear protagonist as Cronenberg moved from a paranoid, social and external cinema to a cinema of melancholia, a personal and internal reflection.

In terms of women Beard argues that Cronenberg deliberately draws upon various cultural myths about women and femininity (a summary of these myths and stereotypes can be found in the Videodrome chapter), in order to critique the way men view women. The connections in Cronenberg’s films between femininity and monstrosity lie in the psychoanalytic structures of male personalities and patriarchal culture. Cronenberg uses the myth of female-as-desire with his own agenda of portraying unrepressed desire as being destructive and monstrous, which results in the female-as-desire as destructive and monstrous. However no matter how monstrous women and female sexuality are, it is the result of events out of their control, events often caused by men and science. Beard argues that the male protagonists of Cronenberg’s later films become ‘enfemaled’ in that the horrors traditionally associated with the female body are now subverted by being transferred onto the male body.

It is not until Videodrome that Beard finds the signature Cronenberg idea that remains in his films to this day.

Now that the centre is at last discovered to be not the sexually transgressive woman, not the inventor-father, nor the unfeeling and predatory elements of society…but, rather, the self. And the appetites and anxieties, with their bodily mutations and diseases, finally unfold in and enact themselves on the self, and the self’s body. The self is the monster. (121)

Specifically Beard identifies that Self as the male artist/creator who, like the scientist figure of earlier films, attempts to transgress into the realm of the body and desire to find something ‘new’.

This transformed identity is not functionally useful or progressive but irredeemably destructive and impossible.  It is a transgression against society, cultural conventions and the lives of other people, especially women who are reduced to objects and targets for sexual sadism.

In Cronenberg, to act at all is ultimately to destroy something, or to create the conditions of destruction. Archetypal male activity is destructive; in the sphere of sexuality it is sadistic. The dawning recognition that this is so ‘enfemales’ (renders paralysed and vulnerable) almost all of Cronenberg’s male protagonists eventually – it is coterminous with their eventual suicidal melancholy. (191)

This suicidal melancholy results from the male protagonists’ awareness of their sexual sadism that fills them with guilt, horror, fear and self-pity.

Beginning with Rabid there is a development from the “spectacle of desire or horror [to] empathetic perspectives of human sadness and suffering”. (52) Beard argues that this prevailing sadness in Cronenberg’s films is the result of his pessimistic and depressing picture of men whose only option on life is “to shut down and be desolated but survive, or to open up and be enlivened but destroyed”. (247)

Beard creates a model for Cronenberg films where the artist/creator is liberated from his monotonous life by transgressing the body, and is briefly transported to a world of heightened emotions and desires. He then becomes a sexual sadist towards the woman of his desire, and suffers a literal or symbolic suicide from the melancholia resulting from his realisation of the monster he has become. “The transgressive appetites [the artist as monster] feels and perspectives he is drawn to are felt by the artist himself to be terrible and dangerous – to himself and to others”. (289) This model is most effective when Beard analyses Videodrome, The Fly (1986), Dead Ringers (1988), Naked Lunch and M. Butterfly.

Although The Artist as Monster is divided into one chapter per film, Beard discusses the evolution of Cronenberg’s ideas as a progression from film to film rather than treating each film as a detached work. Each chapter has a detailed analysis of every character from the film, narrative developments, mise-en-scene, explicit and implicit themes, and Beard’s perception of Cronenberg’s ethical position. Beard’s arguments are extremely convincing and the result is a fascinating and rigorous critical examination of Cronenberg’s films.

Originally appeared here on Screening the Past,  Issue 11, 2002

© Thomas Caldwell, 2002