Product Description
Cronenberg on Cronenberg charts Cronenberg's development from maker of inexpensive 'exploitation' cinema to internationally renowned director of million-dollar movies, and reveals the concerns and obsessions which continue to dominate his increasingly rich and complex work.This edition brings Cronenberg's work up -to -date with an additional chapter on Crash.
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Customer Reviews (9)

A Fascinating Firsthand Look at David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg is a fascinating individual. He is extremely well spoken and articulate. The interviews collected in this book are top notch and give incite to all of Cronenberg's films but depending on which edition you pick up will indicate what films the book covers. I picked up an early edition that covers up through "Naked Lunch" but I loved the book enough that I have no problem hunting down a more recent edition.

It was cool to learn how involved Cronenberg was with everything in his films; I never knew how large of a role he had in the writing of all his films. You also get to hear first hand the artistic integrity to his work and trials he had to endure and overcome to simply get most of his films made from flaky producers to relentless journalists and censors.

My only complaint about the book is a silly one but I wish he could have gone into more depth on everything! It was too cool to hear about each movie and I became sad every time a chapter would end. It seemed like there could be a book written on every film Cronenberg has made (and I would read everyone one of them). The photos are cool and seeing a young Ivan Reitman (who played a key role in Cronenberg's career) was a real treat. Bottom line is that this is a wonderful book for fans or anyone interested in David Cronenberg. A great investment and I cannot recommend it enough. I'm looking forward to purchasing other volumes of the `Director on Director Series' and more books on Mr. Cronenberg.

A sharp intelligence only possessed by a minority of film directors...
The "auteur" moniker that seems to hang ominously like a dead albatross around David Cronenberg's directorial neck is an overly misapplied reputation which requires a bit of deconstruction.

Essentially, when you hear the term auteur, the suggestion that typically applies is that the director in question--in this case, David Cronenberg--is a snotty type who doesn't budge not even the width of an atom for his particular creative vision. Everything on-set by definition must be done to the letter of the man himself, an inflexible character. Auteur, in this highly pejorative sense, is the closest thing to a Mussolini-type dictatorship which one could experience on the film set. Horrors.

But I'd certainly have to disagree.

David Cronenberg, according to many of the players who have worked under him (not toiled, collaborated!), especially in the case of Maria Belo and Viggo Mortensen, lately of A History of Violence, have nothing but rave reviews for the man. Even former porn-star Marilyn Chambers in The Brood had fantastic things to say about the Toronto-based director.

Few so-called auteurs seem to be as democratic as Cronenberg. He places a great emphasis upon his actors' appearance on screen, and much is discussed of how he generally will permit heaps of retakes for various scenes if a given actor feels as though they didn't pull off a scene correctly, or with particular aplomb.

He's one of the smartest directors in Hollywood. He's extremely well read (evidenced by his fluidity of speech during interviews--I've watched them), he's maginificently outspoken, and he knows his material so very well, especially when he writes the scripts himself. What's more is that he's adamant about shooting his films in his native Canada. In a North American industry where most Canadian would-be talent darts south of the border faster than Scotty's teleporter might, Cronenberg has stuck it out in places like the old movie studios at Kleinberg, Ontario and in the provincial captial, Toronto to establish a solid reputation north of the 45th parallel.

If you've never had the chance to hear Cronenberg speak on screen, you're really missing out. See if you can pick up the film called Spider...which starts Rafe Fiennes and Gabriel Byrne, which also contains an excellent segment on the director speaking about his various travails in attempting to land 11th-hour financing for that picture (which nearly capsized because they couldn't land the cash). I'm not raving for nothing--he doesn't miss a beat, this Cronenberg guy. He knows his stuff cold, and so do the people who entitle him to do what he does. They know they're in good hands, and Cronenberg always seems to deliver the goodies.

In terms of the book itself, I've fallen head over heels in love with this "directors speaking about themselves" series. After having first read Cassavetes on Cassavetes in New Zealand, Kieslowski on Kieslowski in the Czech Republic, and now Cronenberg on Cronenberg here in Prague (with Herzog on Herzog waiting anxiously in the wings), you're going to be hardpressed to find better biographical data on these giants of indie cinema other than what you'll read here. Martin Scorsese has even been profiled in this series...from what I've heard, it's one of the thickest of them all. Oh poor bank account...

This book rocks (!!!) because you're getting an uncensored take on the author's views. The book is Cronenberg at his vintage best, cussing, intimately describing various details (especially the final insert on his film CRASH, the "real" CRASH, not the Oscar-winning impostor!) of the sex scenes between his actors Holly Hunter, James Spader, and Elias Koteas, and some keen insider details from the period of cinematic history in Canada back in the old "tax shelter" days, when finance was freely available. When guys like David Cronenberg were only looking for scripts to fit the bill, because they were swimming in Canadian dollars. Those were the days, and Cronenberg pays due homage to the era -- it's what made him who he is today, and without the access to the money back in those days, his destiny might've turned out slightly differently. It's what he describes as his transition from "filmmaker" to "movie maker," a la Hollywood, bigger budgets, bigger stars, and box-office coups.

See if you can also catch a special "director's series" DVD from the American Film Insitute (AFI). It's called "The Directors: David Cronenberg," and he's one of (I believe) several directors profiled, with clips from their various films (I've watched most of 'em). Catch some early clips of Canadian actor Michael Ironside, who is still stupendous, IMHO, even in his later years. That infamous "head exploding scene" from Scanners, still to this day, is something else. It's buried somewhere on that DVD I'm talking about.

So I think I've said enough about completely irrelevant things. If you're looking to be entertained, see if you can pick up a copy. It's not heavy lifting, reading-wise, and it's packed with factoids, anecdotes, and details.

--ADM in Prague

make me feel good? yes.
Dude, it's really hard to stop David Cronenberg from yapping about his films. this, though, is a good thing. The man is very well spoken ,even if he doesn't think shivers and videodrome aren't comedies. this book, my friend, make me feel good.

I own every edition of this book
Or at least I did until I gave away the second edition as a gift but it meant a lot. The current edition is fourth and came out after The Crash. To the people who know only his films it will be surprising Cronenberg came from a literary background and how much his films are intellectual. The man also possesses mean dry wit which shows up when talking about his ex wife and personal enemies like censors or would be do-gooders (fellow Canadian writer Margaret Atwood). To those who do not know about the author as much as they should this is a great book. Those who love Cronenberg's films probably own this already. I am waiting for a new edition to come out, the one to include the making of Existenz and his new film Spider and I'm buying!

a great start
"Cronenberg on Cronenberg" is a great start for anyone who wants further insight on David's work, specially his early films. One musn't hesitate, this is the basic fan purchase. ... Read more

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PAPERBACK INCLUDES TWO NEW CHAPTERS

David Cronenberg is one of the most fascinating filmmakers in the world today. His provocative work has stimulated debate and received major retrospectives in museums, galleries, and cinematheques around the world. William Beard's The Artist as Monster was the first book-length scholarly work in English on Cronenberg's films, analyzing all of his features from Stereo (1969) to Crash (1996). In this paperback edition, Beard includes new chapters on eXistenZ (1999) and Spider (2002).

Through close readings and visual analyses, Beard argues that the structure of Cronenberg's cinema is based on a dichotomy between, on the one hand, order, reason, repression, and control, and on the other, liberation, sexuality, disease, and the disintegration of self and of the boundaries that define society. The instigating figure in the films is a scientist character who, as Cronenberg evolves as a filmmaker, gradually metamorphoses into an artist, with the ground of liberation and catastrophe shifting from experimental subject to the self.

Bringing a wealth of analytical observation and insight into Cronenberg's films, Beard's sweeping, comprehensive work has established the benchmark for the study of one of Canada's best-known filmmakers.

Customer Reviews (2)

The most comprehensive study of Cronenberg's movies
In my large collection of books on David Cronenberg this is the most important one. Beard shuns unreasonable or extremely biased attitudes (like radical feminism) - which does not mean he ignores them: on the contrary, he eagerly engages in polemic discussion, often incorporating some notions specific for various ideologies into his own discourse. Doing so, he performs a comprehensive analysis of Cronenberg's films, seen both as separate and intertextual pieces of art. It is really amazing to see how he manages to combine the complexities of academic approach with the utmost clarity of message.

This is partially due to the structure of the book, which also makes it extremely easy to use - movies are discussed in separate chapters, divided into smaller sections, devoted to the most important themes and motifs present in each of them.

For all those reasons, Beard's book is not only a valuable and helpful source for all kinds of academic discussion, but also a great reading for all Cronenberg fans.

The Critic as Monster
I'm pretty sure I've read every book available about David Cronenberg in two languages (English & French). This book by William Beard is probably the thickest and says the least.

Beard analyzes Cronenberg film by film (up to but not including Existenz). His approach is academic. Now I have no problem with theoretical or erudite books, being a professor myself. But this book, entrenched in academic film analysis, must be the least enlightening book on a director that I've ever read. It takes utterly trivial insights and phrases them in the most long-winded verbiage.

Here's a sample from the first paragraph of the chapter about Videodrome. Decide for yourself:

In Videodrome, "there is finally a shift of the ground of the action into the male protagonist, a centralization of this masculine figure who can now properly represent the masculine sensibility of the film. The marginalization or diminishment of this figure in the earlier features looks in retrospect like a kind of evasion -- or, to be more charitable, perhaps simply a stage in the filmmaker's continuing hunt to discover the ground zero of desire and prohibition. Now, that centre is at last discovered to be not the sexually transgressive woman, nore the inventor-father, nor unfeeling and predatory elements of society (although all of those forms are importantly present in Videodrome), 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." (page 121)

I would think that this must be a central paragraph of Beard's book, since he bases his title on it (artist as monster). But what is he really saying? That the "self" is monstrous because "appetites and anxieties" give it a working-over? Everyone has appetites and anxieties -- why is that so monstrous? How does that illuminate the film? It's hard to tell what analytical stance this even represents -- some vague form of psychoanalytical criticism?

In the preface to the book Beard admits that he thinks Cronenberg is not a "great artist but a powerful minor one." I couldn't help but think that this was the book's entire problem. It thought more of itself than of Cronenberg.

Personally I think Cronenberg is a great artist, and this book is a minor one -- a powerless minor one.

(If you want help understanding Cronenberg, try the Pocket Essentials book by John Costello -- which is clear and to the point -- or, if you can read French, the interviews with Cronenberg by Serge Grunberg. The latter is probably the best book about Cronenberg available). ... Read more

Product Description

Arguably the most famous and critically acclaimed Canadian filmmaker, David Cronenberg is celebrated equally for his early genre films, like Scanners (1981) and The Fly (1986), and his dark artistic vision in films such as Dead Ringers (1988) and Crash (1996). The 2005 film A History of Violence was a mainstream success that marked Cronenberg's return to the commercial fold of Hollywood after years of independent art house filmmaking. His international reputation grew and the film was honoured with numerous awards and two Oscar nominations (for screenwriter Josh Olson and supporting actor William Hurt). David Cronenberg's A History of Violence - the lead title in the new Canadian Cinema series - presents readers with a lively study of some of the filmmaker's favourite themes: violence, concealment, transformation, sex, and guilt.

Bart Beaty introduces us to Cronenberg's film, situating it in the context of its aesthetic influences, and argues for its uniquely English-Canadian qualities. The author contends that A History of Violence is a nuanced study of masquerade and disguise, a film that thwarts our expectations of film genre as much as it challenges our perception of national geography and cultural mythology. As a contribution to the Canadian Cinema series, the volume also presents readers with an overview of Cronenberg's career, the production history of the film, a discussion of its critical reception, and a filmography.

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Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent early book on Cronenberg
This 1983 collection of essays on David Cronenberg, edited by Piers Handling, is a great early introduction to Cronenberg's films and thoughts on them from such film critics as Tim Lucas and Robin Wood, among others.While certainly not up to date in its filmography, it's worth owning for any Cronenberg fan to get a nice panorama of perspectives on the filmmaker who used to be known as Dave "Deprave" Cronenberg.

Tim Lucas is known for his reviewing of outre films, many of which spill over into horror, and is also the author of a surreal novel, Throat Sprockets.Robin Wood is a distinguised British film critic who is a Hitchcock expert, among other things.The other critics in the book provide interesting insight into Cronenberg's films as well.

A great addition to the literature on Cronenberg, and a nice complement to the recently released (April 2004) deluxe DVD edition of Fast Company featuring his two powerful early films, Stereo and Crimes of the Future.

Interesting sidenote:As far as I know, no book on Cronenberg has documented or described the 1987 episode he directed of the Canadian TV horror series Friday the 13th, entitled "Faith Healer", which I still have taped from the series. ... Read more

Product Description
Ever since his emergence from the Canadian cinematic underground during the late 1960s, David Cronenberg has challenged and disturbed audiences with works that range from cutting-edge commercial to cult-fave studies in "body horror" and existential despair. This collection of new interviews by critic Serge Grünberg examines Cronenberg from his career's uncertain beginnings through his ascendancy to master filmmaker. Cronenberg talks candidly about aesthetics, censorship, sexuality, the straightjacket of political correctness, and the ephemeral sense of reality in an age saturated with mass media. Each of his landmark films is discussed in detail, accompanied by stills, rare handbills and posters, and storyboards that show the creative process at work. Detailing both his textbook masterpieces — works like Videodrome, Naked Lunch, and The Fly — and his more edgy films such as the transsexual romance M. Butterfly and the bloody cyberpunk epic Existenz, these interviews shed light on one of cinema’s most talented and misunderstood creators. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great infomative read
few directors are actually good at giving intelligent yet enaging interviews..or DVD audio commentaries for that matter..Cronenberg is one of the few, this book covers everything from his early doubts and stuggles to make films, as well as his continuing fascination with the realtionship his characters have to their bodies and the particularly complex situations they find themselves in..I only wish the book had color stills, as Cronenberg is one of the very few subtle visualists we have working today..but the texts are well worth the read..

When?
Why does this title continue and and continue to be pushed back?This book was originally to be published in the fall of 2003, but was delayed multiple times in roughly three month intervals.Each time the newly posted release date was reached, a new delay of roughly three months was issued.I'm skeptical that this book has been published even today.Usually ships in one to three months?That's ridiculous. ... Read more

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This collection of seven critical essays explores the multifaceted nature of the cinema achievements of David Cronenberg. From The Fly through Crash and M. Butterfly, Cronenberg's work has been provocative and important to the development of contemporary American film. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Welcomed, but Provincial.
Cronenberg is a director worthy of extended scholarly discussion, and as such Grant's collection of seven essays and an interview with Cronenberg is a welcomed entry.Unfortunately, the assortment is uneven, often too narrowly focused, and includes too few essays of import to necessitate reading in its entirety.While the variety of methodological approaches is rather interesting, the utility of the majority of the essays is limited, hardly explaining the film (or films) that the author attempts to unravel, and doing little to explain science fiction/horror films or Cronenberg's oeuvre.
Parveen Adams's "Death Drive", a Lacanian analysis of Crash (1996), is the most interesting, and well written, of the essays in the collection that directly engage Cronenberg's work.Adams attempts to unravel the stylistic complexity of Crash and to align Cronenberg's directorial effects with the narrative estrangement at the heart of the film.While Adams's study is limited to only Crash, she does see beyond the film, linking Cronenberg's visual manipulations in the film to Luc Besson's earlier work, and, by implication, to work outside of Cronenberg's.Engaging and interesting for its use of Lacan and Cronenberg, Adams's essay is worth considering for any film scholar.
Most interesting of the essays is Andrew Klevan's "The Mysterious Disappearance of Style: Some Critical Notes About the Writing on Dead Ringers", which chides both specific film scholars, and film scholarship as a field for its lack of consideration of a variety of filmic elements other than simply narrative.While inflammatory, Klevan's analysis of contemporary scholarship is a vital critical entry, acting as repudiation of the earlier essays in the collection (Klevan is placed last, directly before the interview with Cronenberg, in which Cronenberg also chides scholars for their lack of critical scope).Grant's editorial introduction spends too much space attempting to find faults in Klevan's argument, but his defense is too much a protest, and in both the introduction and Grant's contribution to the collection it is quite clear what Klevan is attacking: Scholars who are too concerned with their own scholastic exercises to actually attempt to engage the text at all, instead building a fortification of "theories" to hide ignorance behind.As such, Klevan's contribution should be required reading for every film scholar.
The interview with Cronenberg is rather interesting, more for his concerns about the uses of scholarship than for his biographical revelations.The majority of the interview is spent considering critiques of his films, as well as arguing against attempts to understand his oeuvre through broad biographical or psychoanalytic means.Thus Cronenberg appears to be endorsing the methodological approaches embodied in the collection, which, with the exception of Grant, employ more contemporary theoretical modes.Otherwise, of interest in the interview is Cronenberg's extension of his earlier discussion of the aesthetics embodied in his work and the response of the audience to the grotesque visions in his films, which he attributes more to the reception of the audience than to his directorial intent.
Finally, the collection is rather myopic in its cinematic interests: A predominant number of essays concern M. Butterfly (1993) and Dead Ringers (1988). Crash and The Fly (1986) are also widely considered (and a number of the essays insist on redundantly summarizing identical scenes); eXistenZ (1999) is largely ignored, as are The Dead Zone (1983), Videodrome (1982), and Scanners (1981), with many of Cronenberg's earlier, more horrific and science fictional works mentioned only in passing.The collection also includes an extensive filmography and selected bibliography of Cronenberg criticism and reviews, which should prove useful for future studies, which will hopefully learn from the mistakes of The Modern Fantastic. ... Read more

Product Description
David Cronenberg has been called a contemporary Hitchcock who blends horror, fantasy, and outrageous images into the celebrated films-films like Rabid, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Dead Zone, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, and, most recently, M. Butterfly-that have made him a cult figure among movies buffs. Some people think his movies are repulsive and grotesque. Others call him a genius who has created some of the screen's most provocative images. Everyone agrees that he is different. Very different. Peter Morris's biography provides all the details about this remarkable filmmaker's life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great introduction (actually 3.5)
This book is a solid introduction to the work of David Cronenberg, which follows his career up until Naked Lunch.
For a much better analysis of his work, refer to "Cronenberg on Cronenberg" ed. Chris Rodley! ... Read more

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CRASH tells a tale of sex on the highway, in which the characters realign their minds, bodies, and sexuality to dominant technology in an apocalyptic and provocative vision of the future. This is the book version of a successful, but slightly scandalous, film by the gifted and entertaining director David Cronenberg, starring James Spader, Rosanna Arquette, and Holly Hunter. Photos from the movie. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An entirely new form of Pornography.
And that's saying alot. When was the last time in literature we got to see something sexual that had never been thought of before? Very Chilling, Very perverse, and an extremely new way of looking at fetishism.

Stunning! A must read for Ballard Fans!
Released to coincide with the limited movie release, J.G. Ballard gives a stunning description of one man's obession with auto crashes after surviving his own accident.With brilliant descriptions and a brilliant touch Ballard takes you into a world of automotive love and the love of accidents like you've never seen before. A great weekend read, you won't be able to put this down. Erotic, thrilling, sad, moving ... Read more

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Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 1999 im Fachbereich Filmwissenschaft, einseitig bedruckt, Note: 1, Universität Zürich (Filmwissenschaftliches Seminar), Veranstaltung: Das Phänomen Remake, Sprache: Deutsch, Anmerkungen:David Cronenbergs SF-Klassiker "The Fly" als Remake des gleichnamigen Films aus den 50er-Jahren gelesen. Die These: Cronenberg verlegt die Thematik des Originals (Familien, Dreiecksbeziehung) ins Innere der Figuren, nur um sie wieder nach außen zu kehren (Body Horror). David Cronenbergs SF-Klassiker "The Fly" als Remake des gleichnamigen Films aus den 50er-Jahren gelesen. Die These: Cronenberg verlegt die Thematik des Originals (Familien, Dreiecksbeziehung) ins Innere der Figuren, nur um sie wieder nach außen zu kehren (Body Horror). , Abstract: Diese Arbeit soll David Cronenbergs The Fly (1986) als Remake von Kurt Neumanns The Fly (1958) interpretieren. Das erste Kapitel wird zeigen, daß diese Lesart gerechtfertigt ist, obwohl die Bezüge des zweiten Films auf den ersten bei einer oberflächlichen Visionierung kaum ins Auge springen.1 Dieses Kapitel wird die tiefgehenden Parallelen zwischen den Motiven, dem Plot und der Figurenkonstellation der beiden Filme aufzeigen und sie in einer Kernhandlung zusammenfassen. Die restliche Arbeit wird einen Dialog des Cronenberg-Films mit dem Neumann-Film aufzeigen und auf Strategien eingehen, nach denen das Remake den Hypotext verändert. Die erste Strategie ist eine dramaturgische Konzentration. Cronenberg verkleinert die Figurenkonstellation und gibt der männlichen Hauptfigur mehr Raum.2 Außerdem akzentuiert er die melodramatische Handlung des Films und verknüpft diese enger mit der Science Fiction Handlung. In den letzten beiden Kapiteln wird es dann um die Thematik der beiden Filme gehen. Hier wendet Cronenberg eine Strategie an, die ich Verinnerlichung-Veräußerlichung nenne; er greift Themen und Motive auf, verlegt sie ins Innere der Figuren, nur um dieses Innerste wieder nach außen zu kehren. Diese Strateg ... Read more

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David Cronenberg is the visionary director of the modern classic films "Dead Ringers," "Naked Lunch" and "The Fly." An interview with Salman Rushdie inspired him to make a film about an artist who finds herself on a hit list, and must go into hiding.

Starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Willem Dafoe, the Miramax film "eXistenZ" (winner: Silver Bear prize, 1999 Berlin Film Festival) is set in the near future, when game designers are worshipped as superstars, and players can actually enter games.

"eXistenZ" is a breakthrough gaming system invented by game goddess Allegra Geller. When downloaded into humans through a bioport fitted into the spine, eXistenZ accesses their nervous systems, transporting them on a wild ride that will shatter the line that separates fantasy from reality.

When anti-eXistenZ fanatics attempt to assassinate Allegra Geller, she is forced to flee into hiding. Her sole ally is a guard who is sworn to protect her. Allegra persuades him to play the game and draws them both into a phantasmagoric world where existence and eXistenZ begin - and perhaps will never end.This graphic-novel (comic-book) treatment of "eXistenZ" (based on David Cronenberg's screenplay) is by Sean Schoffield, who has drawn for Marvel and DC Comics.

The illustrations of the novel are inspired directly from frames of the film.The images are darkly gorgeous, colored with a "Cronenberg" mood.Sean Schoffield has recently completed a series of "X-Files" adaptations for Topps Comics.

Both Cronenberg and Scoffield live in Toronto.Amazon.com Review
This novelization of David Cronenberg's film by establishedBritish SF writer Christopher Priest involves confusion between levelsof reality, as portrayed so vividly in novels by PhilipK. Dick. "eXistenZ" is an all-senses computer game that seems morereal than the real world and allows unwary players to enter deepergames nested within games, with the possibility of getting lost in thevirtual maze. (Was exiting the game just part of the game? Did I onlydream I woke up?) Violence at the first "eXistenZ" demonstration sendsits beautiful designer and a security guard fleeing into a multilevelnightmare. Cronenberg's theme of disturbing biotechnologies crops uprepeatedly. The game "hardware" is all too like a living organ thatlinks to a new, artificial body orifice. There are recurringappearances of a repugnant handgun built from small animals' bones andsinews, whose bullets are human teeth. After briefly threatening tolose its way in surrealism and horror, the story develops aninteresting bite and ends with clever revelations. Aficionados willhave guessed before then what's really going on, but for movie SFeXistenZ is cheeringly sophisticated. Not for the squeamish,though. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Inexcuseably amatuerish
eXistenZ was a very good movie, but the book version...!
Of course, novellisations of movies tend to be bad, but this one was way in at the deep end of bad. There was no tension, no suspense, and the writer managed to give away every surprise plot-point before its time. The characters are flat and lifeless, the dialogue is corny and unrealistic... I refuse to believe this guy ever won awards for his writing, which is what the back of the book claims. Maybe he was paying attention when he wrote the award-winning stuff.

One Crazy Novel
Existenz was more like amovie than a video game. The whole origin of the game was to kill the creator of it. The movie centered around video game creator Allegra Gellar. During this time the game creators were worhiped like gods and players can actually enter the game. Things turn sour when certain people try to kill Gellar. She must then go into hiding with her guard Ted Pikal. Soon Gellar must go inside the game because she feels the game is sick. She insists that Pikal come iwth her and he agrees. This movie was wierd but I like the idea of people actually being a part of the game. Thas was very intriguing. The ending has a twist to it.

Excellent book
I'd been trying to rent "eXistenZ" for some time, but couldn't find it anywere. Finding the illustrated novel based on the movie, I snatched it up and consumed it. The watercolor panels provided enoughclarity to make out what was happening, leaving your imagination to fill inthe details of each scene. An excellent substitute/companion to the movie.

The uneXistenZ of Priest's eXistenZ
Priest's book isn't a good transposition of Cronenberg's eXistenZ, in my opinion. I'll give you some short items: 1. there are many different things and episodes between them 2. the author describes characters' feelings in away that has no correspondance with their behavior 3. the book explainsreally EVERYTHING! The readers should have the chance to try to play theirown game! 4. why in the end TranscendenZ and not transCendenZ? Anyway, I'mnot a writer, only a reader, and I hope you will not get angry for mycomments! Bye, Paola ... Read more

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David Cronenberg has made a career of exploring the darker side of eroticism. Stereo, Crimes of the Future, and Rabid gave initial form to his fascination with the psychological aspects of death, disease, lust, and power. And, in 1975 Shivers gained Cronenberg widespread recognition and notoriety for his exceptionally chilling expressions of society's fears about the sexual revolution and its long-term ramifications.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

An essential for fans
I agree with everything the reviewer says in "A Must For Cronenberg Conpletists," but I would like to add that "Stereo" and "Crimes of the Future" are now available on DVD.Blue Underground very recently released Fast Company, Croneberg's drag racing film (try it, you'll like it!) and included the two short films on an extras disc.The transfers are excellent, and yes, Cronenberg fans should have these DVDs and the book of screenplays.The screenplay is especially helpful in understanding and appreciating "Stereo."

A Must for Cronenberg Completists
For a good part of the century, the vanguard thing for a writer to do was to renovate his medium importing techniques from film: montage, jump cuts, close-ups, slow motion, and so forth. But if the writer with cinematic influences has since become a familiar -- perhaps a too familiar -- type of artist, the literary director is still something of an anomaly. When asked for their influences, most directors cite other filmmakers, and yet David Cronenberg tends instead to name William Burroughs, Samuel Beckett, Philip K. Dick, the Existentialists. Before undertaking a career in film, there was a brief moment when Cronenberg even toyed with the idea of becoming a writer. In a series of fascinating interviews with Serge Grunberg, Cronenberg once admitted that he always dreamed of being an "obscure" writer along the lines of Kafka. But instead of languishing as an obscure writer, ultimately Cronenberg switched disciplines and became what he is today: a director remarkable less for his cinematic qualities -- you can't credit him with purism or much innovation in film technique -- than for the unique vision and literary sensibility he brings to his films.

Given this literary outlook, you might expect that Cronenberg's screenplays are writerly tours de force -- which they manifestly are not. In a slightly puzzled preface to this introductory volume of his screenplays, Cronenberg emphasizes that the screenplay is not the venue for literary pretention. "Screen prose," he writes, "is rigorously functional. Its focus is narrow, narrower than a haiku, and its purpose is very limited... In fact, profound, complex prose just gets in the way of the real business of a screenplay, and thus is generally derided, considered pathetic." Accordingly, the two screenplays of Cronenberg's first feature-length films -- Shivers and Rabid -- are best read in conjunction with the films themselves. They're study aids, production documents that can help in the analysis and understanding of the films -- and they're not much more than that.

But what about the screenplays for Stereo and Crimes of the Future, two of Cronenberg's early attempts at avant-garde cinema? Most readers won't have seen these films, since about the only way to get them is to purchase an nth-generation VHS from ebay. What's more, neither text was really a screenplay in the proper sense, since each was written not before but after the film was shot. So what are you to make of these ex post facto voiceover monologues? Are they hybrids of the writer that Cronenberg wanted to be and the filmmaker that he eventually became? Or are they just juvenilia?

The script for Stereo introduces a world similar to the one Cronenberg created in the film Scanners. Volunteers at the Canadian Academy for Erotic Inquiry submit to telepathy experiments that lead to unexpectedly erotic results -- to "omnisexuality," an "expanded form of bisexuality." As a text, the script closely prefigures the type of pseudo-scientific prose perfected by J.G. Ballard in The Atrocity Exhibition (aka Love and Napalm), which is ironic given that Cronenberg has claimed not to feel much affinity with Ballard upon first reading.

Crimes of the Future also introduces familiar Cronenberg themes -- essentially pathology and perversity. Here it is easy to detect a young cineaste deeply under the influence of Burroughs. For example, Cronenberg writes that a colleague's body "has begun to create puzzling organs, each one very complex, very perfect, unique, yet seemingly without function. As each is surgically removed, it is quickly replaced by another, equally mysterious. He has taken to breaking into the specimens room and stealing the jars containing the organs. His body, he insists, is a galaxy, and these creatures are solar systems. He becomes melancholy when they are far from him. His nurse says that his disease is possibly a form of creative cancer." This, of course, is almost a paraphrase of a famous passage from Naked Lunch.

Given the obvious immaturity of these early pieces and the narrow functionality of the screenplays of Shivers and Rabid, is it worthwhile to read -- to buy -- even to publish -- this first volume of Cronenberg's collected screenplays? For the casual fan, the answer is probably no. These screenplays will not give you literary kicks independent of the films. But for those who are fans of Cronenberg the director, these screenplays are indispensable for understanding how the would-be author became the cinematic auteur.

Cronenberg Asks "Why?"
In the brief (page and a half) introduction to this collection of his first four feature scripts, David Cronenberg is clearly puzzled and typically provocative. One can almost hear him getting the phone call from the publishers saying they'd like to publish his first four scripts as a book, followed by a looooong pause, and then Cronenberg's response "Why?" For, as he quite fairly asks, "How can anyone possibly read a film script? A script is not writing. A script is a ghost of something not yet born." He elaborates: "Screen prose is rigorously functional.... its purpose is very limited.... Screenplays are scrutinized, not read.... elegance and beauty in screenwriting are qualities not responded to, not rewarded, not actually noticed..." Finally, after challenging the notion of a script as something to be read at all, he then goes on to question the reader: "How can you possibly approach reading these four odd scripts...? ...you have no function... What, in fact, are you?"

And he does have a point. After all, why exactly would anyone be interested in "reading" the scripts for Stereo (1969) and Crimes of the Future (1970), scripts that are nothing more than after the fact transcriptions of voice-over monologues. The only reason one can imagine is if the reader is attempting to chart the early fumblings of the stylish, but self-indulgent Canadian writer-director. However, even at eleven and four pages respectively, the "scripts" are tedious and pretentious in the extreme, and the idea of spending an hour watching the actual films (they are both just over an hour) strikes me as a singularly bad idea. More useful are the scripts for Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), solid horror/sci-fi pieces that clearly demonstrate Cronenberg's gradual progression to such works as The Brood, Scanners, and Videodrome. These, at least, can be examined and deconstructed by writers seeking to unlock the secrets of the decent horror script. Realistically though, it's hard to imagine anyone other than the hardcore Cronenberg fanatics finding this early work very interesting on the page. Those seeking to gain better insight into Cronenberg are much better off reading Chris Rodley's series of interviews with him in Cronenberg on Cronenberg. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Not Free SF Reader
I'm crushing your head.


Ok, not really, no Kids In the Hall in this book, it is a little bit nastier than that as those with some serious level of psionic ability just end up in a horror movie and having a disagreement.

Psychokinetic disagreement can lead to brain mulching and other nastiness, as well as scaring the bazongas out of the mundanes.


1.5 out of 5

If you want to read it, seek out the script.
This is easily the worst novelization I have ever read, second only to the "Nightmare on Elm Street" novelizations.Like those books, this "Scanners" novelization is less "novel" than screenplay rewritten in novel format.We barely get into the heads of the characters, and the author offers absolutely nothing new in the way of perspective or insight.The only interesting thing about it is the slightly different order of events (most notably the conference, which leads to the exploding head scene, opens the story) which represents the original order of the shooting script before the movie was re-cut after a test screening.If you want to "read" a Cronenberg, my advice is to seek out "Videodrome" by Jack Martin (the pen-named for Dennis Etchison).Either that, or get the script in Cronenberg's own words.Or just sit down and watch the movie again. ... Read more