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The Alpha and Omega of Images in Cronenberg’s Cinema



Author(s)

Marina Pellanda

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2018.03.004

Cronenberg’s cinema astounds and confounds: Its images are the first virus to have penetrated the venereal system of the seventh art, despite its images being born well before the richness of the audiovisual media had imposed the redefinition of the medium and of the scopic regime. If every new medium is an extension of our body, as stated by McLuhan, and if every extension envisages somehow an amputation—just think of the transformation of Brundle into a fly in The Fly (1986)—then Cronenberg is the first threshold to cross in entering the great world mixing board that by now constitutes the audiovisual media system today. The Canadian director is an important tile in this narrative. In fact, if it is true that he does not waste time in wondering whether this multimedia cartography is good or bad—just think of a film like eXistenZ (1999)—it is also true that when watching the images from his films one always feels the exciting sensation that cinema is still in its fundamental place, at the centre of the nervous system composed by the world of images. 

 virus, boundary, tactile image, vision-centered