The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg (Heritage)

About this book

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 Beards The Artist as Monster was the first book-length scholarly work in English on Cronenbergs 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 Cronenbergs 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 Cronenbergs films Beards sweeping comprehensive work has established the benchmark for the study of one of Canadas best-known filmmakers.