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Home , Atom Egoyan, David Hemblen, Marshall McLuhan, Media studies, Videodrome

Masaryk

Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Jakub Vémola

Reflections of Marshall McLuhan’s Theory in the Cinematic

Work of and

Master’s Diploma

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr.

Brno 2009

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

Jakub Vémola

I would like to thank doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. for sparking up my interest in

Atom Egoyan’s work and providing me with valuable advice and resources.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

I. Introduction ...... 1

II. Marshall McLuhan ...... 3

II.1 Brief Biography ...... 3

II.2 Medium is the ...... 5

II.3 Medium as an Extension of the Human Body ...... 7

II.6 The Gadget Lover ...... 9

II.5 Media Hot and Cold ...... 11

II.6 vs. TV ...... 15

II.7 What McLuhan Got Wrong ...... 18

III. Atom Egoyan’s ...... 21

III.1 The Life and Work of Atom Egoyan ...... 21

III.2 Family Viewing – Brief Introduction and Plot Summary ...... 24

III.3 McLuhan’s in Family Viewing ...... 26

III.4 The Film Language of Family Viewing ...... 34

III.5 The Mediated Intercourse – Brief Sequence ...... 38

III.6 Is McLuhan there? – A Short Chapter Summary ...... 43

IV. David Cronenberg’s ...... 45

IV.1 The Life and Work of David Cronenberg ...... 45

IV.2 About Videodrome ...... 48

IV.3 McLuhan’s Concepts in Videodrome ...... 50

IV.4 The Film Language of Videodrome ...... 57

IV.5 The Sadistic Intercourse - Brief Scene Analysis ...... 61

IV.6 McLuhan in Videodrome – A Short Chapter Summary ...... 66

V. Conclusion...... 69

VI. Works Cited ...... 72

I. Introduction

The aim of this thesis is to investigate, present and compare the way in which the

concepts and theories of the great Canadian media thinker, Marshall McLuhan, are

reflected and reinterpreted in the work of Canadian filmmakers David Cronenberg and

Atom Egoyan. The I have chosen to analyze are David Cronenberg’s Videodrome

(1983) and Atom Egoyan’s Family Viewing (1987). There are several reasons these two movies were selected as the basis of this thesis. First, both films appear to be employing a number of McLuhan’s key concepts and translating them skillfully into cinematic language. Secondly, even though both movies are fairly effective in bringing these concepts “to life,” they treat them in a different way and tend to accentuate slightly different aspects and consequences of McLuhan’s theories. Thirdly, each of these films uses different genres, means of expression and cinematic techniques, which provides a great opportunity to examine significantly different modes of representation being applied to describe very similar concepts.

In the second chapter the life and the work of Marshall McLuhan will be briefly introduced, paying particular attention to those biographical facts and the key features of his media theory which are related to, and encompassed within the films in question.

Then, in order to allow the reader to grasp the character of McLuhan’s way of thinking, the key parts of his media theory will be presented. I will bring in the concepts of a medium as a message, a medium as an extension of the human body, the gadget lover and the division of media into hot and cool. Then I will present some of McLuhan’s comments regarding the nature and working of the film and the medium. At the end of the chapter certain blind spots and limitations of McLuhan’s media theory will be brought up.

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In the subsequent chapters each of will be introduced with regard

to the nature and character of their creative work and their respective films. Then the plot of these films will be briefly outlined, to provide necessary background for both the

formal analysis of the cinematic language and the interpretation of McLuhan’s media

theory depicted in the movies. Subsequently, the specific embodiments of the key

concepts of McLuhan’s media theory will be brought to readers’ attention and analyzed.

In the next section I will attempt to outline some characteristic features of the

film language used in the movies in question. Namely I will focus on certain aspects of

the films’ photography, mise-en-scéne and montage and the way they collaborate with

the thematic level of the respective movies. Then I will choose a scene or a sequence

representative of each of the films and of the cinematic techniques employed by their

directors. These sequences will be analyzed in greater detail in order to examine the

way the visual aspects of the cinematic language participate in the message of the films

and help to formulate McLuhan’s thoughts. The formal analysis of the films and

sequences will be based on Louis Giannetti’s book Understanding Movies and James

Monaco’s How to Read a Film. In the end the approach of these films towards

McLuhan’s concepts will be compared giving particular attention to the differences and

similarities in both the thematic focus of the films and the film language they employ.

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II. Marshall McLuhan

II.1 Brief Biography

Marshall McLuhan, the “Oracle of the Electronic Age”, was undoubtedly one of

the most prominent and influential Canadian media theoreticians. His extensive work on

the character of has had a profound effect on many of his followers

and it has radically altered the way the are perceived. Yet before introducing

the key concepts of McLuhan’s media theory which, in my opinion, resonate strongly in both David Cronenberg’s and Atom Egoyan’s films, I would like to briefly introduce

the life of this “media prophet.“ The short presentation of McLuhan’s biography should provide a valuable insight into the nature of his theoretical concepts.

Marshall McLuhan was born on July 21, 1911, in Western ’s ,

Alta. He was raised in the family of a real-estate agent and an actress. According to

Liukkonen, he was a very obstinate child and a difficult student. A Few years after his birth, his family moved to , where he stayed until 1934 when he

received an M.A. in English literature from the . Later on he

spent several years at Cambridge University studying under I. A. Richards 1 whose

approach towards poetry influenced his study of media (Merchand). McLuhan was also

inspired by the work of another Cambridge professor, F. R. Leavis (Merchand).

In 1936 McLuhan left Cambridge and shortly after his return to Canada, he

converted to Catholicism. His conversion seems to have had a profound effect on his

interpretation of (Kroker 70). Soon after that he started to teach at the Jesuit

University of St. Louis. According to Gordon, it was the shock McLuhan experienced at

1 I.A. Richards was a well known British literary critic who is often considered to be one of the founders of the contemporary study of literature in English (Constable).

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his first teaching post, which lead him towards media analysis. This shock was caused by the feeling of a huge generation gap between him and his students who were only

five to eight years younger (Gordon).

In 1943 he met the English painter, novelist and critic Windham Lewis who

deeply influenced his thinking (Liukkonen). In 1944 he returned to Canada and two

years later he started to teach at the University of where he remained for the

rest of his career. There he met the political economist from whom he

overtook the notion of time and space based media (Marchand). He was also influenced by ’s critique of and television and later on started to devise his own

conception of media as extensions of the human body (Gordon).

McLuhan collaborated rather closely with television. In 1959 he became the

director of the Media Project of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters,

which proves his deep interest in the influence of the TV medium over people

(Liukkonen). He also frequently appeared on television taking part in various debates on

media and other, by that time, current issues. One of his most famous television

appearance is probably the episode of the NBC series Experiment in TV called “This is

Marshall McLuhan” aired in 1967 (Gordon). The fact that he used the TV to promote

his theories proves the eminent position of this media in his work.

In 1964, McLuhan published one of his most crucial books – Understanding

Media . This book soon became a “bible” of . It reached considerable sales which granted him an opportunity to give numerous lectures at many prestigious all over the world. Other important books and publications in which he laid out many crucial aspects of his media theory include (1951) 1,

1 This is McLuhan’s first book to deal with media. It concerns issues of and manipulation.

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The Guttenberg Galaxy (1962) 1 and The Medium is the Massage (1967) – a very popular paperback on which he had collaborated with the artist Quentin Fiore. A

number of his compelling essays on media were published in the Explorations

magazine, which he had founded with his colleague, the Edmund S.

Carpenter in 1953.

Since the late 50s McLuhan suffered from frequent blackouts and sharp

headaches. In 1967 he went for an operation and a large tumor was removed from his

head (Liukkonen). Even though he recovered rapidly, the effects of the operation were

deep. He became hypersensitive to noise and his memory was strongly affected

(Dilworth 19). There seems to be a strange parallel between McLuhan and

Cronenberg’s character of Brian O’Blivion who also suffers from a deadly .

In 1979 McLuhan had a stroke, which influenced his ability to read and write, and he

had to retire from teaching. Marshall McLuhan died in Toronto on December 31, 1980.

II.2 Medium is the Message

The notion of medium being the message is perhaps the most crucial of

Marshall McLuhan’s media paradigm. This assertion originates in the fact that, in

McLuhan’s eyes, the “content” of any medium is another medium (“Understanding” 8).

This way of looking at media could be roughly compared to a set of Chinese boxes or to

the famous Russian Matryoschka doll. Just as the content of a Chinese box is a set of boxes of graduated size, each fitting into the next larger box, the content of a particular

medium is yet another medium. McLuhan states several examples; the content of

1 In this book McLuhan dealt with the character of the print medium, and its profound effect on the way we perceive reality. Probably the most important notion of this book is the idea that “print is the technology of ” (Liukkonen).

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is , the written word is the content of print, print is the content of the telegraph (“Understanding” 8).

Therefore, it is not the content which is important. The content is known, it does not bring anything new and it does not recreate us – “it is ineffectual in shaping the form of human association” (“Understanding” 9). Rather it is distracting us from the real effect of the media. In McLuhan says: “Indeed, it is only too typical that the content of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium” (9).

That is to say, we are too preoccupied by the “content” of the message that we ignore the deep and radical change the very message brings about. Our eyes and ears being filled with we fail to recognize the agent of our profound change. Kroker claims that McLuhan’s world is the world of “technological ” (54). It is the world in which the invisible environment of new electronic of is being secretly imposed on us.

In order to perceive the “invisible ground rules” of the technological media, we have to learn to think in reverse image: to perceive the subliminal grammar of technology as metaphor, as a simulacrum or sign-, silently and pervasively processing human existence. (Kroker 63)

For McLuhan it is the psychic and social consequences of the media which constitute its primary message (Laing). Therefore it is not the content which is important; “it is the character of the medium that is its potency or effect - its message”

(Federman). Apparently, McLuhan clearly did not underestimate the significance of this effect. In his book Media is the Massage one can read:

All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the media work as environments. (26)

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McLuhan also offers a solution to this silent, creeping menace of media

environments. One has to learn how the medium operates in order to fully realize the

extent of its effect and to avoid its hypnotic grip. This can be, in McLuhan’s opinion,

helped by “anti-environments” or “counter-situations” created by artists (“Medium” 68).

Artists are capable of looking at things from different angles; they often break the

traditional thus providing valuable insights into the nature of things. This

capacity of art to pierce the surface of things, to reveal their true nature can be also used

in the process of deciphering the effect of media. By avoiding the fixed point of view

and using multiple methods of exploration one can shake down the narcotic and

numbing effect of the new media technology. Using “the technique of suspended judgment”, perceiving and penetrating the media massage from different angles we can

stop its insertion into our psyche (“Understanding” 63).

It is also crucial to realize that “noticing change in our societal or cultural ground

conditions indicates the presence of a new message, that is, the effects of a new

medium” (Federman). Having noticed the change, one gains a head start, a possibility to

reveal the potentially dangerous character of the changes the medium brings about and

change them before they become too pervasive. “Control over change would seem to

consist in moving not with it but ahead of it. Anticipation gives the power to deflect and

control force” (“Understanding” 199).

II.3 Medium as an Extension of the Human Body

Another important notion of McLuhan’s media theory, which closely follows the

argument that the medium is the message, is the conviction that media are in fact

extensions of the human body. “All media are extensions of some human faculty – psychic or physical.” (“Medium” 26) McLuhan starts from the assumption that

throughout the , the ever-increasing stresses of acceleration of pace and increase

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of load have brought about new technologies, which have extended functions of our body (“Understanding” 42). When a particular part of our body stops being capable of performing the given task with sufficient quality or quantity, a new technology is

invented and replaces it. Thus, when the human skin was no longer able to provide

sufficient protection against the roughness of climate, clothes were invented to extend

our skin. In a similar way: the wheel is an extension of the foot; the book is an extension

of the eye; electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system (“Medium” 26 –

36). In McLuhan’s eyes the electronic media are of a particular importance because all preceding technologies have merely extended our limbs and , whereas the

electronic media have extended our central nervous , our minds.

In this understanding, technology is an “extension” of biology: the expansion of the electronic media as the “metaphor” or “environment” of twentieth-century experience implies that, for the first time, the central nervous system itself has been exteriorized. (Kroker 57)

According to Kroker, the “technostructure” of electronic media is nothing but a

vast simulation and amplification of the bodily senses (57). However, it is important to

realize that in order to use and perceive any extension or amplification of ourselves it is

necessary to embrace it. In order to use any technology we have to accept it and adapt to

its nature, we have to become its servo-mechanism (“Understanding” 46). We have to propel the technology the same way we have to propel a bicycle if we want it to get us

somewhere.

Physiologically, man in the normal use of technology (or his variously extended body) is perpetually modified by it and in turns finds ever new ways of modifying his technology. Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms. (“Understanding” 46)

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Not only are we using and altering technology but the technology is also using

and altering us. McLuhan is also very much aware of the possibility of abusing the

relationship between the man and the medium. He warns against corporate control of

media and he is deeply concerned with the danger of humanity being enslaved. “Once

we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of

those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we

don’t really have any rights left.” (“Understanding” 77) The concept of medium as both

an extension and a source of change of ourselves is closely entangled with the idea of

the “gadget lover”, which explains the mechanism of the numbing effect media have on

one’s psyche.

II.6 The Gadget Lover

The concept of “the gadget lover” forms an important part of Marshall

McLuhan’s answer to the question in what way do media extend our body. It also

reveals the cause of its numbing, narcotic effect which has been mentioned above. To

explain the complex process of this change McLuhan uses the antic legend of

Narcissus 1. He claims that the reflection Narcissus became fascinated and numbed with

was in fact his own extension (“Understanding” 41). Being absorbed by the intensity of

this extension all his other senses became suppressed and being unable to avert his

from his image, he died (Upright). Media appear to have a similar effect on our senses.

Just as the beautiful reflection attracted Narcissuses’ sight and numbed all his other

senses to the point of lethal stupor, the media technology extends one of our senses and

numbs the others. For McLuhan the point of this lies in the fact that: “men at once

1 The name Narcissus comes from the Greek word narcosis or numbness (“Understanding” 41).

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become fascinated by any extension of themselves in any other material than

themselves” (“Understanding” 41).

While trying to explain the reason of the numbness initiated by an extension of

ourselves McLuhan drew upon the medical research of and Adolphe Jonas

(Kroker 75). The research concerns the reaction of the human body to strong irritants it

cannot get rid of or find the cause of. When the perceptual power cannot locate or avoid

the cause of irritation the body resorts to an auto-amputative strategy (Kroker 75). In

other words, if we encounter a life threatening stimulus, the brain protects us and cuts

off the organ or which transmits it. “In the physical stress of superstimulation of

various kinds, the central nervous system acts to protect itself by a strategy of

amputation or isolation of the offending organ, sense or function” (“Understanding”

43). The result of this auto-amputation is either the numbing or blocking of the .

McLuhan skillfully applied this concept to media. It was his unique contribution,

to reveal the “deep relationship between the history of technological innovation and the

theory of disease” (Kroker 75). In the previous chapter it has been said that media and

technology are extensions of the human body brought about by the need to overcome an

increasing stress. That is to say, if the stress reaches certain critical levels the brain

creates a “counter-irritant”, a technology which is capable of coping with the increased

load and pace. This technology is an amplification of the separate function our body

used to perform. When one’s arms became too weak and short to carry a certain burden,

a sheave and a lever were invented. The function of one’s arms, which were no longer

capable of performing required tasks on a sufficient level and therefore became a source

of stress and irritation, was auto-amputated by the brain and externalized in the form of

a particular technology. Similarly, for the young Narcissus the intensity of his reflection

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and the subsequent stress it induced was so high that he auto-amputated his image. It became his extension, a counter-irritant which numbed him and prevented him from

recognizing himself (“Understanding” 43). In the same way, the numbness created by

media prevents us from seeing its true character. “Self-amputation forbids self-

recognition” (“Understanding 43). That is the reason one is unable to realize the full

extent of the changes media induced in her/him.

The process of auto-amputation basically serves as a means of restoring balance,

thus protecting our body. Technology is a counter-irritant which helps to regain the

equilibrium of the physical organs which protect our brain (Kroker 75). Subsequently,

every technology or every extension of the body alters the ratios of other organs. It

demands a new equilibrium to be created amongst them (“Understanding” 45).

Likewise, media change the equilibrium among our senses; by focusing on a specific

sense they change the ratio among the others. For example, the film screen intensifies

the visual sense and downplays all the other senses. Even the movie soundtracks are

usually made in a which does not interfere with the predominantly visual

character of the film but rather collaborates with and complements it. “As an extension

and expediter of the sense life, any medium at once affects the entire field of the senses”

(“Understanding” 45).

The notion of media altering the balance among our senses is closely followed by the concept of “hot” and “cold” media. This division which further develops the way

media affect our central nervous system will be dealt with in the next chapter.

II.5 Media Hot and Cold

The concept of hot and cold media encompasses the manner in which various

media affect our brain and senses. It also deals with the fact that different media tend to

invoke different levels and types of participation. The basic assumption lying behind

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this draws upon the different amount of data each medium is capable of providing. Whereas a hot medium extends our senses with an abundance of detail, a

cold one provides considerably lower amount of information. “A hot medium is one that

extends one single sense in high definition. High definition is the state of being well

filled with data” (Understanding” 22). Provided that one’s senses are being filled with a

sufficient amount of data transmitted by a hot medium, one can hardly expect the

recipient to strain himself to increase this amount. If one is given enough information,

there is no need to add or complete anything on his/her own. The level of participation

is rather low with hot media. McLuhan himself states that:

On the other hand, hot media do not leave so much to be filled in or completed by the audience. Hot media are, therefore, low in participation, and cool media are high in participation or completion by the audience. (“Understanding” 36)

The way hot and cold media affect the level of our participation could be

demonstrated on an example of a jigsaw puzzle. A completed puzzle is not a puzzle; it

is a finished, enclosed picture and the only way we can interact with it is to perceive it passively. We do not participate in its completion, and it does not invite us to do so. The

completed puzzle is a hot medium. An incomplete puzzle of a cold medium, on the

other hand, provokes us, lures our senses into putting the missing pieces in the right place. It enables us to engage actively in the process of its completion, therefore is high

in participation. Hot media are for example print, photograph and film – all these provide high definition data; cold media are e.g. speech, cartoon, telephone and TV.

Cold media provide low definition data, thus leaving more to be filled in by the

recipient.

Naturally, the effects of hot and cool media are fundamentally different. This

difference is directly related to the amount of data they provide. The high definition data

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hot media offer, do not allow any completion or participation; they can only attract

one’s attention by delimiting and intensifying its content. “Intensity or high definition

engenders specialism and fragmentation...” (“Understanding” 24) The hot media or

technology tend to speed things up, to make them more efficient and generally

available. On the one hand, this acceleration brings about the greater abundance of

desired commodities; on the other, it disrupts the social bonds and weakens the human

interdependence. If there is a sufficient quantity of easily accessible goods and

information one does not need to depend on anyone but herself/himself. Tight social

networks are not necessary for her/his survival any more. Hot media bring about

individualism and exclusion by speeding up the exchange of information; the cold

media, on the contrary, urge us to be more collaborative and integrated. If the amount

and quality of data is not sufficient one has to be on “friendly terms” with its source in

order to find out more. In other words, the cold technology brings about the necessity of

interrelation and cooperation. “Specialist technologies detribalize. The non specialist

electric technologies retribalize” (“Understanding” 24).

The notion of retribalization is closely connected with the fact that McLuhan

also applied the hot and cool dichotomy to describe . A hot can be

characterized as highly literate, mechanized, individualistic, fragmented and giving preference to ; a cool culture, on the contrary, is less mechanized, it prefers oral over literal and it preserves tighter social bonds (“Understanding” 30). The

effect of hot and cool media is inherently different depending on what type of culture

they are implemented in. Hot media in an already hot culture are bound rather to

entertain than to stir up the situation, whereas in a cold culture they tend to have an

intense and violent effect (“Understanding” 31). There is, apparently, not much to be

heated up in an already hot culture; for a trained, literate eye there is nothing shocking

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about the high definition data of film and radio. Yet it is not so for a cool culture in

which the abrupt acceleration of pace caused by hot technology substantially increases

the pressure and brings about radical changes.

However, what appear to be of greater significance are the different reactions

towards cool electric technologies. According to McLuhan a hot culture’s response to

the cool electric media causes a shock of roughly the same intensity as the one produced by a hot technology in a cool (“Understanding” 26). Whereas the fragmented,

hot culture is unable to cope with the total, all-embracing and retribalizing immediacy

of electric technology, the cold, “backward” culture of still “has the total,

unified ‘field’ character of our new electromagnetism” (“Understanding” 27). It is

indeed the fact that “Electricity does not centralize, it decentralizes” (McLuhan qtd. in

Liukkonen) which is crucial to McLuhan’s conception of cold media.

...television and other electric media override time and distance instantaneously - making the world a ''. The globe's citizens share a culture which has much in common with that of oral . The global village has swept aside the individualizing culture of print production. (Liukkonen)

From what has been said before it is apparent that media have the capacity to

either heat or cool our senses. In the case of Narcissus, the extreme heating up of one

sense led to a state of stupor or hypnosis. The extreme shock caused by the hot visual

media of his reflection brought about the protective numbness. McLuhan observes that

“the hotting-up of one sense tends to effect hypnosis, and the cooling of all senses tends

to result in hallucination” (“Understanding” 32). According to psychiatric studies it is

indeed rather common that a sensory deprivation leads to hallucinations even in

otherwise perfectly healthy patients (Flynn 2). However, it is highly doubtful that any

cold media are able to cool down one’s senses to such an extent that it would induce

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hallucination. Such a suggestion could be, at best, considered an “ad absurdum”

interpretation of this phenomenon.

II.6 Film vs. TV

In Atom Egoyan’s and David Cronenberg’s movies both the medium of film and

TV or video are employed and juxtaposed. In order to analyze the nature of this juxtaposition with respect to McLuhan’s media theory, it is necessary to bring forward

some facts considering his perception of these media. As it has been stated above, film

is a perfect example of a hot medium. “Film has the power to store and convey a great

deal of information” (“Understanding” 288). It provides our senses with high definition

data and therefore allows for a very low amount of participation.

McLuhan draws one’s attention to the fact that the film strip is in fact a

realization of the classical and medieval perception of change as a sequence of static

forms (“Understanding” 285). This conception of motion can be found in Zeno’s arrow which says “that the flying arrow is at rest, which result follows from the

assumption that time is composed of moments.”(Hugget) In this respect, film is

connected with the technology of print. While , one follows the stream of still

letters from which she/he puts together the words and the story; the activity of film

viewing bears similarities to the book reading (Liukkonen). The fact that the movie

“links with the technology of print” (“Understanding 285”) is closely connected with

the high demands it has on its viewer.

In order to understand a movie one has to be familiar with the language it uses.

“Movies assume a high level of literacy in their users and prove baffling to the non-

literate” (“Understanding” 285). Yet a “film literate” viewer is often hardly aware of the

complex and intricate nature of the cinematic language she/he has, largely

subconsciously, acquired. One is not actively conscious of the changes of the camera

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angles, the composition or the different types of editing can bring about, yet being a

cinematically literate viewer, one can instantaneously feel their effect. Likewise, a

speaker is hardly aware of the grammatical structure of the language she/he has been

taught unless she/he studies it. However, she/he is perfectly capable of using this

language without the theoretical knowledge of its structure. In other words, we have to become accustomed to the linear nature of the cinematic language and its conventions but we do not have to know the theoretical concepts behind it in order to understand it.

In fact this decreased of the “grammar” of the cinematic language allows us

to immerse deeply in the linear world of the film, to sink into the illusion it creates.

The business of the or the film-maker is to transfer the reader or viewer from one world, his own , to another, the world created by and film. That is so obvious, and happens so completely, that those undergoing the experience accept it subliminally and without critical awareness. (“Understanding” 285)

In general, it can be stated that film is a technologically advanced offspring of

the press drawing upon the paradigm of linearity. Even though this makes it a mere

reformulation of an older technology, it hardly influences its effectiveness. As members

of a literate culture with an extensive knowledge of the print we are perfectly capable of

the immersion into the world it creates.

The television, on the other hand, uses a fundamentally different way of

constructing picture. It is an ever-changing sequence of light beams. First the image is

dissected into the set of light impulses and then reassembled on the TV screen; this process is called “scanning” (“Television”). The TV picture is therefore never still, it is

under “constant construction.” This system of projection allows for a significantly lower

amount of data to be transferred (Even the present HDTV signal still provides markedly

lower amount of data than film) (“Television”). The older TV sets provided the viewer

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with some 200 000 picture elements 25 times in a second which means that the viewer was bombarded by 5 000 000 light dots per second. From these the brain accepts only a few dozens to make a picture (“Television”). This feature of the TV medium was of great interest to Marshall McLuhan who claimed that “with TV, the viewer is the screen” (“Understanding” 313). This means, that the final picture is not re-assembled on the TV screen, but in our brain. The nature and quality of the TV signal requires human

“post processing.” According to McLuhan; “television demands participation and involvement in depth of the whole being” (“Medium” 125). The fact that TV is constructed as a never ending mesh of light dots and therefore is visually low in data, makes it a perfect representative of the new, cool, electronic media.

The comparison of the television picture to a mosaic is indeed rather vital for

McLuhan’s interpretation of this medium. In order to understand the nature of the in- depth experience of the TV medium, one has to understand the difference between visual and mosaic or acoustic space (“Understanding” 332). Whereas the visual space emphasizes the eye, the singular point of view, the linearity and continuity, the acoustic space is not based on these concepts; it is simultaneous, you have to perceive all of it

(“Visual”). The eye focuses only on a limited area; the angle of vision is restricted.

However, the ear covers the total field of acoustic space; it perceives all sensations concurrently. “To understand acoustic space, you must perceive all of it, not focus on one part” (“Visual”). Hot media, by extending a single sense, belong to the visual space.

Cold media, by involving one’s CNS and therefore all the senses, are “generators” of the acoustic space (“Understanding” 333).

McLuhan claims that TV and all other electronic media are, above all, an extension of the sense of touch (“Understanding” 333). This, however, does not mean that the electronic media literally involve one’s sense of touch; his term “tactile” refers

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to the integration of all senses (Lockhead). In my opinion, the integration of all senses is brought about by the fact that the cool media do not focus on a single sense but on the

CNS. The brain, while participating in the completion of the given sensation, draws

upon all other senses, in order to achieve the full involvement with the medium.

In television there occurs an extension of the sense of active, exploratory touch which involves all the senses simultaneously, rather that that of sight alone. You have to be “with” it. (“Medium” 125)

These notions of in-depth involvement with TV bear a strong resemblance to the

experience of virtual reality. The total involvement of the whole being reminds us of the

highly immersive VR systems of the later years. It is also important to note, that by

engaging the CNS and providing low-definition data, the TV image cools down the

senses. As it has been mentioned in the previous chapter, extreme cooling of one’s

senses can induce hallucination. However, every medium necessarily engages one or

several of our senses. Therefore, no matter how cool or hot it is, a medium cannot

induce a total sensory deprivation; from the medical point of view, the suggestion that

any medium could induce hallucinations would be purely unrealistic and a far-out

interpretation of this phenomenon.

II.7 What McLuhan Got Wrong

Before I direct my attention to some flaws of Marshall McLuhan’s media theory,

I would like to briefly introduce certain characteristic features of his thinking, which perhaps caused some of his oversights. One of the facts which appears to have

influenced his approach to media was his conversion to Catholicism. According to

Kroker, McLuhan’s was a direct outgrowth of his faith (Kroker

78). Catholicism seems to be an inseparable part of his liberal belief in a progressive,

rational, and evolutionary history to which technology is a threat (Kroker 79). McLuhan

18

believed that this threat could be averted by maintaining individual and creative

freedom. His idea was that by creating so called anti-environments the creeping changes

media induce in us could be revealed. The attitude he had towards technology was

essentially an optimistic one; he believed that in the processed world of a technological

society the civilizing moment of critical humanism could be preserved (Kroker 54).

That is why Kroker describes him as a “technological humanist” (13). However, his belief that the dangers new media bring about can be handled only by men in good faith

can be considered rather naive (Fawcett 207). It is also important to note that McLuhan

was perhaps more of a rhetorician than a scientist. He coined a number of catchy

slogans and came up with many insightful concepts considering media and technology, but his theory tends to be rather repetitive and system lacking. Fawcett claims that

McLuhan was neither a particularly organized thinker nor a great researcher (214).

Kroker ads that, “McLuhan’s perspective is all words, metaphor, and paradox” (53).

However, McLuhan’s tendency to magniloquence and unmethodical approach

are not the most serious shortcomings of his thinking. According to Kroker, one of his

major blind spots was the inability to devise any systematic theory considering the

relationship between economy and technology; he also remained largely ignorant of the

mechanisms of corporate and state control over media (79). That is not to say McLuhan

was not aware of the dangers of a society which is being controlled by media. In

Understanding Media he warns us against leasing our central nervous systems to

various (68). The problem was that he did not examine the mechanisms of

such a control. “McLuhan understood the full dangers of corporate control of

technological media but he did not extend this insight into a reflection on the

relationship of and technology” (Kroker 79).

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Another of McLuhan’s blind spots seems to be his romantic and naive

understanding of tribalism (Fawcett 219). His idea that the electronic media will produce one vast tribe and put an end to has proven to be wrong. “McLuhan

was always firm in his belief that the dawn of the ‘global village’ ... required the by- passing of ‘national’ political communities” (Kroker 82). He also restricted his working

concept of sense biases to the visual and acoustic sensoriums and ignored the olfactory bias in by which a great portion of interpersonal and social life is

determined (Fawcett 217).

Even though some of McLuhan’s thoughts and predictions have been,

necessarily, found fallible, many of them remain valid. It cannot be denied that

McLuhan’s discourse provided valuable insights into the nature of technology and

established a starting point for further media studies. Many of his ideas anteceded the postmodern debate and postmodern theorists, such as , who identify

McLuhan as having an influence on their own views of media (Koven 26). Moreover,

his theory appears to have had a profound effect on the work of both Atom Egoyan and

David Cronenberg which will be discussed in the following chapters.

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III. Atom Egoyan’s Family Viewing

III.1 The Life and Work of Atom Egoyan

In order to provide a useful background for the subsequent analysis of Family

Viewing, I would like to present a short introduction of the life and work of one of the

most path-breaking Canadian filmmakers, Atom Egoyan. Several biographical facts

could shed some light on Egoyan’s fascination with certain themes and modes of

representation which tend to reoccur in many of his works. Egoyan has a unique position within Canadian filmmaking; he is, just as David Cronenberg, a sole author of a

number of his films, e.g. Next of Kin (1984), Family Viewing (1987),

(1989), (1991), Calendar (1993). His movies received plenty of prestigious awards and were screened at many renowned film festivals including the

Cannes Film Festival. According to Banning, Egoyan is the most consummate

filmmaker of his generation. This fact allows for an extensive control over both formal

and content aspects of his films.

Atom Egoyan was born on July 19, 1960 in Cairo, to Armenian refugees

Joseph and Shushan Yeghoyan. Both his parents had artistic aspirations (they studied painting) which may partially account for Egoyan’s later fascination with images and

visual arts. In recognition of the completion of the first nuclear reactor in Egypt they

decided to call their son Atom (Kreyche). In 1963 the family moved to Canada and

settled in Victoria, British Colombia. At the age of 18 Egoyan left for Toronto to study

at the . Whereas in his younger days he

tended to reject his own ethnicity refusing to speak or listen to his native language, later

on, during his studies in Toronto, he reconciled with his heritage and started furthering

his knowledge of and history (Banning). The issue of ethnicity and

cultural identity has become one of the most pervasive themes of his work. The idea of

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being Armenian was probably addressed most directly in the film Calendar ; however, it

is present in all of his earlier features (Kreyche).

During his adolescence Egoyan developed an interest in writing and reading plays. He was fascinated by the theater of the absurd, namely by the plays of Samuel

Beckett and (Glassman 51). This early captivation with absurd drama

seems to be reflecting in the estranged, artificial dialogues Egoyan employs in some of

his films (Banning). Another experience which appears to be embedded in a number of

his movies is his job in the Empress Hotel in Victoria. In his later teens he used to work

there as a member of the housekeeping staff. After the release of Speaking Parts he has

linked the preparation of a hotel room to filmmaking remarking that they both “create

an illusion” (Kreyche). The hotel locale was used also in Family Viewing and in The

Adjuster. While attending Toronto University, Egoyan studied classical guitar. His close

relationship to music seems to be reflected in the meticulous and well thought-out

soundtracks of his movies. Moreover, he proved his musical talents with the direction of

several operas with the Canadian Opera Company (Banning).

At the university Egoyan also produced several short films with the assistance of

the Hart House Film Board.1 His first short movie Howard In Particular was, with great

success, screened at the Canadian National Exhibition film festival. In 1984 he released

his first feature, Next of Kin, followed by Family Viewing, Speaking parts and The

Adjuster. This tetrad appears to be bound together both by the style and themes;

Egoyan’s early features show his preoccupation with social taboos, sex, media

technology “and relations locked into the hermetic horrors of family closets” (Banning).

Another common feature of these films is the utilization of video, televisual and

1 The Hart House Film Board exists to provide assistance to film and video artists who are students at the University of Toronto or senior members of Hart House.

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photographic images. These representational technologies are used for various purposes,

yet in general they tend to stress “the role of mediation in ordering experience”

(Banning). This initial tetrad of features was followed by a chain of highly successful

films including Calendar (1993) and Ararat (2002) in which he again dealt with the problems of ethnicity, cultural heritage and .

Atom Egoyan has also collaborated extensively with television; His work for the

CBC and other TV companies includes the highly praised television film Gross

Misconduct (1993), several short films (En Passant, A Portrait of Arshile ), episodes for

Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Friday the 13 th and many others. Egoyan, as an

extremely prolific author, has also completed several art installations for the Irish

Museum of Modern Art and Venice Biennale (Banning). He also took part in several projects supporting Canadian Culture leading numerous workshops and endorsing the

sponsorship of young Canadian artists (Kreyche). In the year 2000 he returned to his

theatrical beginnings with a film adaptation of ’s Krapp’s Last Tape

(Tschofen 167). In this film he once more turned his attention towards the way media

alter our lives. According to him it is “an ultimate statement about how technology can both soothe and torment you at the same time...” (Egoyan qtd. in Tschofen 168). This

appears to echo McLuhan’s perception of media as effecting both a “closure” and a

“numbing” of human perception (Kroker 72).

The fascination with media and their profound effect on human existence is

indeed one of Egoyan’s most pervasive themes. It appears to be present not only in the

content of his work but also in its form. Media technologies are an inseparable part of

his cinematic language. According to Tschofen, in order to come to terms with

Egoyan’s work, “one must embrace the of the hybrid text wherein two or

more media work against each other to carry the narrative” (168). The interplay of

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various representational technologies is very much present also in Family Viewing ; a

more detailed analysis of this interplay will be provided in the chapters III.3 and III.4. It

is perhaps worth mentioning that Egoyan has been also influenced by the work of David

Cronenberg (MacKenzie) who himself focuses extensively on the way technology and

media penetrate human existence.

III.2 Family Viewing – Brief Introduction and Plot Summary

In order to establish a useful background for the following thematic and formal

analysis of the film, I would like to provide a brief outline of its plot and mention

several facts considering its making and production. Family viewing , Egoyan’s second feature, was shot in 1987 for a trivial sum of 200 000 dollars (Glassman 55). Despite the limited budget, Egoyan managed to create a highly successful film which won several prizes and was nominated for eight . In the interview with Marc Glassman

Egoyan said: “If I had had three times as much money to make Family Viewing I would have made it exactly the same way” (54). The film gained wide publicity as a result of

Wim Wender’s noble gesture at the Festival of New Cinema and Video in Montréal when he offered the prize money for Best Film to Egoyan (Tschofen 166).

Family Viewing appears to be a story of an Oedipal struggle between a son and a father (Tschofen 169), the bone of distort being the control over the family’s history which is materialized in the form of videotapes. The son, Van (Aidan Tierney), shares a flat with his father, Stan (), and his father’s lover, Sandra (Gabrielle

Rose). As the story unravels we find out that this non-traditional family-like configuration Van lives in is a result of the dissolution of the original family. Both

Van’s mother (Rose Sarkysian) and maternal grandmother, Armen (Selma Keklikian), have disappeared from his life. Stan, who had been left by his first wife, has placed

Armen in a nursing home not willing to take care of her any more. The only remaining

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link between Van and his past is the set of videotapes from his childhood which is in

Stan’s possession. To his horror, Van finds out that his father has been slowly erasing

the movies and replacing them with records of strange, fetishistic sexual intercourses

with his lover. Stan works for a company that distributes video records which gives him

an opportunity to equip himself with the latest video gadgets. He uses them to record the

staged sex plays featuring Sandra, who is acting out a “script” narrated by a phone-sex

, Aline (Arsineé Khanjian).

Van and his grandmother Armen have a very close relationship and he is paying

regular visits to her. As a result of a shock and a deep depression induced by her

involuntary “exile” from the safe heaven of her family, Armen has given up speech and

feels deep contempt for Stan, whom she rightly blame for her situation. During one of

his visits in the nursing home Van encounters Aline whose mother occupies a bed next

to Armen and they become friends. Aline is offered a one-time job as an escort

companion in and asks Van to look after her mother. Soon after that Aline’s

mother commits suicide by eating pills, she has been carefully gathering under her pillow. Van, who is very much concerned with the well-being of his grandmother and

wants her out of the nursing home, impulsively decides to swap the bodies in order to

make Stan believe that she is dead. This appears to be the only possibility to get her out

of Stan’s sight as he is constantly refusing to give Van permission to take Armen away.

To avoid disclosure, Van has to burry Aline’s mother immediately. He arranges the

funeral and records the ceremony on his father’s VCR intending to give it to Aline. Yet

when Van, undoubtedly with good intent, offers the tape to his grief stricken friend she

is, quite naturally, outraged by his action and hurls it back on him. Later on she makes piece with Van and agrees to move Armen to her apartment.

25

Van, who has just finished school, finds a job in a hotel and moves in with Aline

and Armen. He carefully replaces the tapes Stan has been erasing with blank ones and brings the rest of his childhood memories to his new home. Everything seems to be just

fine till Stan encounters Aline at the grave Armen is supposed to be resting in. He is

growing increasingly suspicious and hires a private eye to find out what has really

happened. Being afraid that Stan might find Armen, Van moves her into a room in the

hotel wing which is closed for winter. Yet the detective traces them down again.

Knowing that Stan is coming to look for Armen they dress her like a homeless woman, put her into the storage room and call the police. An ambulance takes her away just

when Stan arrives at the hotel to search for her. By this final “con” they achieve Stan’s

total loss of control over Armen’s life and Van’s past. The film ends with Van and

Aline finding Armen at a women’s hostel she has been taken to. As if by a miracle,

Van’s mother also appears at the hostel completing the final scene of a peculiar family

reunion.

III.3 McLuhan’s Concepts in Family Viewing

This chapter represents an attempt to track down and demonstrate the presence

of McLuhan’s thoughts and concepts in Family Viewing . I will try to reveal and localize

the imprints of his media theory both in the thematic and the formal level of the film. As

it has been suggested in chapter III.1 and III.2 the thematic structure of this movie is

extremely complex and multifaceted; media and their effect on human beings is just one

of many themes Egoyan has encompassed in this absorbing film. However, it is

definitely one of the crucial ones. According to del Río: “Television and videotape

figure as the central representational modes providing the members of this family with a

sense of identity and history” (32).

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As it has been said above, McLuhan’s concept of a medium as a message is one

of the corner-stones of his media theory. Let us now take a closer look at the way this

thought has been embodied in Family Viewing . The fact that the content of a medium is

always another medium, which constitutes the essential part of this concept, appears to be present in the very montage of the movie. By using film, television and video

images, Egoyan brings one’s attention to the Chinese box-like structure of media. These

modes of technological representation are skillfully interwoven into the plot and thanks

to the high definition of the film strip the viewer is constantly made aware of their

respective textures and characters. This is of course valid only if one is watching the

film in a cinema. Taking into account the fact that a considerable proportion of the

viewers have only seen the film on a video, much of the sophisticated use of different

media appears to be lost. Egoyan himself states that “the film does not work on home

video on the terms on which it was designed to work” (Egoyan qtd. in Glassman 42).

One cannot become aware of the tense, disturbing nature of the degraded TV and video

images (Egoyan qtd. in Glassman 43).

Likewise, the assertion that the content of a medium is in fact distracting us from

its real effects/message appears to be embodied in the highly compelling, shocking and

absorbing nature of the images provided by both TV and the video tapes. The extremely private and emotional nature of the video recordings of Van’s childhood seems to prevent him from recognizing their true nature. He relies fully on the ephemeral video

signal and takes it for his history, for the part of his self (Tschofen 175). Therefore it is

of an utmost importance for him to prevent Stan from erasing them.

Perhaps the most obvious interpretation of the profound change media cause in a

human being is Van’s inability to tell a difference between reality and its representation.

According to Harcourt, the concern with images and representation is typically

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Canadian because Canadian people (and certainly not only Canadian people), being saturated by images (prevailingly from The ), have problems distinguishing between what is imaginary and what is real (6). The general validity of this notion could, perhaps, be questioned, yet it clearly appears in Egoyan’s work. Being a part of a generation which might have had their childhood videotaped/mediated Van appears to be unable to adequately separate self from representation (Tschofen 175). He

“exhibits a naive and uncritical belief in the full correspondence between technologically lived events and those other events where the physical body is involved” (del Río 44). This is clearly demonstrated in the scene where he is handing over the tape with the funeral to Aline. He does not understand her resentful approach towards the video recording; he sees no differences between the actual burial of Aline’s mother and its mediated version. In this respect he can be considered the “child of the electronic age.” His perception of media appears to be a part of a new paradigm in which the boundary between reality and its technological representation is breached.

His vision of video technology intuitively announces what is at stake in the technical reconfiguration of subjectivity: the structural affinities between the banks of memory available through video and those stored in the equally virtual space of the psyche. (del Río 45)

In Understanding Media McLuhan states that: “The TV child expects involvement and doesn’t want a specialist job in the future. He does want a role and a deep commitment to his society” (“Understanding” 335). Van seems to be a perfect embodiment of the TV child. Even though he is a fresh college graduate he does not care about his future job and refuses Stan’s offer of a franchise; he rather opts for a random job in a hotel. On the other hand he makes tremendous efforts to reconcile with his past, to reunite with his true family. This endeavor is expressed by his need to

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escape from Stan’s clutches, save the tapes and take care of Armen. In this respect he seems to be also deeply influenced by the new paradigm electronic media bring about.

As it has been mentioned above, Egoyan is very much conscious of the media he uses; it seems that Family Viewing is a perfect embodiment of McLuhan’s

“countersituation” which reveals the true nature of a medium. By avoiding a fixed point of view and creating an ingenious “bricolage” of film, TV and video images, he indeed is creating an “anti-environment” which makes the viewer aware of the respective media and their effects. Crude textures of the videotaped sex scenes, childhood memories, TV programs and surveillance cameras are all revealed by the high definition film strip; their capacity to invoke in-depth participation is, perhaps, decreased; the charm is broken, yet we can still see why these images are of such an importance for the film’s characters.

As far as McLuhan’s concept of media as bodily extensions is concerned, certain media in Egoyan’s films appear to be employed as an extension of human mind. Del

Río seems to support this suggestion by claiming that Egoyan represents “the technological artifact as a continuation or extension of embodied subjectivity” (29) and

Egoyan himself says that “video can function as a metaphor for the working of thought and ” (Egoyan qtd. in del Río 36). The videotapes Van is desperately trying to save from erasure can be perceived as an exteriorization of his memory. One could assume that the reason these tapes are so important to Van surpasses the nostalgic sentiments for an image of his childhood. It seems that Van prefers the mediated version of his highly emotionally loaded memories over the actual ones, which are perhaps too intense, too stressing. Tschofen observes that after suffering a trauma, Egoyan’s characters seem obliged to repeat the repressed material as a contemporary experience instead of remembering it as something belonging to the past (174). Likewise, Stan and

29

Sandra’s use of video images and telephone in their fetishistic sex games draws upon

the same principle of extension of one’s body and senses. These mediated intercourses

will be dealt with in greater detail further on.

McLuhan’s concern with abuse of media from a position of power appears to be

materialized in the character of Stan, who is in control of the family history/identity.

According to Tschofen, his authority is grounded in his access to the technology of

reproduction by means of which he affects other character’s lives (173). This utter

control is expressed on the one hand by the fact that he is the sole author of the video

recordings and, on the other by his refusal to let the others use them. He both shaped the

representation of Van’s childhood and refused to grant him access to it.

Another McLuhan’s concept which is, in my opinion, deeply embodied in

Family viewing is the notion of the “gadget lover” based on the myth of Narcissus.

Egoyan himself shows his profound interest in the topic of technological representation

and narcissism by the series of following rhetorical questions:

Can people live through imagistic representations of life? If they can, do they need to gain control of how those representations are made? And if these questions can be answered “yes” and “yes,” at what point do people fall in love with the representation of the loved one? Maybe they are really falling in love with their own ability to conjure up that image. Does the love then become narcissistic? (Egyoan qtd. in Glassman 47)

It is precisely the fetishistic practice of Stan and Sandra’s videotaped sex which

echoes McLuhan’s claim that human beings are fascinated by any extension of

themselves in any other material than themselves (“Understanding” 41). At the same

time, this auto-amputated, mediated sex has a numbing effect; it provides an escape

from the, perhaps too immediate and intense, sexual intercourse. According to McLuhan

the reason for the auto-amputation of our sense is the increased load, stress and anxiety.

30

This mechanism strongly resembles the notion of technology as a fetishistic practice

which is described by del Río:

...fetishism operates as a structure of subjective intentionality, stemming from the desire to contain and forget the corporeality and mortality that both limit and enable human existence. Simply stated, technology is not inherently fetishistic, but, in order to ignore existential hurdles and anxieties, the user can deploy it as a fetish. (31-32)

These mediated intercourses are clearly orchestrated only for Stan’s pleasure and

he acts as their sovereign director. Sandra’s behavior and facial expression confirm that

she is a mere tool of Stan’s fetishist fantasies. By using the VCR and the mediated voice

of the telephone sex-operator as a source of instructions carried out by Sandra, Stan is in

fact splitting the female subject into the separate audio, visual and tactile channels. “In

depriving Sandra of synchronized action between body and voice, Stan suppresses her possibility of agency” (del Río 41). Via this “split” he strips Sandra of her integrity and

makes her a mere extension of his senses. The reason for this action can be perhaps seen

in Stan’s need to overcome the stress and anxiety induced by Sandra, or, in del Río’s

opinion, by the fear of the feminine in general (41). By “breaking Sandra

apart” he is putting himself in the position of power and it is, perhaps, this feeling of

control which numbs his fear and nurtures the narcissistic fascination with his own power. In this respect, Egoyan appears to be incorporating his inquiry considering

imagistic representation and narcissistic love in Family Viewing .

As it has been stated in chapter II.6, TV is a perfect example of a cool medium

and so is the video which uses the TV screen as a technology of representation. The

deep immersion in the cold medium, which is brought about both by its numbing

capacity and the in-depth participation it requires, appears to be clearly demonstrated in

the scene depicting the death of Aline’s mother. Van, absorbed in the television

31

program to the point of stupor, is physically present in the room, yet he is not aware of

the suicide taking place just a few feet from him. He becomes a screen, an integral part

of the medium; he is submerged in the acoustic space it creates. This scene signifies “a

dwelling inside the televisual image that is concurrent with the viewer’s despatialization

or disconnection from his or her immediate environment” (del Río 38). In this sense it

seems to reflect McLuhan’s assertion that TV is a tactile medium that requires

involvement in depth of the whole being.

In Family Viewing television is everywhere. The bluish glare of the TV set

complements almost every setting of the film. The flickering, meshed screen overlooks

the dim rooms of the nursing home, the sterile condominium, the hotel room, Stan’s bedroom, Aline’s flat, the detective’s office, etc. The acoustic space it generates pervades the whole movie. The retribalizing, bonding effect of television seems to be

represented by the TV set placed in the living room. By watching it together the family

establishes a common ground, it shares the same “world picture” (del Río 33). Egoyan

himself states that: “Television is about a communal event shared by millions of people

yet watched alone, or in the intimacy of a familial setting” (Egoyan 346). In one of the

scenes Stan and Van are watching TV and Sandra, who has been away preparing some

refreshment, asks them to fill her in. This seems to illustrate her need to share the

moment with the rest of the family, to be a part of the communal action of television

viewing. In fact it is only during these moments of “family viewing” when the

disintegrated and malfunctioning triangle of relationships between Stan, Sandra and

Van seems to form something like a family.

The cooling effect of low definition media appears to be embodied in the scene

depicting Stan’s frantic invasion of the hotel building. The tension reaches its climax

just when Stan rushes into the room Armen was supposed to be in. At the end of his

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desperate ransack Stan opens the balcony door. Suddenly the viewer is watching the

scene from the perspective of the distant surveillance camera, which was used by the private-eye to monitor the building. The bluish and grainy long shot of resigned Stan

cools down the heated situation in a fraction of a second and puts an end to his futile

attempt to regain control over Armen’s life. The sudden change of camera distance from personal to public seems to symbolize the end of Stan’s dominion.

The cooling and absorbing nature of television appears to be interpreted also in

the scene where Van, sitting in front of a TV, is discussing his doubts and loss of purpose with Stan. When Van raises an uneasy topic of Armen and her well-being, Stan

evades it by attempting to switch over to another channel. It seems as if he wants to cool

down the situation by trying to divert Van’s attention to television. Later on, Van again

reproaches his father for having placed Armen in the nursing home. Stan, watching a

nature show on a small TV set in the kitchen, steers away from the unpleasant issue by

changing the subject of and inviting Van along to watch TV. Once more

watching television serves as a pretext for avoiding an inconvenient topic. Del Río

observes that: “Smoothing out differences and tensions with its characteristic blend of

obviousness and security, TV offers forgetfulness and amnesia for the most pressing

issues and concerns” (33). The television screens the nursing home is swarmed with

seem to have this very purpose of causing a blissful amnesia. These parts of the film

seem to bring one’s attention to both the “cooling” and absorbing capacity of television

as it was suggested by McLuhan.

The fact that Egoyan is very much aware of the hot character of the film medium

is supported by his conscious attempt to reveal the true nature of the television image by

superimposing it on the high definition film strip. Egoyan wanted the viewer to be

aware of the degraded TV and video image (Egoyan qtd. in Glassman 43) and partially,

33

he succeeded. The contrast between a hot and a cool medium is clearly visible on a

movie screen and also, even though not so fully, on a DVD. Naturally, on a videotape

the contrast is pretty much lost; what should have been disturbing becomes just

comfortable (Egoyan qtd. in Glassman 43). Even though Egoyan uses the high

definition of the film strip, in other respects he seems to approximate the film medium

to television, trying to achieve greater involvement of the viewer. This is particularly

visible in the mise-en-scéne and editing which is going to be dealt with in the next

chapter.

III.4 The Film Language of Family Viewing

Egoyan’s ingenious use of film language in Family Viewing is definitely worth

one’s attention. It does not only carry and intensify the message of the film; it seems to be, in the spirit of McLuhan’s thinking, a message on its own. Within the scope of this

thesis it is neither possible nor desirable to perform a detailed formal analysis of this

movie, but I will attempt to provide the reader with a brief summary of its key features

and their role in supporting and articulating some of McLuhan’s concepts. In this

chapter I would like to bring forward some specific characteristics of Egoyan’s film

language paying particular attention to the photography, mise-en-scéne and editing. In

the next chapter the sequence depicting Stan’s and Sandra’s mediated intercourse will be analyzed in greater detail in order to provide a deeper insight in the workings of

Egoyan’s cinematic language in Family Viewing . The theoretical background of this chapter will be provided by Luis Giannetti’s book Understanding Movies and James

Monaco’s How to Read a Film .

First, I would like to direct the readers’ attention to certain characteristic features of the film’s photography and mise-en-scéne. Specifically, the film material, lighting key, shot proxemics, angles, visual density, framing and form will be mentioned in

34

order to demonstrate the effect these aspects of filmmaking have on the impact of the

movie.

In Family Viewing, Egoyan uses a combination of a rather sensitive stock

(judging from the character of the picture) and a VCR, which is employed for shooting

all the scenes taking place in Stan’s condominium. Both these media produce a grainy,

slightly fuzzy image with rather washed-out colors. According to Giannetti, filmmakers

use this kind of image to give their film a documentary sense of urgency (26). Monaco

likewise states that “a grainy image signifies a ‘truthful’ one” (158). The conscious use

of the grainy, low definition image is in tune with the highly compelling and absorbing

nature of the film. It is also worth noticing that the movie has an aspect ratio of 1.37:1,

which is basically the aspect ratio of the television screen.

The lighting key of the film is prevailingly low. The dim rooms of the nursing

home and the erotic call-centre are followed by the slightly lighter sets of the

condominium, hotel room and Aline’s apartment, yet in general the film is rather softly

lit. This on the one hand allows for a greater degree of verisimilitude (Monaco 159), on

the other it determines the atmosphere of the respective sets. Both the realistic style of

lighting and the fact it is relatively high contrast and low key seems to mimic the

character of a video recording, thus supporting the sense of intimacy and truthfulness.

Most of the film consists of medium shots and close-ups. Occasionally Egoyan

uses a full shot or an establishing shot, e.g. of the building Stan’s flat is in or of the

Nursing Home, but generally the director puts the viewer rather close to the characters.

The prevailing proxemic pattern of the camera oscillates between the personal and the

social distance. According to Giannetti, “the closer we are to a character, the more we

feel that we are in proximity with him or her and hence the greater our emotional

involvement” (66). The extensive use of close-up shots can also have a claustrophobic

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effect (Monaco 162). Therefore, it could be said that by placing the viewer close to the character, Egoyan can both increase her/his involvement and engender a feeling of entrapment, which may stress the ponderous situation of the characters controlled by the despotic father figure. One could assume that by using close proxemic patterns the director approximates the film to television, or more specifically, to television’s capacity to invoke an in-depth participation. The angle of the shots is almost exclusively neutral. Most of the time the camera remains on the eye level; one of the few exceptions are the high angle shots of the surveillance cameras. Bearing in mind that the eye-level shots are the least obtrusive ones (Monaco 164) one can arrive at the conclusion that

Egoyan does not want to disturb the documentary character of the film by any extreme angles. The TV-like style of the shots is also supported by the use of standard lenses, rather frequent deep focus shots and zooming.

The visual density of the film is largely determined by the camera proxemics and its approximation to TV image. The grainy, close-up shot can hardly be considered optically rich; therefore the general level of visual density is rather moderate. The distance of the camera influences also the framing which tends to be rather tight. This further enhances the feeling of confinement (Giannetti 62). Generally, the form of the film is more closed than open. The placement of objects and characters appears to be carefully thought out; the mise-en-scéne carries a significant portion of , as it will be demonstrated in the subsequent sequence analysis. According to Giannetti, one of the effects of closed forms is a feeling of superficiality and improbability (70). In fact some of the stiff, far fetched dialogues and the careful, symbolically rich placement of the characters do create this feeling. These are, in my opinion, the only aspects of

Egoyan’s film language which do not support the compelling and television-like character of the movie.

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As it has been stated above, one of the most distinctive features of the film is the montage. By utilizing different media the director appears to be communicating sundry themes. Switching between various modes of representation can suggest a number of things: dream state, memory, hallucinations (Egoyan qtd. in Glassman 42). In Family

Viewing video is used mostly to represent the character’s memories. Sometimes it works as a means of demasking the nature of the medium. As Egoyan notes, “there are times when the camera moves in onto the pixels, and one becomes very aware of the construct of the image” (Egoyan qtd. in Glassman 42).

Even the transition devices Egoyan is using remind the viewer of television and video. Predominantly he uses the cut which is the most common transition device.

However, his ingenious use of channel flipping and fast forwarding or rewinding as transition devices reminds us strongly of the media in question. Sometimes the cut is omitted altogether and the camera just zooms in on the television screen, thus introducing a new shot without breaking the continuity of time and space. This peculiar style of editing both provides the viewer with a new angle of vision and makes her/him aware of the superficial nature of the television picture. Egoyan himself admits that his style of montage has been influenced by the structure of the fugue:

As a filmmaker, I’ve been profoundly influenced by the Baroque technique of counterpoint... I wanted to find a dramatic equivalent to counterpoint in the writing of the film. Thus, ideas and even snippets of dialogues are repeated or restated throughout the scenes. More obviously, I have made extensive use of dialogue and sound overlap from one scene onto another. (Egoyan qtd. in Tschofen 171)

Both these tendencies are clearly visible in Family Viewing . The video recordings of

Van’s childhood keep reappearing throughout the film to finally conclude its’ very

“grand finale.” The shot of little Van coming forward to the camera, the extreme close up of the child’s face, seems to symbolize Van’s coming to terms with his past, his roots

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and family. The dialogue and sound overlap is used very frequently to connect and juxtapose the shots.

III.5 The Mediated Intercourse – Brief Sequence Analysis

At this point, I would like to briefly analyze the sequence depicting Stan’s

mediated intercourse with Sandra. I will once more focus on certain aspects of photography, mise-en-scéne and editing in order to demonstrate the effects of film

language. The sequence consists of two sets: Aline’s home (see picture B on page 41)

and Stan’s bedroom (A, C, D). The lighting key of the sequence is rather low, yet

relatively high contrast. Under given circumstances it can be considered realistic; as we

can see in the pictures, Egoyan uses or mimics the actual lights present in the respective

sets. According to Giannetti, low key lighting is typical for romantic scenes (16) yet in

this case the expectations of a love scene are brutally shattered by the artificial and

estranged nature of the characters’ action. The lighting also determines the dominants of

the shots; it focuses one’s attention on the characters and their faces.

The camera proxemics in the sequence varies from full to medium shots. The

full shot is used at the very beginning of the sequence as a kind of an establishing shot

(A). The increased distance both between the camera and the characters contrasts

starkly with the intimate nature of the situation and creates a feeling of artificiality and

estrangement. The rest of the shots are medium (roughly the personal distance) and even

the proxemic pattern between Stan and Sandra can hardly be considered an intimate one

(A, C). Egoyan does not distort the sequence by any unusual camera angles and he uses

standard lenses. Aline’s home is shot on a fast stock providing sharper image with more

saturated colors (B) whereas the bedroom set is shot on a VCR which offers less details

and washed out colors. The director seems to be contrasting “the real world” of Aline

with the artificial and cold setting of Stan’s bedroom. The third texture is provided by

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the VCR camera zooming in on the TV set the signal from Stan’s camera is displayed

on (D). By combining two low definition media Egoyan creates an extremely distorted

image of the television screen mesh in which one can see the medium shot of

disinterested and sad looking Sandra. Generally, the sequence has a rather low degree of

visual density; both the nature of the scene and the image forces the texture to be

relatively stark.

The composition and the placement of the characters is, in my opinion, one of

the most important parts of the sequence’s mise-en-scéne. Stan’s bedroom is shot from

three different angles and each of these angles reveals different parts of the metteur-en-

scene. In the full shot (A) Stan is facing the camera, whereas Sandra is in a three quarter position, looking away both from him and the viewer. According to Giannetti, this position can suggest the character’s antisocial feelings (61) and Sandra indeed does not

appear to be part of what is going on. The characters’ relative position and distance does

not suggest any emotional closeness; it is strongly contrasting with one’s expectations

of an intimate sex scene. The set is rather closely confined by the two light cones

directing our attention exclusively to the characters. In the medium shot (C) Stan is

again in the full front position whereas we can only see Sandra’s profile. This position

can suggest that the character is rather absent-minded (Giannetti 61). Moreover, Sandra

is placed near the edge of the screen thus the field forces are pulling her away from Stan

intensifying her lack of involvement.

In the medium shot of the TV screen (D) the placement of the characters is

reversed. Sandra is in a quarter turn whereas Stan is in a three quarter one. Their relative position again does not suggest any intimacy. By reversing the composition the director

is giving the viewer an opportunity to identify more with Sandra. By revealing her facial

expression he confirms her attitude towards the staged intercourse and, metaphorically

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speaking, puts the viewer in her shoes. In general, the rather closed form of this

sequence heightens the sense of artificiality and supports the actual split of Sandra in

separate audio, visual and tactile channels. Moreover, it heightens our awareness of

Stan’s narcissistic tendencies and his yearning for power.

Even though the sequence of roughly 45 seconds consists of 14 shots its pace is

rather slow. It begins with a full shot of Stan’s bedroom (A) followed by the series of

cross-cuts to Aline’s apartment (B). Egoyan uses parallel editing or, in Metz’s

terminology, an alternate syntagma which offers alternating elements that have a

narrative connection (Monaco 188). In this case the elements are the actual sex play and

Aline’s telephonic participation in it. This succession of shots is also connected by the

fact that both Sandra and Aline are repeating the same activity – they are brushing their

hair, preparing for the ritual. Then the camera cuts back to the full shot of Stan’s bedroom and slowly zooms in on the television screen which shows the medium shot of

Sandra (D). After that the director cuts between the TV shot and the medium two shot

of Stan and Sandra on the bed (C) several times. This way Egoyan reveals Sandra’s point of view and deconstructs the intercourse heightening its artificiality and stiffness.

After a while grief stricken Aline hangs up the phone thus aborting the staged sex play.

Then the full shot of Aline bursting into tears follows. The camera slowly zooms on her

sobbing face and when it reaches the personal distance there is a sudden cut to Van’s

video recording of the funeral which ends the sequence.

The peculiar transition device of zooming in on the television screen and the

subsequent use of the TV screen shots appear to be of a great importance. By

connecting the TV image with the set of Stan’s bedroom Egoyan makes us aware of its

function. First he highlights the fetishistic nature of the television and then puts the

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viewer in the position of a voyeur, heightening the authenticity and urgency of the image by its highly distorted nature.

A

B

41

C

D

42

III.6 Is McLuhan there? – A Short Chapter Summary

From both the thematic and formal analysis of Family Viewing it follows that numerous elements of McLuhan’s media theory were, deliberately or not, embodied in it. The plot and the editing seem to be directing our attention to the true message of media and their effect on our lives. Egoyan uses the video as an extension of one’s identity/memory and he is also aware of the dangers resulting from the absolute control over it. His concern with the narcissistic nature of the relationship to the technological representations of reality appears to be deeply embodied in Stan’s fetishistic practice.

He is also conscious of the characteristics of both cold and hot media; the cooling and retribalizing property of television and its capacity to create an in-depth involvement seem to be demonstrated repeatedly. The hot medium of the high definition film strip is used to contrast different media and reveal their true character.

The aspects of film language that have been brought to the reader’s attention seem to play a crucial role in communicating some of McLuhan’s concepts. The character of photography and mise-en-scéne approximates the film to the compelling, absorbing nature of television and supports the thematic focus of the film. However, some aspects of Egoyan’s film language appear to be working against the verisimilitude and documentary style of the film. For instance the carefully thought-out placement of the characters, somehow stiff acting and dialogues, and the fact the form of the shots is often rather closed seem to be, to certain extent, violating the compelling nature of the film. This could, perhaps, be based on Egoyan’s fascination with the technique of counter-point 1 (Tschofen 171). Even though it does not comply with the general tendency to involve the viewer, it does not disrupt the unity of the film. It makes the

1 Originally it means the combination of two or more independent melodies into a single harmonic texture in which each retains its linear character. The more general meaning of the term is: the use of contrast or interplay of elements in a work of art (as a drama) (“Counterpoint”).

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viewer aware of the estranged and peculiar nature of the characters, yet it does not strip the film of its capacity to get the viewer involved. This interplay of contrasting elements appears to participate in the creation of McLuhan’s “counter situation.”

One of the director’s most powerful tools is definitely montage. The superimposition of different media reinforces the viewer’s involvement in the film.

Considering the use of video in Family Viewing Chappell claims that:

The video image may trigger gaps in time and , forcing the viewer into becoming part of the narrative process, into what Monk calls “the metaphysical fabric” beyond the frame. Instead of looking at it passively, Egoyan wants viewers to gain control of these imagistic representations of life through a degree of personal involvement.

The style of editing and the transition devices also participate in the television or video- like character of the movie. Tschofen observes that the scenes are deftly interwoven to invoke two related functions of the television and video technology: channel flipping and rewinding or fast-forwarding (169). Moreover, Egoyan’s montage plays a crucial role in the creation of the “anti environment” which helps the viewer to see the medium

“through new eyes,” to reveal its true nature. In this respect Egoyan seems to fulfill

McLuhan’s claim that an artist can bring one’s attention to the real message of media.

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IV. David Cronenberg’s Videodrome

IV.1 The Life and Work of David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg is, with no doubt, one of the most prominent Canadian

directors. However, his position within the frame of Canadian filmmaking is rather problematic and, indeed, unique. His work does not really fit in the prevailingly realistic

and documentary character of the Canadian cinema (Handling 99). Cronenberg’s

interest in subconsciousness, sexuality and its deviations, and the profound effects of

technology on the human body just as his systematic use of sci-fi and horror genres

clearly detach him from the rest of Canadian filmmakers.

On the other hand, Cronenberg does not fit in the Hollywood either;

he is not just another head in the crowd of sci-fi and horror directors. His films were

always “alternative” genre films (Beard 144) and one has to admit that in certain aspects

his work remains Canadian; he draws upon the typically Canadian topics of alienation,

struggle between the individual and the community, fragmentation, disintegration,

corporate control, the weak and emasculated Canadian male etc. (Handling 100, 101).

Another reason Cronenberg occupies such a prominent position in the world of film is

the fact that his work is largely authorial. He has written, directed and produced a

considerable number of films; moreover he has managed to create a body of work which

is remarkably consistent regarding subjects, themes and attitudes as well as an

identifiable style. These are all the essential requirements for an authorial cinema (“The

Artist” ix). Cronenberg also refuses to acknowledge any “great” filmmaker as an

influence (Grünberg 10); he is a self-made man with a self-made style. A brief

introduction of this remarkable artist’s life and work could, perhaps, shed some light on

his preoccupation with certain themes and modes of representation. It should also

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provide a useful background for the subsequent analysis of Videodrome and establish

some connecting lines with McLuhan’s media theory.

David Cronenberg was born on March 15, 1943 in Toronto and, like Egoyan, he

grew up in an artistic family. His mother was a professional pianist and his father earned

his living as a freelance writer. His early interests were literature and science

(“Cronenberg”) which also influenced his choice of academic field. He enrolled at the

University of Toronto to study science but he was not satisfied with the program and

started studying literature in which he earned a BA degree (Wise). During his studies he became involved in the avant-garde cinema circles, helped establish a film co-op and

started making his own 16mm short films including Transfer (1966) and From the

Drain (1967). Some elements of Cronenberg’s idiosyncratic style and his fascination

with certain themes were already present in these student films (“Cronenberg”).

According to Ramsay, these “trademarks” of Cronenberg’s work (including

Videodrome ) are:

the play with and horror genres through the recurring figure of the misguided scientist and his fragile masculinity; corporate greed and corruption; technology’s interface with the body; concern with aberrant mental and physical states; sexual paranoia; melancholia; and the stylistic embrace of modernism, surrealism, brutalism...

Together with Robert Fothergill, Jim Plaxton and Lorne Michaels, Cronenberg

formed the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre (CFDC) and using grant money

he made his first feature called Stereo (1969) followed closely by

(1970) (“Cronenberg”). After finishing these two films, which earned him notice in the

circles, he left for France where he was gaining experience directing small

fillers for television (Ramsay). In 1975 he shot Shivers which established him as an

original horror filmmaker and launched his career as a writer and director

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(“Cronenberg”). This film was followed by Rabid (1977) and Brood (1979). Whereas both Shivers and Rabid are very similar in their topics – they both introduce a threat of a plague turning people into raging maniacs – Brood moves towards physical externalization of mental states.

In the 1980’s Cronenberg went on to explore the themes of the intrusion of visual media, biology, technology, identity and the of delusion

(“Cronenberg”). These topics are clearly present in both (1981) and

Videodrome (1983). With the completion of these films comes an end of Cronenberg as a consummate auteur. All his following features, with the exception of eXistenZ (1999), are based on books or scripts made by other artists, yet precisely these films, including his masterpiece Dead Ringers (1988), the ultimate horror classic The Fly (1986), the adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s novel Naked Lunch (1992) and the illustrious

Crash (1996), have brought him truly international fame and popularity. His movies were screened at many prestigious film festivals and received innumerous awards.

Cronenberg’s hitherto last feature (2007) confirms his reputation as one of the most original and skilled filmmakers of our times.

Just as Atom Egoyan, Cronenberg has an extensive experience with television.

He has written and directed numerous TV films, episodes for various series including

Friday the 13 th or Scales of Justice , and even several TV commercials. The profound knowledge of the working of television appears to have found its way into many of his films including Videodrome . Cronenberg’s father was, in his own words, a “gadget freak” and Cronenberg shared this fascination with technology (Cronenberg qtd. in

Grünberg), which later became one of his pervasive themes. Cronenberg also admits being influenced by Marshall McLuhan: “I did read everything he wrote” (Cronenberg

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qtd. in Browning). The most palpable proof of this influence appears to be Videodrome

which is going to be dealt with in subsequent chapters.

Even though Cronenberg has achieved an outstanding international reputation he

remains solidly fixed within the Canadian landscape. He always spoke about himself

specifically as a Canadian artist (Beard 148). However, both Cronenberg’s unusual

thematic focus and indulgence in grotesque, shocking and revolting imagery stir the

calm waters of Canadian cinema. Yet it is not a mere shock he wants to cause; he is

looking for a complex reaction, he wants to make the viewer think (Cronenberg qtd. in

Grünberg).

IV.2 About Videodrome

In the following section I would like to provide a brief summary of the plot of

Cronenberg’s cult movie Videodrome , outline its thematic focus and present several

interesting facts related to its making, thus creating a useful background for the

subsequent thematic and formal analysis of the film. As it has been mentioned above,

Videodrome is the last of the initial sequence of films which were both directed and

written by Cronenberg. It is considered to be the film which marked the new era in

Cronenberg's career, the transition point between the “old, messy, early Cronenberg and

more mainstream middle Cronenberg” (Beard 152). One of the reasons it is seen as a breakthrough is the fact that it is the first movie in which the main characters psyche is

dealt with in such detail. Max Renn is a complex and well drawn character who enables

the viewer to immerse deeply into his world. According to Beard, “he is the first

Cronenberg’s protagonist who can truly incarnate the compulsive desires and anxieties

which are found in all his work” (153). Cronenberg himself said that Videodrome is a

first person film (Cronenberg qtd. in “The Artist” 121). The spectator indeed perceives

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everything through Max's eyes. “We get no information that Max doesn't get himself”

(Beard 121).

A large number of Cronenberg’s “trade-mark” themes mentioned in chapter IV.1

are embodied in Videodrome . The profound influence of media on human psyche is just

one of them. However, it appears to be the crucial one. Cronenberg himself admits that

the film’s script arose from his fascination with television images and bits of

McLuhan’s theory (Cronenberg qtd. in Grünberg 65). The film can be perceived as an

extreme interpretation of McLuhan’s concepts (Koven 28).

Videodrome is a story of a cable TV executive Max Renn (James Woods) who

encounters a mysterious pirate video signal with violent pornography called

Videodrome. The show is introduced to him by his employee and friend, video-pirate

Harlan, who claims that it is broadcasted from Pittsburg. The signal initiates the growth

of a strange brain tumor, which induces strong hallucinations in the viewer. It gradually blurs the border between reality and delusions driving Max into a deadly vortex of self

destruction. Later on we find out that the Videodrome signal is spread by a

called Spectacular Optical with which Harlan secretly collaborates. This corporation

intends to use it for political ends and “programs” Max to get rid of the inconvenient people from the CIVIC TV he works in. After murdering his colleagues he attempts to

kill Bianca – the daughter of the “media prophet” Brian O'Blivion who is both the

inventor and the first victim of Videodrome. However, Bianca manages to avert this

threat and set Max against his former masters. He indeed attempts to destroy the people

in charge of the corporation. Yet in the end he is so overwhelmed by the power of

Videodrome that he decides to leave his physical body and commits suicide.

The whole self-destructive process seems to be triggered by Max’s suppressed

sadistic sexual appetite which is realized in his sex-affair with a radio pop-psychologist

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Nicky Brand. It seems that the source of Max's destruction dwells within him. The

Anxiety which has been largely externalized in Cronenberg’s former films (Brood,

Scanners) has been moved inside Max’s head. He himself becomes its source.

According to Beard the self becomes the monster (121). Max’s sadistic tendencies,

loose morals and utilitarian relativism propelled by the tumor bring him on and beyond

the verge of psychic chaos.

IV.3 McLuhan’s Concepts in Videodrome

In the following chapter the specific embodiments of McLuhan’s media theory

in Videodrome will be brought forward. Yet before I start dealing with the theoretical

concepts of this Canadian media prophet, I would like to direct the reader’s attention to

some of the astonishing similarities that exist between McLuhan and the character of

Brian O’Blivion. Cronenberg himself admits that he based this character on this great

Canadian thinker (Cronenberg qtd. in Grünberg 65). Not only does O’Blivion paraphrase many of McLuhan’s famous slogans, but there are also a surprising number

of personal details and characteristics they share. O’Blivion, just as McLuhan, had a brain tumor (but whereas McLuhan survived its removal, O’Blivion died from it).

Cronenberg attributes to O’Blivion a certain naivety and pomposity that was also linked

to McLuhan (Browning 64). McLuhan was not a very good listener; he was very prone

to launch into a monologue (Dilworth 22). This tendency is carried to excess in the

character of Professor O’Blivion who only exists on a set of videotapes. Thus

monologue is the only way he can communicate with the outside world. As his daughter

Bianca states, “The monologue is his preferred mode of discourse.” O’Blivion also

appears to be an extreme interpretation of McLuhan’s fascination with television and his

frequent appearances in TV shows. During the Rena King Show he states that, “I refuse

to appear on television, except on television.” The preciseness with which Cronenberg

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transfers McLuhan’s personality on the screen of Videodrome proves his profound

familiarity with this media thinker and his theory.

McLuhan’s claim that the medium is the message appears to form the very backbone of Videodrome . Cronenberg, just as Egoyan, embodied the fact that the

content of the medium is always another medium in the very form of the film. The

omnipresent TV sets, the extremely meshed picture of the “video helmet” and the

smooth transitions from television screens to the film strip and back, they all point out

to the “Matryoschka-like” structure of media. The fact that it is not the content of the

medium which is important, but its form and the psychic and social consequences it brings about is clearly expressed by the nature of the Videodrome signal. As Bianca

O’Blivion says, “it can be delivered under a test pattern or anything else.” The

malignant changes it causes are in no way dependant on its actual content; it is the

Videodrome transmission, its form which does the damage. At the same time,

McLuhan’s claim that the content of the medium blinds us to its true character appears

to be very much a part of the play here. The highly compelling, shocking and perverse

nature of the Videodrome’s content lures Max into its deadly trap. His strong interest in

its depraved imagery protects him from seeing its dangers. In this respect, being

infected with it can be seen as a “punishment” for the distorted and pragmatic,

utilitarian approach towards media.

CONVEX: Why would anyone watch a scum show like Videodrome? Why did you watch it Max? MAX: Business reasons. CONVEX: Sure, sure. What about the other reasons? Why deny you get your kicks watching torture and murder?

The seriousness of the change induced by media could not be expressed more

explicitly. Videodrome is most articulate in depicting the profound personal and social

consequences of the television signal. Cronenberg presents us both with the catastrophic

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effects of the corporately controlled Videodrome which are graphically displayed by the

horrible aberrations of Max’s body, and with the less harmful, perhaps even beneficial,

addictive and transformative power of a “non-predatory media.” This power is

expressed through the character of Brian O’Blivion and his daughter Bianca (“The

Artist”131). The Cathode Ray Mission is an outcome of O’Blivion’s strong, yet perhaps

naive belief, that it is necessary to help those less fortunate by exposing them to the

television images. Watching TV is a way of “resocializing” the homeless; as Bianca

says, it helps to “patch them back into the world’s mixing board.”

Together with Family Viewing , Videodrome appears to be an embodiment of

McLuhan’s “anti-environment.” The grainy and meshed picture of double mediated

O’Blivion in the , the pixelated screen of the video helmet, the omnipresent

TV sets, they all point out to the true character of television image. This conscious juxtaposition of media, together with the gruesome effects of the Videodrome signal provide the viewer with a different angle of view, they reveal, in an extreme, yet

effective way, the power of the technology to change us.

McLuhan’s concept of media as extensions of human body is clearly pushed to

the extreme in Videodrome . His claim that the electronic media extend our brains is

repeated, almost verbatim, by Professor O’Blivion who says that: “the television screen

is part of the physical structure of the brain.” With Brian O’Blivion the process of

extending his CNS had gone so far that he in fact became nothing but an extension; he

merged with the technology he was fascinated with. He appears to be an embodiment of

“the next phase in the development of man as a technological animal” which he so

convincingly preaches. He is a wicked parody of McLuhan’s theory of a completely

extended consciousness” (Laing). In addition to this extreme case of extending one’s brain out of the physical body Cronenberg visualizes this concept through Max’s

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hallucinations; he gives the extensions a “palpable shape.” In this respect, “the body is accentuated as the site of transformation under the influence of technology that interacts with it in new and intensified ways” (Laing). The Videodrome tumor and the hallucinations it causes irretrievably breach the boundary between reality and representation. The huge vagina slit in Max’s abdomen, the flesh gun, breathing TV sets and organic video tapes, they all appear to be visual representations of the ultimate merging of technology and the human body; in Videodrome , flesh becomes video and video becomes flesh (Koven 30). The scene when Max comes to the Cathode Ray

Mission to kill Bianca O’Blivion appears to support this notion. He points his flesh gun at a TV set and the TV set points the very same gun back at him. Then it shoots Max in the chest several times. A moment later the bullet holes appear on the TV screen which turns into the Max's naked torso. This is a very effective way to express Max’s unification or “conglutination” with Videodrome.

The complex net of hallucinations Max is entangled in seems to be an extreme interpretation of McLuhan’s notion that media are simulations and amplifications of our senses. In the case of Videodrome the medium takes over all of Max’s senses; it creates a total “technostructure,” a virtual reality from which there is no escape. Only this time it is not Max who embraces the medium, it is rather the medium which embraces him, wholly and totally. Max becomes McLuhan’s servomechanism of the technology. The overt control Videodrome exercises over his body is visualized by his abdominal vagina through which he is repeatedly “raped” and reprogrammed. He is literary made “the sex organ of the machine world” (“Understanding” 46), the Videodrome puppet. Therefore, whoever is in control of Videodrome is in control of Max. In this respect the film skillfully expresses McLuhan’s fears of the corporate control over media, which are materialized in the character of Barry Convex and the demonic plans of Spectacular

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Optical who are using Videodrome for the purposes of a Hitler-like “social

engineering.” Harlan, who is in cahoots with the corporation, explains the situation as

follows: “North America is getting soft, patrone, and the rest of the world is getting

tough.... we are entering savage new times and we are going to have to be pure and

direct and strong...” The Videodrome signal is about to be used to “purify” the nation, to

get rid of those who “are rotting us away from the inside.” By depicting this outrageous

corporate manipulation Cronenberg makes the worst fears of Marshall McLuhan come

true.

McLuhan’s concept of the “gadget lover” also appears to be employed in the

film. In my opinion, it is Max’s sadistic sexual intercourse with Nicky which depicts the

numbing effect of media most explicitly. Nicky, together with Videodrome, introduce

Max to the highly seductive realm of masochistic pleasure; she reveals what has been

suppressed deep within him. According to Beard, it is Nicky who attracts the masculine

sensibility across the divide of transgression and who sets “the explosion of

transgressive excitement and its catastrophic consequences” (“Artist” 137). It is the sex

scene during which the first of Max’s hallucinations appears drawing him in the deadly

vortex of delusion. It seems that the intensity of his desire, the unbearable strength and

immediacy of the sadistic experience triggers the protective mechanism of auto-

amputation and cuts Max off from reality. Just after he pierces Nicky’s ear with the pin, just when the stimulation of the senses reaches its peak, he looses himself in the

Videodrome hallucination never to fully recover from it. After this point in the film it is

not clear whether Nicky is still real or whether she has become just a figment of Max’s

imagination (“Artist” 137). The grainy image of the Videodrome pornographic signal

flickering behind the naked bodies seems to be making an important comment on the

scene. As Baudrillard asserts, “Pornography adds a dimension to the space of sex, it

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makes the latter more real than the real” (Douse). Thus the TV image does not only provide the frame for Max’s future hallucinations, but it also seems to be predicting the

dissolution of the boundaries between reality and its representation. The “self-

amputation” Max carries out plunging into the medium forbids self-recognition; it

causes a deep disorientation which prevents him from shaking off the Videodrome

nightmare.

As it has been mentioned above, McLuhan’s concept of hot and cool media is, just as in Egoyan’s Family Viewing , clearly present in the very montage of the film. The

low definition of TV screen and the poor quality of the video signal are used repeatedly

throughout the film. Often the viewer finds himself watching the screen within a screen.

The television appearances of Brian O'Blivion, Videodrome itself, the helmet Max is

wearing when recording his hallucinations, all these demonstrate the poor quality of

cool media. The low definition and “mesh-like” character of the TV picture is even

heightened by the detailed, hot medium of film. The capacity of cool media to invoke

in-depth participation is clearly demonstrated by the profound effects of the

Videodrome signal. Max is subject to the total immersion in the medium; Videodrome

does indeed engage him beyond what “normal” television would (Koven 28). The

retribalizing effect of cool media appears to be commented on via O’Blivion’s project

of The Cathode Ray Mission. The Professor’s deep conviction that television has the power to resocialize the outcasts appears to be an interpretation of McLuhan’s

suggestions that television binds us together. By watching TV the homeless are given an

opportunity to re-establish a common ground, to share the same “world picture” with

the rest of the society.

The capacity of cold media to “cool down” our senses also appears to be

incorporated in Videodrome . The strong delusions Max Renn is suffering from could,

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perhaps, be seen as an “ad-absurdum” interpretation of the result of a sensory

deprivation caused by a cold medium (see chapter II.5). McLuhan claims that an

extreme cooling of all senses tends to result in hallucination (“Understanding” 32). In

this sense Videodrome can be considered an example of the extreme consequences the

absolute immersion in a cold medium can bring about. One could assume that its

extremely cold signal bypasses the senses and engages directly the brain, thus replacing

sensory perception with hallucinations.

McLuhan’s comments considering the nature of film and television media seem

to be deeply embodied in the film. As it has been mentioned above, the movie is

swarming with TV screens. Their pervasiveness could be perceived as a visualization of

the all-embracing acoustic space television generates. “Cronenberg realizes the excess

of mediation by a ubiquity of screens” (Browning 65). McLuhan’s statement that with

television, the viewer is the screen and the assertion that television demands in depth participation are repeated almost verbatim by Professor O’Blivion:

The television screen is the retina of the mind’s eye. Therefore the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality and reality is less than television.

This statement is stressing the nature of the acoustic space, which encloses the viewer in

the total field of simultaneous sensations, thus creating a reality of its own. The scene

with Nicky appearing on Videodrome inviting Max to come to her seems to be an

extreme interpretation of McLuhan’s claim that television is a tactile medium. Max

embraces the living TV set and penetrates the screen with his head; he literary plunges

himself into the medium. The shocking imagery of a breathing TV with pulsing veins,

the organic screens and videotapes; it all makes Videodrome very palpable.

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Max also appears to be deeply influenced by the new paradigm of electronic

media, which replaces the linear and continual visual space of press and film with

simultaneity and totality of the acoustic one. During the negotiation with Japanese porn

dealers Max refuses to see the beginning of the show they want to sell him and requires

the last tape saying: “My audience ain't gonna see the first two shows, show me the last

one.” Thus he is refusing the linear, continual content and favors the momentum of a

random data flow. Later on he rejects Mascha’s classic and well plotted Apollo and

Dionysus , asking for something “more contemporary,” something like Videodrome,

something which has “no plot, no characters, but is very, very realistic.” This way Max

seems to be announcing the end of the linear “Gutenberg galaxy” and the advent of the

acoustic space of the “global village.”

O’Blivion’s refusal to “appear on television, except on television,” he expresses

during the talk show, can be interpreted as a direct demonstration of the merge between

reality and technological representation. Moreover, the double mediation of his performance appears to be multiplying the effects of the cold television medium. To

“post-process” the television image within another television image ought to be more

demanding and involving; thus, by this televised, televised appearance O’Blivion

appears to be raising the level of viewers’ participation and make them cross the

dissolving boundaries between television and real life. However, in Videodrome the TV

image is not displayed on another TV screen but on a high definition film strip, which

very much reveals its true nature and makes the viewer aware of its superficiality. The

role of the hot medium of film will be dealt with in greater detail in the next chapter.

IV.4 The Film Language of Videodrome

David Cronenberg is undoubtedly a very skilled and original filmmaker. The

film language he uses plays a crucial role in formulating and communicating

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Videodrome ’s message. The aim of this chapter is to present and analyze certain key

features of the film’s photography, mise-en-scéne and editing with respect to the role

they play in intensifying the film’s impact and supporting the articulation of McLuhan’s

concepts.

Let us have a look at some characteristic features of the film’s photography first.

The lighting key of the film is generally rather low. Bearing in mind that Videodrome

comes under the genre of horror, it is only natural that many scenes are extremely dark

(Giannetti 17). The darkness stresses the terrors of Videodrome and supports the general

feeling of suspense and anxiety the film so skillfully creates. The style of the lighting is

rather realistic. Cronenberg generally tends to support the natural lighting of the sets and

he also uses obvious light sources. The lighting efficiently supports the atmosphere of

the film without looking artificial or conspicuous.

One of the most important aspects of the film’s photography seems to be color.

According to Giannetti: “Color tends to be a subconscious element in the film; it is

strongly emotional in its appeal, expressive and atmospheric...” (20). In Videodrome, it

indeed plays an essential role in establishing the film’s mood; moreover, it appears to

have an important symbolic value. The director tends to use warm colors rather often.

The red color is inseparably connected with Nicky, her sensuously red dress, her

lipstick. Red also dominates Max’s apartment when Nicky is there. Yet the dominant

hue of the film “is a kind of earthy, dried-blood orange-red” (“Artist” 157). This is primarily the color of Videodrome, but it reappears throughout the whole film.

According to Giannetti “warm colors suggest aggressiveness, violence and stimulation”

(21) and the colors in Videodrome appear to perform these functions very effectively.

The red glow which floods Max’s apartment during the erotic scene indeed suggests an

utmost stimulation; the orange clay wall of Videodrome fosters its highly aggressive

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character. These warm, sometimes rather earthy colors also seem to have an organic,

visceral character (“Artist” 157) which intensifies the idea of technology coming to life

and becoming an integral part of Max’s body. There is also an opposite set of colors –

the greyish tones of Harlan’s office, the Cathode Ray Mission, the Rena King Show, the

neutral shades of Bianca’s and Professor O’Blivion’s clothes etc. They seem to

represent the “rational and desexualized, non-body world” (“Artist” 157).

Judging from the character of lighting, Videodrome was apparently shot on a

rather fast stock. However the picture quality is considerably than in Family

Viewing ; the viewer is provided with a sharp and smooth image; “the photography have

a subdued richness new in Cronenberg’s work” (“Artist” 157). The quality of the film

strip enables the director to fully reveal the meshed and grainy picture of television

screen and produce a sharp contrast between those two representational technologies.

The verisimilitude and realistic style of the photography is supported by the use of

standard lenses. Most of the time the camera remains on the eye-level; low or high

angles are used almost exclusively in shots taken from the Max’s point of view which

only support the “first person” character of the film.

Cronenberg scarcely lets the camera get further away from the characters. He

mostly uses medium and full shots. Close-ups are also employed rather frequently in

Videodrome . The proxemic pattern of the camera is therefore prevailingly social or personal, but the intimate distance is used rather often as well. In general the director puts the viewer very close to the action thus making her/him more emotionally involved

(Giannetti 66). The close proxemic pattern together with the tight framing are often used

to stress Max’s anxiety and entrapment. For example the scene depicting the gun

growing into Max’s hand consists of medium shots and close-ups; the framing is very

tight and the utmost horror and confinement of the scene is even heightened by the fact

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that Max’s is literally cornered at the end of a hallway. Likewise the proxemic patterns

and framing of the very last scene in the condemned ship heighten the claustrophobic,

dead-end situation Max finds himself in. Considering the distance of the camera, the precise placement of the characters within the frame and the relative visual richness, the

form of the film appears to be more closed than open. According to Giannetti, closed

forms are more likely to emphasize the unfamiliar; they create a sense of being removed

from reality (70). It seems that Cronenberg uses the more closed form to stress the

hallucinative or dead-end character of certain scenes and directs viewers’ attention

towards the confining character of Videodrome. On the other hand the form is not

closed enough to make an impression of artificiality or flamboyance which would put

viewers off; it appears to fall within the limits of the “Hollywood average.”

Another important tool in Cronenberg’s hands is definitely editing. It plays an

indispensable role in both creating the first person character of the film and disrupting

the border between what is real and what is Videodrome. According to Beard,

Cronenberg is using “the standard identification practices of the cinematic apparatus”

(“Artist” 154). Throughout the film, the camera alternates between subjective shots of

what Max is seeing and objective shots of Max. The director uses many techniques

typical for classical cutting such as the reverse angle exchanges, the adherence to the

180º rule, over-the shoulder shots and many others (Giannetti 122-126). This kind of

film syntax tends to be more nuanced and intrusive; it stresses the emotional and mental

aspects of the action (Giannetti 124). It helps to achieve a deep identification with the protagonist. Interestingly enough, Cronenberg keeps using the same editing techniques

throughout the whole film; he does not provide the viewer with any visual clues to help

her/him discern between what is real and what is hallucination. “Visually all the

‘impossible’ things are presented in a manner indistinguishable from any run-of-the-mill

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details of setting or behavior” (“Artist” 154). The editing rather hinders than helps the

viewer to tell the reality from representation (“Artist” 155). Thus Cronenberg seems to be realizing McLuhan’s comments on the all embracing nature of electronic media and

the human inability to realize their profound effects. The merging of boundaries between Max’s life and Videodrome is also expressed by the transition devices. The

smooth change between the pixelated image of the helmet and the “high definition”

hallucination; the same shots displayed both on television screen and film strip,

characters moving in and out of TV sets – all these techniques seem to have this very purpose.

Cronenberg’s montage also appears to disrupt the linear and continuous

character of the film medium. By entangling the viewer in the net thickly webbed from

threads of reality and delusion, her/his hopes to reassemble the plot line and find a

logical explanation for what is going on are brutally crushed. Cronenberg forces the

viewer to give up on logic and and just be with the film.

IV.5 The Sadistic Intercourse - Brief Scene Analysis

In order to provide the viewer with a more specific idea of how the cinematic

language participates in communicating the film’s message I would like to briefly

analyze the scene depicting Max’s sadistic intercourse with Nicky. It appears that this is

the scene during which the first Videodrome hallucination strikes. I will once more

focus on certain aspects of photography, mise-en-scéne and editing in order to reveal

their role in constituting its final effect.

The scene is lit in a low key which supports both its erotic and disturbing nature

(Giannetti 17). The director employs the obvious light sources of the flat including the

orange glow of the television screen in the background (see picture A on page 63)

which in the end merges with the dim lighting of the Videodrome room (E). The scene

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is dominated by shades of red and orange which effectively support its violent and

stimulating nature. The density of the image is rather high; the extreme close shots

reveal every skin pore on the character’s faces. The detailed picture provided by the

film strip is in stark contrast with the television screen and the extremely grainy shot of

the Videodrome chamber (E). By cutting between the high definition pictures of the

hallucination (D) and the actual Videodrome signal (E) the director points out the

effective cause of the change Max is undergoing; he links the delusion with its source

and reveals its nature.

The proxemic pattern of the camera ranges from the social to the intimate

distance but most of the time the viewer is placed very close to the action. By an

extensive use of close-ups and extreme close-ups the director heightens our emotional

involvement and feeling of intimacy. He only puts us in the social distance in the

establishing shot (A) and then in the shot of the Videodrome chamber (D) to make us

realize that the set has changed, that Max has moved from reality to hallucination. The

distance between the characters is intimate; it is the distance of physical involvement

which is only natural for an erotic scene (Giannetti 64). The sense of involvement and

intimacy is supported also by the tight framing of the scene.

The scene takes roughly two minutes and consists of 12 shots. The pace of

editing is therefore rather slow which appears to follow up the intimate nature of the

intercourse. However, towards the end of the scene the shots are getting shorter thus

supporting the climax of Max’s stimulation and the onset of his hallucination. Cutting between medium shots, close-ups and extreme close-ups, Cronenberg draws upon the

classical syntax. This kind of editing supports emotional involvement and intensifies the

impact of the action (Giannetti 122). The scene begins with a long shot of Max’s

apartment. Camera slowly moves in to reveal a full shot of the naked bodies lying on a

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blanket in front of the TV set (A). The actual intercourse consists of series of medium

two shots, close-ups on Nicky’s face and extreme close-ups of her ears being pierced by

a pin (B). The whole scene escalates with an extreme close-up of Nicky’s ecstatic face

(C). The camera slowly moves away from the couple to reveal a long shot of their bodies lying on the black, glossy floor of the Videodrome chamber (D). Then it cuts to a

close-up of Max’s abashed face (F) which is abruptly interrupted by the grainy, long

shot of the actual Videodrome (E). This meshed picture appears to symbolize Max’s

realization that he is in fact hallucinating. In a split second the camera cuts back to the

close-up of Max’s perplexed face which ends the sequence.

It seems that all the mentioned aspects of photography, mise-en-scéne and

editing intensify the highly sensual and perverse nature of the scene and help to build up

the stimulation to its climax. They also effectively depict the resulting onset of

hallucination. The grainy picture of Videodrome, the change of proxemics from

intimate to social and the following close-ups on Max’s anxious face, they all put an

abrupt end to the heated situation and visualize Max’s auto-amputation.

A

63

B

C

64

D

E

65

F

IV.6 McLuhan in Videodrome – A Short Chapter Summary

As discussed in chapter IV.3, McLuhan’s concepts form an important aspect of

the film’s thematic level. Moreover, the character of Brian O’Blivion is a personification, or rather a radical pastiche, of Marshall McLuhan. Both the plot and the

montage clearly state that the medium is the message – the Videodrome signal appears

to be the most articulate interpretation of this notion. The deep and profound changes

media cause in us are “made flesh” by Max’s vivid hallucinations. Brian O’Blivion’s

mediated existence, the Videodrome tumor, the flesh gun and the abdominal vagina -

they are all expressing the claim that media are extensions of human body. Max also

seems to be an embodiment of McLuhan’s assertion that man can become a

servomechanism of technology. The catastrophic scenario of media being controlled by

corporations is made real by the character of Barry Convex and Spectacular optical.

Max’s reaction to the sadistic intercourse with Nicky appears to be a demonstration of

the numbing capacity of media and the strategy of auto-amputation. The properties of

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hot and cool media are included both in the plot of the film and in its montage and so are McLuhan’s thoughts considering the medium of television. The acoustic space it generates is symbolized by the ubiquity of TV screens and by the absorbing nature of the Videodrome signal. Max’s refusal of the linearity and continuity of hot media appears to signify his adherence to the new paradigm electronic media bring about.

The film language of Videodrome does not only play a crucial role in intensifying its message but it is also a message on its own. The film’s photography and mise-en-scéne effectively support the atmosphere of the film and systematically raise the level of viewers’ involvement. Cronenberg’s ingenious use of color is highly symbolic. It both heightens the aggressive and stimulating character of the movie and stresses the merging of technology and human body. Moreover, the rich picture of the film strip reveals the true character of television creating a stark contrast between these two modes of representation. The style of montage, likewise, strongly participates in the first person nature of the film. Editing is also used to blur the boundaries between what is real and what is Videodrome thus confusing the viewer and expressing McLuhan’s claim that people remain largely ignorant to the changes media induce in them.

In general Cronenberg’s film language is highly efficient in drawing the viewer in; it takes an important share in the creation of the in-depth involvement and achieving a strong identification with Max. The director seems to fulfill McLuhan’s assertion that:

The business of the writer or the film-maker is to transfer the reader or viewer from one world, his own , to another, the world created by typography and film. That is so obvious, and happens so completely, that those undergoing the experience accept it subliminally and without critical awareness. (“Understanding” 285)

However, by deliberately confusing the viewer as to the difference between what is real and what is delusion, Cronenberg seems to reject the linearity and continuality of the

67

visual space. He pulls us in the world of Videodrome and entangles us in a thick net of confusion and horror; he forces us not to watch it but to be with it.

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V. Conclusion

The media theory of Marshall McLuhan is clearly an important aspect of Family

Viewing and Videodrome. Many of his thoughts became a crucial part of the broad

thematic focus of these movies, and both Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg admit being influenced by this Canadian “media prophet.” It should be, perhaps, stressed that both films are authorial; the directors had an overt control over the script and the film

language, therefore the movies can be considered their personal interpretation of the

issues incorporated in them.

Even though both movies seem to employ all the key parts of McLuhan’s theory

mentioned in the second chapter, the way they interpret and present them is different. It

seems that in Videodrome the topic is more “pronounced” and accentuated. The horror

genre allows for a very literal rendering of the catastrophic effects electronic media can bring about. Cronenberg makes the “video word” of Marshall McLuhan flesh; he

transfers many of his concepts into the visible and palpable realm of the human body. In

Family Viewing the influences media have on human beings are more subtle; this,

however, is not to say that it makes them less serious. Egoyan is dealing with these

issues on the level of family; he reveals the deeds of electronic media in the microcosm

of the disintegrating, problematic relationships which form the non-standard family-like

setting of Stan's . Cronenberg, on the other hand, presents the profound

changes media can induce in us both on an individual level and on a more global one.

As it has been stated, Videodrome is a first person film; it is a probe exploring the inner

space of Max's psyche, a portrayal of his destruction. However, it also effectively

depicts the catastrophic consequences of the corporate control over media the demonic plans of Barry Convex and Spectacular Optical embody. In this respect, Egoyan’s perspective seems to be a more “McLuhanian” one; the optimistic ending of Family

69

Viewing is offering a way out; the family bonds are renewed and they overwhelm the

control media exercise over one’s mind. Thus Egoyan seems to be expressing his belief

in the preservation of the civilizing moment in the technological society which brings

him closer to the position of technological humanism. In Videodrome , however, it is the

medium which overwhelms the human being, wholly and totally; it is McLuhan’s worst

nightmare coming true. The distorted and utilitarian morality, the demonic social

engineering intended by Spectacular Optical, the deadly, disfigured “extensions” of

Max’s body, they all clearly reject both the preservation of humanism and the creation

of rational and universal political community of the “global village.” In this regard, the

film appears to be materializing the horrors of “technological dependency” (see Kroker

15).

It is perhaps worth noticing that in both films it appears to be the deviated sexual practice which is directly connected with the auto-amputation mechanism the body

resorts to while under pressure. In Stan’s case it is the very design of the orchestrated

intercourse which protects him from the immediacy and, perhaps, the unbearable

intensity of the sex and puts him in the position of power. Max, on the other hand,

escapes the utmost stimulation of the sadistic pleasure by plunging himself into the

Videodrome hallucination. Whereas Stan, by splitting the female subject into the

separate audio, visual and tactile channels, “insensibilizes” himself only to such an

extent to remain in control, the extreme numbing of Max’s senses results in delusion.

Yet in both films it appears to be the intensity of sexual pleasure which becomes

unbearable and forces the subjects to carry out the auto-amputation.

From the analysis of the film language it follows that the directors employed it both to intensify the message of the movie and to make the viewer deeply involved with

it. Yet to achieve this goal they used different cinematic techniques. The photography

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and editing of Family Viewing appear to increase its verisimilitude and approximate the

film strip to the television medium. Moreover, its grainy, washed-out picture seems to be in tune with the realist and documentary tradition of Canadian cinema which

Cronenberg’s films so manifestly reject. But whereas the photography, camera proxemics and editing seem to heighten the authenticity of the film, the stiff, far-fetched

dialogues, the well-thought-out metteur-en-scene and tight framing are working against

it. By consciously creating this discrepancy between what is being said and how it is

said, Egoyan appears to be making a comment on the deceptive nature of media.

Cronenberg, together with Egoyan, uses close camera proxemics and tight

framing to make the viewer more involved and to emphasize the dead-end mood of the

film. The identification with Max is helped also by the subjective camera shots and

editing techniques. The rich texture and the warm colors of Videodrome support the

horrors and aggressiveness of the film and heighten the visceral character of the

technology coming to life. Both directors frequently contrast the high definition picture

of the film strip with the meshed television screen, thus decreasing its capacity to

involve and stripping bare its low definition image. By means of editing they also

deliberately blur the boundary between reality and representation, or more precisely, between various modes of representation.

It seems that both David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan are living embodiments

of McLuhan’s belief that the real message of the new electronic media can be revealed,

that the profound change they silently impose on us can be disclosed, and that it is the

creative freedom which enables us to do so. Videodrome just as Family Viewing appears

to be breaking the traditional perspective, offering a different angle of view, directing

our attention towards the narcotic effects of the medium. In this respect they are the perfect examples of McLuhan’s anti-environments.

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