One of my all-time favorite directors, bar none- we're talking Top 3, easy, alongside David Lynch and John Carpenter- David Cronenberg was born in 1943 to a pianist mother, Ester, and a journalist/editor father, Milton, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He was raised Jewish, though he famously became an atheist later on. Both his parents come from Lithuanian backgrounds, though neither were born there- dad is from Maryland, while mom is a Toronto native.
Cronenberg started writing and playing music at an early age, seemingly looking as if he were going to follow in his parents' footsteps in one way or the other, but was also fascinated by science, and initially planned to pursue a career in that. He entered college to study the latter- taking a particular interest in insects and plants- but switched over to English Lit by the end of his first year. Be that as it may, science- and especially insects- would continue to inform many of his efforts moving forward.
After seeing his classmate David Secter's 1966 film Winter Kept Us Warm and falling in love with it, he became interested in film and started moving in that direction in earnest in the late 60's. The film was the first English language Canadian effort to be accepted into the Cannes Film Festival- a festival Cronenberg would also have favorable dealings with on down the line in his career, notably with the award-winning Crash- and was one of the first Canadian films to receive international attention.
It also dealt with homosexual themes at a time when few films dared to do so, and this influence can be felt in Cronenberg's early shorts, and would crop up time and again in his films, notably M. Butterfly and Naked Lunch, though Cronenberg himself was straight. Of the latter film's source material, the book by William S. Burroughs, Cronenberg said he thought that people were fascinated, albeit sometimes "disturbed" by things they didn't understand, and that many straight people found Burrough's "polymorphous perversion" to be "erotic" in spite of themselves because it was so unfamiliar- and he has a point. (See more about the subject, in regards to Naked Lunch, here, if you're so inclined.)
It also dealt with homosexual themes at a time when few films dared to do so, and this influence can be felt in Cronenberg's early shorts, and would crop up time and again in his films, notably M. Butterfly and Naked Lunch, though Cronenberg himself was straight. Of the latter film's source material, the book by William S. Burroughs, Cronenberg said he thought that people were fascinated, albeit sometimes "disturbed" by things they didn't understand, and that many straight people found Burrough's "polymorphous perversion" to be "erotic" in spite of themselves because it was so unfamiliar- and he has a point. (See more about the subject, in regards to Naked Lunch, here, if you're so inclined.)
To that end, he made two short films, 1966's Transfer and 1967's From the Drain, which touched upon the subject in decidedly quirky ways. I will be discussing both in detail, so if you want to see them first for yourself, click here for Transfer and here for From the Drain. Together, they only clock in around twenty minutes, so it's a pretty minor investment of your time, and you'll enjoy my assessments more if you've seen the two shorts.
The former deals with a psychiatrist (Mort Ritts, who plays a similar role in Drain), who is living in a snowy field, as one does. After brushing his teeth using grape soda as a moistener(!), the Doctor is surprised to find former patient Ralph (Rafe McPherson, who would go on to appear in Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future) sitting there in a chair.
Ralph immediately begins unloading his woes on the poor man. It turns out that the doctor has intentionally fled there to be rid of his needy patients, but Ralph has tracked him down somehow and confesses his love for him. The doctor is incensed to find out that his other patients have casually replaced him and laments that he wasn't properly appreciated by them.
He declares that he would have been treated like a prince back in the days of early psychology for his contributions to the field, instead of driven to exile. (During this rant, he calls out a litany of psychological terms that read like a laundry list of subject matters that Cronenberg would explore in his filmic future.) He lashes out at all his former patients, which leads Ralph to attempt to kill him with a knife for being ungrateful, but the doctor easily bats it away.
Ralph then confesses further that his visits with the doctor were the only thing he looked forward to and that he was basically only living for them and them alone, to the extent that he even circled the Tuesdays they met on his calendar up to a year in advance. He even admits to making up stuff to keep the doctor interested in him. The doctor is stunned and says he had no idea and rethinks his retirement.
Ralph promises that he will be "kind" and that he wouldn't "hurt you anymore than was necessary to make you to hurt me" (lol). Thus reconciled, the two resume their sessions there in the snowy fields as the film comes to an abrupt end and the credits roll.
Transfer is more of a bit of neo-sketch comedy than a proper story, and isn't really that funny- in fact, it's bordering on pretentious, but seemingly on purpose- but it's absolutely worthwhile to see how thoroughly it sets up many of the things Cronenberg would explore throughout his career. In addition to the various florid mentions of insects, the whole thing feels a bit like a spoof of the material he would later tackle with much more seriousness in his film A Dangerous Method.
The surreal nature of the whole endeavor makes one wonder if it was all meant to be a dream- note all the wacky symbolism and the bizarre way its shot. It could just be sloppy editing- courtesy of Cronenberg himself- but I think he was trying to emulate the very nature of dreams themselves and the way they just flit from one set-piece to the next, with no rhyme or reason. Too bad about the slipshod sound, though- but editing and sound issues are standard missteps for almost all aspiring student filmmakers, so it's hard to complain too much about such things.
Depending on how you look at it, the film could either be seen as a depiction of the Doctor coming to terms with his latent homosexuality- or Ralph doing the same, though he seems pretty upfront about things on his end. But is it the Doctor having the dream, or is it Ralph? After all, it does seem like a bit of wish fulfillment, given that he gets to be in the doctor's life again.
I'm guessing the former, since most of it is from the doctor's POV, but you never know. Though I haven't seen Winter Kept Us Warm, I'd be willing to bet that there was some direct influence on the proceedings there, given that film's subject matter.
It certainly would have been more noteworthy, in a sense, had Cronenberg himself came out as gay later on (as Secter did after his film), but obviously, such was not the case here -Cronenberg has been married twice and has three children, which may well account for the less-than-subtle way it's handled- but keep in mind it's supposed to be funny.
Anyone remotely familiar with the way gays were typically portrayed in film at the time will know that it tends to be a broad characterization at best, and boy, did it get worse before it got better, reaching a bit of nadir in the 80's. But it kind of says it all that- even after seeing a film (Winter) in which, by all accounts, gayness was portrayed in a subtle, less-in-your-face kind of way- when a straight guy did it, it came out as broad comedy. 😏 Fortunately, Cronenberg would get better at it in time, but more on that at a later date.
Moving on to 1967's From the Drain- which features a similarly cartoonish depiction of male homosexuality, though it's slightly less pronounced, with no wry proclamations of love or the like- we see another trope that would crop up time and again in Cronenberg's work: body horror. Here, it's kind of played for laughs as well, albeit with a darker bent than in Transfer.
The fourteen-minute short is set entirely in one locale: the bathroom of the "Disabled War Veterans Recreation Centre," where two unnamed men are sitting in a tub together having a mostly one-sided chat. Leading the convo is a man (Mort Ritts again) who declares himself to be the "Recreational Director," and laments how hard it is to meet people under the circumstances they find themselves in and about his bouts of PTSD after serving at the "Chemical and Biological Warfare Ministry," which may be a heads-up for what comes next.
As with Transfer, he serves as a bit of an ad-hoc psychiatrist to the troubled other man (Stephen Nosko), who believes there is a "tendril" out to get him lurking in the drain. (Remember what I said about a young Cronenberg's fascination with plants?) This being a Cronenberg film, naturally, there totally is, and when the lead man talks the other one into switching places with him to basically confront his fears, in actuality, he's setting the man up to be attacked by said plant tendril, which eventually makes an appearance and kills him.
The film ends with a punchline of sorts, when the lead man takes off the dead man's shoes and crosses to a closet where he tosses them onto a pile of many others- thus implying that he's done this on multiple occasions before. I didn't say it was a funny punchline, but it is a quintessentially Cronenbergian one, that's for sure, and the perfectly silly example of the type of dark humor he would later explore in his other work in a more subtle way.
The sound here is much approved, to say the least, as is the picture overall. Apparently having learned his lesson about shooting on location outside, Cronenberg keeps things indoors this time around, where he can control his given scenario in a far more effective way. That said, even at a mere 14 minutes, the film does drag a bit and the obtuse dialogue sticks out even more than it did in Transfer.
Be that as it may, close listeners will certainly hear the beginnings of themes and wordy dialogues that Cronenberg will explore more thoroughly and to much better effect in future endeavors, with stories revolving around scientific shenanigans, dubious doctors, long-suffering test subjects and, of course, creepy-crawly critters. It all starts with these two bizarre shorts.
Interestingly, at the time, Cronenberg was friends with then-future Saturday Night Live mastermind Lorne Michaels- who was already knee-deep in experimental sketch comedy- as well as fellow filmmaker Ivan Reitman (Meatballs, Stripes, Ghostbusters), who started directing his own short films in 1968.
Reitman and Cronenberg would found the Toronto Film Co-op together and Reitman would go on to produce Cronenberg's first two full-length features, Shivers (aka They Came From Within) and Rabid, while Cronenberg and Michaels would form the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre for underground filmmakers. In addition, Michaels' childhood friend, Howard Shore (seen above), who worked on SNL in the early days, went on to become Cronenberg's go-to film composer after Michaels introduced the two.
I think that Reitman and Michaels were a major influence on Cronenberg at the time and that led to the more comedic tone of his early shorts, which is why they seem a bit sillier that his later efforts. But Cronenberg would soon assert his own style soon enough, and though some of the themes and subjects explored in the these early works would certainly resurface, I think all us fans can be grateful that he didn't continue in this direction, as his touch with more straight-forward comedy leaves something to be desired.
That said, there has always been a certain degree of dark humor to much of Cronenberg's work, and it absolutely begins with these two shorts, and was almost certainly, in part, the result of his friendships with these two funny individuals. Even though outright humor is not a prominent feature in his work moving forward, it still informs it in a unique way that you occasionally can see rise to the fore in his more left-of-center films like Naked Lunch and Maps to the Stars.
And I say left-of-center in regards to his more common fare- which is to say, his more horror-oriented efforts, rather than his more recent films, which are very different in style and approach from his early work and don't necessarily qualify as horror films, per se, save maybe in the vaguest psychological terms.
Films like M. Butterfly, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method and Cosmopolis, in other words, none of which anyone would call outright horror, but all of which can be said to have had horrific moments, whether psychological or more overtly violent. And yet, they all have a warped sense of humor to them as well.
(Speaking of a sense of humor, check out this brief clip from the late 60's about Drain, in which Cronenberg is interviewed along with an associate (Bob Fothergill) with the largest lapels I've ever seen- the 70's called and want their fashion back- and they haven't even happened yet! 😁)
Like I said, all of that begins here, which makes these two shorts essential, even if they're hardly indicative of his best work to come. But what they do represent is the promise of what's to come, once Cronenberg nails down his voice as a filmmaker and is able to better express himself. To do that, he would need to stop emulating those around him, like Secter, Michaels and Reitman- to say nothing of the likes of Freud and Jung, though he would certainly explore their work to much greater effect in A Dangerous Method, to be sure.
Join me next time for Part Two of The Cronenberg Chronicles, in which I'll tackle his first basically feature-length film, Stereo, aka Tile 3B of a CAEE Educational Mosaic. I've seen two very different cuts of the film, and I'll be taking a look at them both, so be sure and join me for that next week! Until then... long live the new flesh! 💺📼😱
The former deals with a psychiatrist (Mort Ritts, who plays a similar role in Drain), who is living in a snowy field, as one does. After brushing his teeth using grape soda as a moistener(!), the Doctor is surprised to find former patient Ralph (Rafe McPherson, who would go on to appear in Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future) sitting there in a chair.
Ralph immediately begins unloading his woes on the poor man. It turns out that the doctor has intentionally fled there to be rid of his needy patients, but Ralph has tracked him down somehow and confesses his love for him. The doctor is incensed to find out that his other patients have casually replaced him and laments that he wasn't properly appreciated by them.
He declares that he would have been treated like a prince back in the days of early psychology for his contributions to the field, instead of driven to exile. (During this rant, he calls out a litany of psychological terms that read like a laundry list of subject matters that Cronenberg would explore in his filmic future.) He lashes out at all his former patients, which leads Ralph to attempt to kill him with a knife for being ungrateful, but the doctor easily bats it away.
Ralph then confesses further that his visits with the doctor were the only thing he looked forward to and that he was basically only living for them and them alone, to the extent that he even circled the Tuesdays they met on his calendar up to a year in advance. He even admits to making up stuff to keep the doctor interested in him. The doctor is stunned and says he had no idea and rethinks his retirement.
Ralph promises that he will be "kind" and that he wouldn't "hurt you anymore than was necessary to make you to hurt me" (lol). Thus reconciled, the two resume their sessions there in the snowy fields as the film comes to an abrupt end and the credits roll.
Transfer is more of a bit of neo-sketch comedy than a proper story, and isn't really that funny- in fact, it's bordering on pretentious, but seemingly on purpose- but it's absolutely worthwhile to see how thoroughly it sets up many of the things Cronenberg would explore throughout his career. In addition to the various florid mentions of insects, the whole thing feels a bit like a spoof of the material he would later tackle with much more seriousness in his film A Dangerous Method.
The surreal nature of the whole endeavor makes one wonder if it was all meant to be a dream- note all the wacky symbolism and the bizarre way its shot. It could just be sloppy editing- courtesy of Cronenberg himself- but I think he was trying to emulate the very nature of dreams themselves and the way they just flit from one set-piece to the next, with no rhyme or reason. Too bad about the slipshod sound, though- but editing and sound issues are standard missteps for almost all aspiring student filmmakers, so it's hard to complain too much about such things.
Depending on how you look at it, the film could either be seen as a depiction of the Doctor coming to terms with his latent homosexuality- or Ralph doing the same, though he seems pretty upfront about things on his end. But is it the Doctor having the dream, or is it Ralph? After all, it does seem like a bit of wish fulfillment, given that he gets to be in the doctor's life again.
I'm guessing the former, since most of it is from the doctor's POV, but you never know. Though I haven't seen Winter Kept Us Warm, I'd be willing to bet that there was some direct influence on the proceedings there, given that film's subject matter.
It certainly would have been more noteworthy, in a sense, had Cronenberg himself came out as gay later on (as Secter did after his film), but obviously, such was not the case here -Cronenberg has been married twice and has three children, which may well account for the less-than-subtle way it's handled- but keep in mind it's supposed to be funny.
Anyone remotely familiar with the way gays were typically portrayed in film at the time will know that it tends to be a broad characterization at best, and boy, did it get worse before it got better, reaching a bit of nadir in the 80's. But it kind of says it all that- even after seeing a film (Winter) in which, by all accounts, gayness was portrayed in a subtle, less-in-your-face kind of way- when a straight guy did it, it came out as broad comedy. 😏 Fortunately, Cronenberg would get better at it in time, but more on that at a later date.
Moving on to 1967's From the Drain- which features a similarly cartoonish depiction of male homosexuality, though it's slightly less pronounced, with no wry proclamations of love or the like- we see another trope that would crop up time and again in Cronenberg's work: body horror. Here, it's kind of played for laughs as well, albeit with a darker bent than in Transfer.
The fourteen-minute short is set entirely in one locale: the bathroom of the "Disabled War Veterans Recreation Centre," where two unnamed men are sitting in a tub together having a mostly one-sided chat. Leading the convo is a man (Mort Ritts again) who declares himself to be the "Recreational Director," and laments how hard it is to meet people under the circumstances they find themselves in and about his bouts of PTSD after serving at the "Chemical and Biological Warfare Ministry," which may be a heads-up for what comes next.
As with Transfer, he serves as a bit of an ad-hoc psychiatrist to the troubled other man (Stephen Nosko), who believes there is a "tendril" out to get him lurking in the drain. (Remember what I said about a young Cronenberg's fascination with plants?) This being a Cronenberg film, naturally, there totally is, and when the lead man talks the other one into switching places with him to basically confront his fears, in actuality, he's setting the man up to be attacked by said plant tendril, which eventually makes an appearance and kills him.
The film ends with a punchline of sorts, when the lead man takes off the dead man's shoes and crosses to a closet where he tosses them onto a pile of many others- thus implying that he's done this on multiple occasions before. I didn't say it was a funny punchline, but it is a quintessentially Cronenbergian one, that's for sure, and the perfectly silly example of the type of dark humor he would later explore in his other work in a more subtle way.
The sound here is much approved, to say the least, as is the picture overall. Apparently having learned his lesson about shooting on location outside, Cronenberg keeps things indoors this time around, where he can control his given scenario in a far more effective way. That said, even at a mere 14 minutes, the film does drag a bit and the obtuse dialogue sticks out even more than it did in Transfer.
Be that as it may, close listeners will certainly hear the beginnings of themes and wordy dialogues that Cronenberg will explore more thoroughly and to much better effect in future endeavors, with stories revolving around scientific shenanigans, dubious doctors, long-suffering test subjects and, of course, creepy-crawly critters. It all starts with these two bizarre shorts.
Interestingly, at the time, Cronenberg was friends with then-future Saturday Night Live mastermind Lorne Michaels- who was already knee-deep in experimental sketch comedy- as well as fellow filmmaker Ivan Reitman (Meatballs, Stripes, Ghostbusters), who started directing his own short films in 1968.
Reitman and Cronenberg would found the Toronto Film Co-op together and Reitman would go on to produce Cronenberg's first two full-length features, Shivers (aka They Came From Within) and Rabid, while Cronenberg and Michaels would form the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre for underground filmmakers. In addition, Michaels' childhood friend, Howard Shore (seen above), who worked on SNL in the early days, went on to become Cronenberg's go-to film composer after Michaels introduced the two.
I think that Reitman and Michaels were a major influence on Cronenberg at the time and that led to the more comedic tone of his early shorts, which is why they seem a bit sillier that his later efforts. But Cronenberg would soon assert his own style soon enough, and though some of the themes and subjects explored in the these early works would certainly resurface, I think all us fans can be grateful that he didn't continue in this direction, as his touch with more straight-forward comedy leaves something to be desired.
That said, there has always been a certain degree of dark humor to much of Cronenberg's work, and it absolutely begins with these two shorts, and was almost certainly, in part, the result of his friendships with these two funny individuals. Even though outright humor is not a prominent feature in his work moving forward, it still informs it in a unique way that you occasionally can see rise to the fore in his more left-of-center films like Naked Lunch and Maps to the Stars.
And I say left-of-center in regards to his more common fare- which is to say, his more horror-oriented efforts, rather than his more recent films, which are very different in style and approach from his early work and don't necessarily qualify as horror films, per se, save maybe in the vaguest psychological terms.
Films like M. Butterfly, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method and Cosmopolis, in other words, none of which anyone would call outright horror, but all of which can be said to have had horrific moments, whether psychological or more overtly violent. And yet, they all have a warped sense of humor to them as well.
(Speaking of a sense of humor, check out this brief clip from the late 60's about Drain, in which Cronenberg is interviewed along with an associate (Bob Fothergill) with the largest lapels I've ever seen- the 70's called and want their fashion back- and they haven't even happened yet! 😁)
Like I said, all of that begins here, which makes these two shorts essential, even if they're hardly indicative of his best work to come. But what they do represent is the promise of what's to come, once Cronenberg nails down his voice as a filmmaker and is able to better express himself. To do that, he would need to stop emulating those around him, like Secter, Michaels and Reitman- to say nothing of the likes of Freud and Jung, though he would certainly explore their work to much greater effect in A Dangerous Method, to be sure.
Join me next time for Part Two of The Cronenberg Chronicles, in which I'll tackle his first basically feature-length film, Stereo, aka Tile 3B of a CAEE Educational Mosaic. I've seen two very different cuts of the film, and I'll be taking a look at them both, so be sure and join me for that next week! Until then... long live the new flesh! 💺📼😱
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