Cronenberg's SPIDER
 

Has anyone seen David Cronenberg's 'SPIDER' Yet ? Let me know what u think of it. I'm a Cronenberg fan.

Good question.... Wrong forum....

damn - I thought this might be coming out in Canada soon :(

'course now that I think of it, the premiere was at Toronto, so yeah, that'd be a little early.

Moving to duh talk.

I've seen it. And if you are a Cronenberg fan, you'd like it. It starts out slow in the beginning, but it picks up somewhere in the middle. A very intelligent film actually, like all Cronenberg's movies are.

With the exception of M. Butterfly I love Cronenberg's more "sedate/mature" material. I am very much looking forward to this, especially knowing DC's skill with actors and the ability of the cast he chose to work with.

I haven't heard any buzz on this, but am eagerly waiting to see it.

If you live near St. Louis, The St. Louis International Film Festival will be showing SPIDER November 24 at 6:30 PM at the Tivoli Theatre. Tickets are $8.00 and can be purchased in advance. I already have mine!

cheers, Tony Block


http://www.sliff.org/2002/films/spider.htm


http://www.sliff.org/

Wow, Tony Block, I was just going to post the same thing about Spider. I saw a couple of other films there on opening night.

I'll be wearing a green TREES LOUNGE baseball hat if you wanna stop by and say hi or grab a coffee or beer afterwards and talk about the movie.


cheers, Tony Block

I finally got to see this today and liked it a lot. Not quite as disturbing as some of his other stuff and some might find the slow pace a downer, but I really enjoyed it. There were points where I thought the film was going down a lame path, but by the end I was totally satisfied. I'd rate it as one of his better films.

I saw spider yesterday and really liked it.

Very well directed and acted - esp. Fiennes and Miranda Richardson.


I thought of the 'Spider' character as a writer, unintelligible to others, trying to make sense of the events in his life and going as far as to invent events to put things together. But to the viewers, who know he's insane, its apparent when he's making stuff up.

Its by no means a horror film but I was holding my breath at a couple of places.

8/10.

I really think this is one of Cronenberg's best, and one of the best new films seen this year. I'm definitely checking it out again.

There's a lot I'd like to comment on, but just one thing for now. Spider could have been a great silent film. That is, if it weren't for the astounding sound design. I could watch this without any dialogue. Cronenberg's vision of Spider's world is just brilliantly realized and a joy to watch in itself.

One review I read wanted to include narration (from the book, adapted for the screen by the author Patrick McGrath), in order to clarify Spider's mind. I could not disagree more. The immersion and ambiguity is essential.

Also, I wasn't surprised to see Cronenberg deftly handling the Madonna/whore dichotomy. He seems to revel in it, judging from some of his past works.

I saw Spider again last night. And boy, does it get even better the second time. Once you're familiar with the plot and narrative structure, the intricacies of Cronenberg's direction come to the forefront. And the efforts of Miranda Richardson, Ralph Fiennes, Gabriel Byrne, Lynn Redgrave and John Neville are doubly appreciated. This film is genuinely moody, but I didn't find the pacing slow. It moves relatively quickly. After all it's under 100 minutes.

I like the comment about comparing Spider to a writer. He's constructing a world around himself taken from pieces (jigsaw or glass) rooted in reality and fantasy. But in this second viewing, I don't think it's that easy for the audience to distinguish what's fabricated in his mind. There are instances of reality, of him existing in a tactile world, however I found them sparse and scattered.

I was amazed at the tension and horror of the last scene:

MAJOR SPOILERS

The film is strongly oedipal and Freudian. I felt that clearly the intended freudain reading is that his mother WAS the madonna, but with the first burgeoning feelings of adolescent sexual development, Spider begins to see the madonna as a whore. As we begin to understand what our fathers are doing with our mothers in the bedroom we develop guilt complexes. Spider developed a rather chronic case. He didn't like his father, he felt he was a monster, so he "blames" the monsterous father for making the mother into a whore. Spider envisiones this transformation from mother to whore as an actuall murder, but of course there was no murder.

An excerpt from last week's interview with The Onion (Cronenberg on Freud):

And Pants, I'm not trying to sink your statements. I just found your comments interesting considering I just read the interview this morning:

http://www.theonionavclub.com/avclub...ture_3909.html

I do agree, though, that the Freudian aspect is much more prevalent than Cronenberg is stating.

I am not a strong adherent of the Freudian theory either, I just felt it was pretty strong in the film.

After my initial viewing I immediately discounted some scenes as pure fantasy - where 'Spider' is not shown on screen as a witness (specifically the burial and the hand-job scene.) And then there a couple of scenes where he is shown but could not have been present for - I suppose these could be interpreted as amalgams of fantasy and reality. His father did frequent the bars but did he actually pick up women?

All writers are taught to write from their experience - in Spider's case this reconstruction of events is not only a way to deal with his neuroses but might have even been helpful. Unfortunately, figuring out the story lead him to reveal his own crime.

Great, now I have to see this one more time. I was thinking of a reply but then another question cropped up (which I'll get to later).

SPOILERS

But anyway, let me get to the point I wanted to make. I think there were crucial ambiguities in the settings and locations.

Firstly, I want to illustrate the moments when Spider is in an objective, concrete setting. One is the opening shot with the people exiting the train, with the exiting passengers in relatively contemporary dress (one review said this was set in the 80s). Another is when Spider is in front of the Dog & Beggar in the daytime, with people sitting out front. Then there's the slight confrontation with the mother and baby on Kitchener Street.

Now, I initially thought that Spider going to a halfway house so close to his boyhood home was suspicious. I'm refering to the gasworks and canal, both prominent landmarks for both times. And the audience sees the garden and shack before it has any reference to Spider's past (granted, him laying down in the dirt is a red flag).

So, what I felt the second time around was that Spider arrived in this town and went to this halfway house, AND THEN started conforming his past into this current location (starting a new chapter, if you will, in his book). What I mean is that if he ended up in, say, downtown Chicago, or anywhere else, that place would become the root of his childhood. The final shot of the young Spider driving away is a match of the older version in the same car, making the whole experience cyclical. How many times has he experienced this? With every matronly figure he's encountered?

It makes the story that much more tragic. In the first half, you can see the effort Spider is putting forth in trying to escape his world. A crucial point is when Yvonne takes over (right after she and Mr. Cleg return home drunk after burying Mrs. Cleg). Everything falls apart for him then.

As to what I need to find out. When Spider encounters the mother and baby (on Kitchener Street) outside their flat, was THAT his old home? We only see the front of the Clegs' house in the final scene and there it's drenched in grime and darkly lit? I didn't think of that connection until I started thinking about the above theory. I initially thought that the front of the halfway house may be the front of his old home.

It's funny. I've read reviews that placed the flashback scenes as taking place in the 1940's, the 1960's, and the 1980's!!! Not much consesus of opinion here :)

I think that each viewer automatically places the flashbacks in the period of their own childhood, and that speaks volumns for the film's nature

No, I meant the time of Spider's release, not the flashbacks.

Either way my point is the same.

Okay, I have another question:

What was in the bowl Yvonne made Bill and Dennis when they returned from the garden? Some kind of blackened intestine? I'm not up on English or Irish dishes. Byrne's reaction is great.

They were freshwater eels.

Ah, makes sense. Didn't look too appetizing . . .

gracias

JUst saw this fim tonight and was confused by some of it. Perhaps a second viewing is in order. My date seemed to get it more than I did.