portfolio
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Work With Me
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Work With Me
portfolio

changes: reflecting on David Cronenberg's The fly

8/21/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
David Cronenberg’s The Fly depresses the shit out of me. And yet, in a weird, mutated kind of way it’s one of my all time favourites and a movie I find myself returning to time and time again. As it turns the grand old age of thirty this year, it suddenly dawned on me that a lot more has changed in that time than Seth Brundle’s eating habits. I started to wonder whether a viewer’s journey to films like this could possibly be the same as they were during the intervening years since its release or if right now, everything's as unrecognisable as Brundlefly himself. 

I remember buying a battered VHS copy of The Fly from a dusty video store as a teenager. It was right around the time that I’d made the bulletproof decision to start collecting video tapes because it wasn’t like they were going anywhere anytime soon and they were really cheap for some reason. Until then, the only time I’d crossed paths with the movie was on late nights where I’d managed to stay up past my bedtime and even then I’d only seen snippets. I’d fallen asleep before the end, glimpsed some gore and heard rumours about its outlandish spectacle. I was instantly intrigued. 

Because back then (well, in the mid-90s), you couldn’t just Google a film, learn all its trivia and watch a Youtube montage of its best bits within the space of three seconds. That’s why finding an old video shop was such, well, a find. It was akin to what vinyl fans are experiencing today. When I saw that knackered copy of Cronenberg’s movie, I knew I had to snap it up. 

That £3 investment didn’t disappoint. Looking back, The Fly perfectly encapsulates all that was great about 80s cinema. Fear of technology, dystopian futures, slime - I’ve always had this theory that the 80s had the best movie ideas but lacked the technology to do them all justice. However little did filmmakers at the time know, their barriers were in fact charm generators. All those shortcuts and rough-and-ready make-up techniques are now the most fondly remembered scenes of all and no film has more of these than The Fly. 

People think Cronenberg was making a comment on AIDS with Seth’s speedy and unfortunate transformation and maybe he was. However reflecting on it thirty years later, it’s eerily resonant of our crippling need to better ourselves, at any cost. Seth Brundle had his revolutionary telepods to help carve his name in the history books. We have the internet. Both of us will do whatever it takes to succeed, going to reckless or even dangerous lengths. “You’re jealous!” shouts a clammy and paranoid Jeff Goldblum to Geena Davis’s wide-eyed Veronica. With so much social-media personality sculpting going on these days, it’s not just Seth Brundle who’s green-eyed and paranoid. 

But more importantly, the very way in which audiences discover films like this has changed indefinitely. I can’t fully quantify the impact wandering around video rental shops, be it a Blockbuster or a cigarette smoke-filled family chain, had on shaping my film tastes. It was a rite-of-passage of sorts. There was always that one film that was never in or a video box with cover art so cool, you didn’t even need to know anything about its story, you just knew you had to see it. The Fly was certainly one of those films and the impact of that experience lingers. I’m still searching all corners of the internet for long-forgotten titles that I remember purely from those childhood trips. Which reminds me, if you’ve got a copy of Spaced Invaders, hit me up. 

Later, I worked in a video store myself, spending countless hours manning a desk with a Clerks-esque expression on my face because I usually wasn’t even suppose to be there that day. And while family-run shops were long-extinct and the Blockbuster chain wasn’t looking too healthy, I noticed that the treasure-trove hunt mentality was still very much alive and well. Making recommendations to punters who wanted nothing more than a decent time-killer for a Sunday afternoon was all part of the experience too, transporting them down a cinematic side-path they may have otherwise ignored. 

Kids born post-2013 will never, ever get the chance to experience that. Robbed of something they never even knew existed. You could argue Netflix provides a similar substitute but it’s more insular and less social. While water-cooler hits like Stranger Things and Making a Murderer rise to the top, more obscure but no less compelling titles remain ignored. The only difference is this time, there’s no snarky desk monkey with a name badge to point them out or eye-catching artwork hiding on the bottom shelf to pique your interest and influence your cinematic tastes forever.

Maybe 2016’s answer to The Fly is lurking in Netflix's digital depths. In fact, I’m sure it is but kids these days are none the wiser. Like Seth Brundle, the system’s experienced a stark transformation. It’s been taken apart and put back together as something new. Let’s just hope there aren’t any hidden side-effects.

This blog can now be found on The Skinny. 
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author: Simon Bland
    t: @SiTweetsToo

    Simon is a freelance entertainment journalist and this is his blog.

    Archives

    February 2023
    November 2021
    July 2021
    April 2021
    September 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016

    Want to Time travel back to my old blog? Click below!

    Picture

    Categories

    All
    Academy Award
    Actors
    Alien
    Arctic Monkeys
    Avengers
    Avengers Endgame
    Awards
    Bill And Ted
    Blockbusters
    Blog
    Blogs
    Breaking Bad
    Cinema
    Cinemas
    Comedy
    Culture Dump
    Curb Your Enthusiasm
    DC
    Festivals
    Film
    Films
    Game Of Thrones
    Gary Oldman
    Gigs
    Gremlins 2
    Harry Potter
    HBO
    Horror
    Indiana Jones
    Infinity War
    Interview
    Jim Carrey
    Joe Dante
    Jon Snow
    Jurassic Park
    Kevin Smith
    Kit Harington
    Kit Harington Interview
    Larry David
    Mad Men
    Marvel
    Movies
    Music
    Nostalgia
    Pirated Movies
    Pop Culture
    Predator
    Quotes
    Rick And Morty
    Roma
    Sequels
    Some Words
    Star Wars
    Stranger Things
    Superhero
    Superhero Movies
    Superior Sequel
    Television
    The Disaster Artist
    The Oscars
    The Simpsons
    TV
    Young Adult

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.