Friday, 18 July 2014

Videodrome


Also Known As:
Unknown
Year:
1982
Country:
Canada…
Predominant Genre:
Horror
Director:
David Cronenberg…
Best Performances:
Peter DVORSKY… James WOODS…
Premiss:
Programmer seeks the ultimate in viewing thrills to boost the ratings of his small television channel.
Themes:
Original Sin | Self-expression | Compassion | Totalitarianism | White culture | White people
Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
Brainstorm (1983)… Poltergeist (1982)… Snuff (1976)… Strange Days (1995)…
Review Format:
DVD

Savage, New Times

Television was not invented to make human beings vacuous, but is an emanation of their vacuity.

Malcolm Muggeridge… (1903 - 90), British broadcaster. Tread Softly For You Tread on My Jokes, “I Like Dwight” (1966).

Clever movie about the ennui of White culture and its resultant obsession with mediated experiences - be they televisual or, now, Internet-connected. By assuming genetic superiority, Whites have rendered themselves necessarily psychologically-repressed in order to ensure they feel no empathy for those they attempt to exploit (Blacks, women, Muslims, the poor, etc.); otherwise, the exploitation would make them feel guilty.

But this has led to Whites lacking a proper and full emotional life; in this instance, seeking tv substitutes that make tv more real than reality. To those who become addicted to the gogglebox, the sense of the intimacy of a sexual experience is priovided, but without the actual intimacy.

...[W]e love television because television brings us a world in which television does not exist. In fact, deep in their hearts, this is what the spuds crave most: a rich, new, participatory life.

Barbara Ehrenreich… (born 1941), US author, columnist. The Worst Years of Our Lives, “Spudding Out” (1991; first published 1988), of “couch potatoes. ”

This inward-looking and narcissistic approach to living refuses to accept the need to offer any evidence for any statement of whom one is. Lacking evidence of their superiority, Whites attempt to use technology as a means to self-improve the breed.

The characterization of the quintessential neurosis of Western culture is well-presented through well-drawn characters who, yet, lack the soul the dramatist is struggling to explore. Yet this is sophisticated horror for grown-ups.

For Whites, the issue is: Do their hang-ups cause the refusal to face reality or does the refusal to face reality cause the hang-ups? Either way, a lack of humility leads to inevitable and internecine self-destruction: Sensually, emotionally & morally.


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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.