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| James
Woods, Deborah Harry, Sonja Smits, Peter Dvorsky, Leslie
Carlson, Jack Creley |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley): Television
is reality, and reality is less than television.
Lowlife cable TV operator Max Renn
discovers a "snuff TV" broadcast called Videodrome.
 David
Cronenberg's breakthrough film remains a career-defining work,
mixing cerebral high concepts with visceral (and gory) effects,
all framed within a narrative that fascinates and confuses in more
or less equal measure. Made while working with an unfinished screenplay
at the time of the shoot, Videodrome actually seems to
benefit from its sometimes impossible-to-follow plot, its lack
of clear answers allowing for numerous readings of the film's richly
layered imagery. Hailed by many today as a prophetic treatise on
man's symbiotic relationship with technolgoy, and the parasitic,
intrinsically exploitative nature of commercial broadcasting, the
film has lost none of its power in the two decades since it was
made, and now stands as a true classic within its genre. |
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First released by Universal
on a bare-bones non-anamorphic DVD, the film has since been
licensed to The Criterion Collection, which has produced
an outstanding two-disc set with remastered audio and video
and a a plethora of extras. The Criterion release served
as the basis for this review.
The anamorphic widescreen
image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 1.85:1. The
image presented here is little short of revelatory, showing
off the outstanding special effects and tight visual design
to previously unknown effect, especially for those familiar
with the hazy VHS-release from way back when. The restored
print is miraculously ublemished, yielding a sharp, highly
detailed picture.
The mono sound mix serves Howard Shore's experimental, mostly
electronic score surprisingly well, especially now that it's
been cleaned up and significantly restored. Dialogues come
through crystal clear and sound effects also register with
high fidelity.
 First
of all, special credit must go to the amazing packaging
concept
and design,
which may be added to Criterion's already impressive list of recent accomplishments
(Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Rules of
the Game, The Adventures of Antoine Doinel). The dual
keepcase is designed to look like a Betamax tape, complete
with hand-written spine sticker and spindles on the bottom.
This is housed in a cardboard slipcase with the usual type
of design, completely selling the videotape illusion.
The first disc contains two audio commentary tracks, the first by director David
Cronenberg and cinematographer Mark Irwin, and the second with actors James Woods
and Deborah Harry. Cronenberg dominates the first track with his soft-spoken,
highly articulate remarks about filmmaking, censorship, and the circumstances
under which the film was made. As usual, he is reticent on the subject of the
film's meaning, but Woods and Harry give this subject their best shot in their
shared track.
Disc 2 houses the newly produced 28-minute documentary Forging
the
New Flesh, created by Videodrome's special video effects
supervisor
Michael
Lennick. If offers a fascinating exploration of the creation of the film's
prosthetics and
video
effects.
'Effects Men' is a series of audio interviews with Rick Baker
and Michael Lennick that further discuss the film's visual effects (as well as
more general information about their careers).
'Bootleg Video' presents the full-length versions of TV sequences that
we see as short excerpts in the film. All of these include optional audio commentary
from various participants.
'Fear on Film' is a 1981 round-table interview between David Cronenberg,
John Landis and John Carpenter, which would seem to bode well considering the
high points each director was then at within his career in the horror genre.
Disappointingly, the discussion never generates any sparks worth mentioning,
making this a surprisingly bland session given the contributors.
Finally, in the Marketing section, the disc offers three trailers:
a
teaser and two trailers, one of which is
a bizarrely alienating pre-digital age computer experience.
There's also the EPK 'The Making of Videodrome',
with contributions from Woods, Cronenberg, Harry, and Baker as well as some
behind-the-scenes footage. There's also a Marketing Gallery and
a gallery of Publicity
Stills. The included booklet is an outstanding (and beautfiully designed)_collection
of
old and new writing on Videodrome.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
September 12, 2004
Click
here for IMDB info on Videodrome.
Click here
to return to the front page.
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