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The Fly



cast :

Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz

crew :

Directed by: David Cronenberg
Written by: Charles Edward Pogue/David Cronenberg
Produced by: Stuart Cornfield
DOP: Mark Irwin
Editor: Ronald Sanders
Music Score by: Howard Shore

release date :

1986

Having already established himself as the ‘king of venereal horror’, through the disturbing bodily manifestations that were 'Shivers' (1975), 'Rabid' (1977), 'The Brood' (1979) and 'Videodrome' (1983), and subsequently creating his own sub-genre of body horror, 'The Fly' (1986) provided director David Cronenberg with an appropriately gruesome canvas on which to further exemplify his compulsive and exploitative preoccupation with mortality and disease.


Employing his renowned body conscious style Cronenberg chose to depart from both George Langelaan’s short story and Kurt Neumann’s 1958 B-movie original, in terms of unleashing a more profound, deeply emotional tale of a man facing a horrific metamorphic consequence, while keeping faithful to the original’s simplistic lucid plot strand, which involved the struggle of a scientist, fused with a fly at the molecular genetic level. The film is essentially two people in a room, and it is this simple geographical concept that helps to intensify and concentrate the dramatic development of the story: the confined gloomy monochromic warehouse setting provokes an overwhelming sense of isolation, as if being locked inside with the characters, while the touching relationship between the two leads drives the film emotionally. Although essentially interior based 'The Fly' could be considered as being indebted to the earlier apocalyptic landscapes of Shivers and Rabid, developing traditional Cronenbergian fears of disease by hinting at the strange evolutionary workings of an unknown internal presence. Probe further still and the director’s claims that the film is a metaphor for the ageing process fuel a more persuasive analysis. The body’s ability to have independent control over the self through transformation and mutation is played out through the aggregation of Brundlefly – as scientist Seth Brundle is altered mentally as well as physically, demonstrating the tragedy of mortality, making the film a frighteningly personal viewing experience.


But, typically Cronenberg plays with our own understanding of mortality: Seth appears rejuvenated after his first teleportation experiment, emerging with a more muscular physique, new superhuman strengths, a defined sexual potency and a volatile and unhinged temperament. However, after a month’s self-imposed isolation, Seth’s body noticeably appears to retreat into a ‘weakened’ and repulsively diseased state, losing various body parts and rendered practically immobile.


Although 'The Fly' is a film within the boundaries of the science-fiction/horror genre, Cronenberg is able to translate to the audience some very real horrors relating to disease that hold some very serious and disturbing metaphoric implications. A scene in the bathroom is particularly unsettling in its morbid inevitability. In the scene Seth is looking at himself through the mirror, examining his tarnished complexion, when his fingernail seemingly breaks away in his mouth. He examines his other fingers and finds that the nail can easily be torn off them too. His fears of mortality have been shockingly confirmed in this very moment and there is a deeply disturbing physical reality that haunts the film from this scene onwards: the reality of disease-riddled deterioration and inevitable looming death.


But as we learn later this is only one unique stage of the disease – it is merely riddling itself of its human shell and tarnishing the human mental state inside. After another significant period of time what is seemingly a matter of weeks we witness a creepily optimistic and significantly transformed Seth, who is in total acceptance of what’s happening to him and is empowered with a newly restored physical energy coupled with insectoid skills. As Seth aptly puts it he appears “to be stricken by a disease with a purpose”. As in the majority of Cronenberg’s oeuvre it is often the metaphysical that intervenes: the result of Brundlefly is the yoking of two very different, inharmonious entities into one unique transformation, but the emotional and visceral complications that were involved further serve to bring an extra dimension to Seth’s terrifying ordeal. It was Seth’s paranoid jealousy - brought on by Veronica’s dealings with her slimy boss and ex-boyfriend Stathis Borans (John Getz) - that fuelled his decision to go through the teleport without following proper precautions and this subsequently led to his distraction when a housefly crept into the tele pod with him. Another noticeably Cronenbergian element is that it’s usually a character’s unprecedented curiosity and search for answers that ultimately results in their own explicit undoing and downfall. Characters in Cronenberg’s world usually take on the investigative profession of scientists or gynaecologists, where their acts of meddling with nature, (see everything from the evolutionary tinkering in 'Shivers' to the Mantle twin’s obsessive compulsive biological experimentations in 'Dead Ringers' (1988)), and their tireless attempt to push the boundaries of evolution to the extreme, usually end up bringing them answers that end up destroying their very existence.


Jeff Goldblum is electrifying in the central role of Seth Brundle, conveying a refreshingly weird and eccentric take on the mad scientist archetype. Like Christopher Walken’s turn in Cronenberg’s previous film 'The Dead Zone' (1983), Goldblum brings a newly found emotional integrity through his rare star quality presence, which was somewhat lacking in Cronenberg’s early ‘tax shelter’ offerings. Rendered speechless in the original, Cronenberg wisely allows his doomed protagonist to be articulate throughout, permitting him to rationalise his disease as his flesh gradually folds away, consequently penetrating the audience further into his horrid predicament. It is apt to read Goldblum’s condemned protagonist against a long line of classic tragic figures, from Lon Chaney and Lon Chaney Jr. in the 'Phantom of the Opera' (1925) and 'The Wolfman' (1941) respectively, to Charles Laughton’s turn in 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1939). All are characters that are in love with women who are repelled by their looks.


Whilst deepening the human element of the story Cronenberg is still able to assert his continual discerned interest in the hidden inner working of the biological profession, metaphorically expressed in his claustrophobic mise-en-scene: dominate use of interiorised spaces where corporate buildings are shrouded externally in darkness as if conspicuously hiding a sinister something, subsequently bringing to mind the sinister Consec and Somafree institutions in 'Scanners' (1981) and 'The Brood' (1979) respectively.


Seth’s remote warehouse laboratory apartment also gradually takes on a distinctive metamorphic resonance throughout the progression of the film. The use of blue filtered low key lighting in early scenes create sombre warmth, which helps to frame the playful romantic tension between the two leads at the beginning of their relationship. But as the story evolves this expressionistic use of lighting and deep tonal contrast in shadows takes on a whole new meaning, leading to a distinctively haunting tone that heightens the tension and creeping fear and horrific mental conflict that menaces our main protagonist. The formerly spacious interior area becomes an agonisingly claustrophobic and hellish alien environment that homes a horribly disfigured man.


In addition to this the second male participate in this unique ménage à trois, ‘Participle’ magazine editor Stathis Borans, also goes through a significant character transformation in the film, from a clingy, slime ball of a boss (and jealous former lover) of Veronica, to a concerned confidante and evidential heroic savour. Although horrifically wounded, he manages to foil Seth’s ghastly attempt to create ‘the ultimate family’ at the film’s denouncement, by destroying the tele pods that would have fused Seth and the now pregnant Veronica together. This interesting flux in protagonist/antagonist characterisations in 'The Fly' is pivotal toward an understanding of how audience identification and emotional involvement shifts throughout the film. The good guy/bad guy archetypal roles essentially flip between Seth Brundle and Stathis Borans, until we find ourselves sympathising with the formerly ‘feared’ bad guy and dreading the good guy, who has now quite literally transformed into the ‘monster’.


Complementing the characters’ horrific predicament, Howard Shore’s incredibly visceral score sores at the emotional core, providing a hypnotically chilling tone that underlines the brooding disquieting aesthetic, while intensifying the central dramatization to an epic scale. The film’s final denouement is a horrific gore fest spectacle, which at one gruesome point sees Seth’s entire body shell peel away before his lover’s eyes to reveal the hideous alien abdomen undercoating. The foiled attempt to splice Veronica with Seth, ends with Seth being fused with the tele pod and emerging a horrifically twisted metamorphic figure. Crawling out of the pod, the mortally wounded Brundlefly silently pleads his lover to end his life with Stathis’ shotgun, which a tearful Veronica undertakes reluctantly.


This gruesome conclusion may momentarily hark back to the The Fly’s B-movie monster origins in terms of aesthetics, but it is to Cronenberg’s obligated credit that his version has evolved from the crude camp credentials of that era, providing an arguably grotesque yet entirely persuasive commentary on the unnerving vulnerability of our bodies and our minds.


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Country: UK/Canada/USA
Budget: $15,000,000
Length: 95mins


Filmography:
'The Brood', 1979, David Cronenberg, Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC)
'Scanners', 1981, David Cronenberg, Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC)
'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', 1939, William Dieterle, RKO Radio Pictures
'The Wolfman', 1941, George Waggner, Universal Pictures
'Phantom of the Opera', 1925, Rupert Julian, Universal Pictures
'The Dead Zone', 1983, David Cronenberg, Dino De Laurentiis Company
'Dead Ringers', 1988, David Cronenberg, Mantle Clinic II
'Videodrome', 1983, David Cronenberg, Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC)
'Rabid', 1977, David Cronenberg, Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC)
'Shivers', 1975, David Cronenberg, Canadian Film Development Corporation (CFDC)


Pub/2008


More like this:
The Amazing Transparent Man, 1960, directed by Edger G. Ulmer
Hollow Man, 2000, directed by Paul Verhoeven
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004, directed by Michel Gondry