Overview

David Cronenberg is one of the most fascinating filmmakers in the world today. His provocative work has stimulated debate and received major retrospectives in museums, galleries, and cinematheques around the globe. William Beard's The Artist as Monster was the first book-length scholarly work in English on Cronenberg's films, analyzing all of his features from Stereo (1969) to Crash (1996). In this paperback edition, Beard includes new chapters on eXistenZ (1999) and Spider (2002). Through close readings and visual analyses, Beard argues that the structure of Cronenberg's cinema is based on a dichotomy between, on the one hand, order, reason, repression, and control, and on the other, liberation, sexuality, disease, and the disintegration of self and of the boundaries that define society. The instigating figure in the films is a scientist character who, as Cronenberg evolves as a filmmaker, gradually metamorphoses into an artist, with the ground of liberation and catastrophe shifting from experimental subject to the self. Bringing a wealth of analytical observation and insight to Cronenberg's films, Beard's sweeping, comprehensive work has established the benchmark for the study of one of Canada's bestknown filmmakers.

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9780802038074

Table of Contents

Reviews

""The Artist as Monster offers the most thorough and balanced account of David Cronenberg ever published... Eminently readable and intellectually (as well as emotionally) engaging.' Monique Tschofen, Canadian Literature 'Essential reading for any fan of the filmmaker.' Matthew Hays, Mirror 'Beard's interpretation of Cronenberg's cinema is original and unique... A fascinating and rigorous critical examination.' Thomas Caldwell, Screening the Past 'A painstaking and meticulous analysis of the films.' Marc Horton, Edmonton Journal 'Timely and insightful... Highly recommended to anyone interested in the compelling and disturbing work of the eminence grise of contemporary English-Canadian art-cinema.' Scott McKenzie, British Journal of Canadian Studies

'A painstaking and meticulous analysis of the films.' -- Marc Horton Edmonton Journal 'The Artist as Monster offers the most thorough and balanced account of David Cronenberg ever published ... Eminently readable and intellectually (as well as emotionally) engaging.' -- Monique Tschofen Canadian Literature 'Beard is less interested in Cronenberg's authorial sensibility than in D.H. Lawrence's Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. He has a sense of the film itself thinking. This allows him to argue with Cronenberg and, as a critic, to go even farther with the films than Cronenberg, as his own critic, may be willing to do.' -- Greil Marcus Bookforum

The Artist as Monster offers the most thorough and balanced account of David Cronenberg ever published... Eminently readable and intellectually (as well as emotionally) engaging.' Monique Tschofen, Canadian Literature 'Essential reading for any fan of the filmmaker.' Matthew Hays, Mirror 'Beard's interpretation of Cronenberg's cinema is original and unique... A fascinating and rigorous critical examination.' Thomas Caldwell, Screening the Past 'A painstaking and meticulous analysis of the films.' Marc Horton, Edmonton Journal 'Timely and insightful... Highly recommended to anyone interested in the compelling and disturbing work of the eminence grise of contemporary English-Canadian art-cinema.' Scott McKenzie, British Journal of Canadian Studies

Author Information

William Beard is a professor in the Film and Media Studies Program at the University of Alberta.

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