The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg [Paperback]

William Beard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 18, 2006

PAPERBACK INCLUDES TWO NEW CHAPTERS

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 world. 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 into Cronenberg's films, Beard's sweeping, comprehensive work has established the benchmark for the study of one of Canada's best-known filmmakers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'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 )

About the Author

William Beard is a professor and film studies program director in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta.

Product Details

• Paperback: 550 pages
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division; Rev Exp edition (February 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802038077
• ISBN-13: 978-0802038074
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #444,272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Critic as Monster, November 3, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg (Hardcover)

I'm pretty sure I've read every book available about David Cronenberg in two languages (English & French). This book by William Beard is probably the thickest and says the least.

Beard analyzes Cronenberg film by film (up to but not including Existenz). His approach is academic. Now I have no problem with theoretical or erudite books, being a professor myself. But this book, entrenched in academic film analysis, must be the least enlightening book on a director that I've ever read. It takes utterly trivial insights and phrases them in the most long-winded verbiage.

Here's a sample from the first paragraph of the chapter about Videodrome. Decide for yourself:

In Videodrome, "there is finally a shift of the ground of the action into the male protagonist, a centralization of this masculine figure who can now properly represent the masculine sensibility of the film. The marginalization or diminishment of this figure in the earlier features looks in retrospect like a kind of evasion -- or, to be more charitable, perhaps simply a stage in the filmmaker's continuing hunt to discover the ground zero of desire and prohibition. Now, that centre is at last discovered to be not the sexually transgressive woman, nore the inventor-father, nor unfeeling and predatory elements of society (although all of those forms are importantly present in Videodrome), but, rather, the self. And the appetites and anxieties, with their bodily mutations and diseases, finally unfold in and enact themselves on the self, and the self's body. The self is the monster." (page 121)

I would think that this must be a central paragraph of Beard's book, since he bases his title on it (artist as monster). But what is he really saying? That the "self" is monstrous because "appetites and anxieties" give it a working-over? Everyone has appetites and anxieties -- why is that so monstrous? How does that illuminate the film? It's hard to tell what analytical stance this even represents -- some vague form of psychoanalytical criticism?

In the preface to the book Beard admits that he thinks Cronenberg is not a "great artist but a powerful minor one." I couldn't help but think that this was the book's entire problem. It thought more of itself than of Cronenberg.

Personally I think Cronenberg is a great artist, and this book is a minor one -- a powerless minor one.

(If you want help understanding Cronenberg, try the Pocket Essentials book by John Costello -- which is clear and to the point -- or, if you can read French, the interviews with Cronenberg by Serge Grunberg. The latter is probably the best book about Cronenberg available).

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most comprehensive study of Cronenberg's movies, December 10, 2004

By 

pl - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg (Hardcover)

In my large collection of books on David Cronenberg this is the most important one. Beard shuns unreasonable or extremely biased attitudes (like radical feminism) - which does not mean he ignores them: on the contrary, he eagerly engages in polemic discussion, often incorporating some notions specific for various ideologies into his own discourse. Doing so, he performs a comprehensive analysis of Cronenberg's films, seen both as separate and intertextual pieces of art. It is really amazing to see how he manages to combine the complexities of academic approach with the utmost clarity of message.

This is partially due to the structure of the book, which also makes it extremely easy to use - movies are discussed in separate chapters, divided into smaller sections, devoted to the most important themes and motifs present in each of them.

For all those reasons, Beard's book is not only a valuable and helpful source for all kinds of academic discussion, but also a great reading for all Cronenberg fans.