New and longtime Cronenberg fans will devour this intelligent, earnest, and comprehensive tribute.
This collection of essays, interviews, and short fiction explores the provocative themes and undeniable impact of a cult filmmaker.
David Cronenberg enthusiasts place his more popular movies, from Videodrome to The Fly, in the “body horror” subgenre. They’re perhaps best remembered for scenes of deliriously grotesque and fleshy metamorphoses. But this book’s editors, Kelso and Rice, spotlight seven early works from the Canadian writer/director—shorts, feature films, and episodes of TV anthology series from the 1960s and ’70s. A variety of contributors examine Cronenberg-ian themes, like “aberrant sexuality” and horror coming from within (without a tangible “external threat”), which run throughout the filmmaker’s oeuvre. Even without the visceral imagery, readers will easily see his distinctive tone and the abstract concepts he expresses physically (for example, telepaths in the film Stereo reaching elevated states of consciousness via “sexual experimentation”). Not surprisingly, linking so many of Cronenberg’s movies sparks many analyses of his later filmography as well, especially throughout the ’80s and ’90s. While much of the text dissects cinematic themes, the volume does touch on the auteur’s intriguing background as he began working in a subgenre that was relatively unknown in his home country. Elsewhere in this collection, writers deliver short fiction inspired by Cronenberg’s legacy or his early work. Matthew M. Bartlett’s “The Lie Chair,” for example, adapts a 1976 TV episode but adds a clever twist. Notwithstanding a potpourri of voices, the fictional stories boast a Cronenberg-ian flair. In Elle Nash’s incisive “artGOD,” she writes: “My toes graze the revolting flesh. / Her fist is a veiny organ.” The editors round out their book with illustrations by various artists as well as interviews with other filmmakers, novelists who have collaborated with Cronenberg, and the director himself, who’s as intriguing and indelible as the movies he’s bestowed upon the world.
New and longtime Cronenberg fans will devour this intelligent, earnest, and comprehensive tribute.Pub Date: June 30, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-948687-57-7
Page Count: 358
Publisher: 11:11 Press
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.
Celebrating a beloved artist.
Published to coincide with a major exhibition of works by British-born artist David Hockney (b. 1937) at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, this lushly illustrated volume offers a detailed overview of the artist’s life and work, along with chapters focused on his various styles and subject matter, a chronology, and a glossary of the many techniques he employed in his art, including camera lucida, computer, and video. Contributors of essays include noted art historians and curators, such as Norman Rosenthal, who edited the volume; Simon Schama; Anne Lyles; James Cahill; and François Michaud. Growing up in the north of England, Hockney was drawn to the light and sparkle that he found in Hollywood movies. When he finally arrived in Los Angeles, the sunlit landscapes inspired him, and his new sense of artistic freedom concurred with sexual freedom: As a gay man, he felt liberated from the constraints that had weighed on him in Britain, even in the “relative Bohemia” of the Royal College of Art. Essayists reflect on his artistic interests, such as landscapes, portraiture, flowers, and the opera—for which he created boldly exuberant sets—as well as on his influences and experimentation. Michaud examines the impact on Hockney of a visit to Paris in the 1970s, where he became familiar with Henri Matisse and his contemporaries from museum exhibitions. In the 1990s, visiting his mother and friends in Yorkshire, Hockney painted both outdoors and in the studio, experimenting with various media—including the photocopier and fax machine—as he worked to render the woodsy landscape. As a companion to the exhibition, the volume offers stunning reproductions of Hockney’s prolific works. Enormously popular with museumgoers, Hockney, Rosenthal exults, “transforms the ordinary and the everyday into the remarkable.”
A beautifully produced, engaging homage.Pub Date: June 3, 2025
ISBN: 9780500029527
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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