- Stereo (film)
Infobox Film
name = Stereo
caption = DVD Cover for Stereo andCrimes of the Future
director =David Cronenberg
producer =David Cronenberg
writer =David Cronenberg
narrator =
starring =Ronald Mlodzik
Jack Messinger
Iain Ewing
Clara Mayer
Paul Mulholland
Arlene Mlodzik
Glenn McCauley
music =
cinematography =David Cronenberg
editing =David Cronenberg
distributor =Film Canada Presentations
released =23 June ,1969
runtime = 65 min.
country =Canada
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:111723
imdb_id = 0065036"Stereo" is a 1969 Canadian film written, shot, edited and directed by
David Cronenberg . It stars Ronald Mlodzik, who also appears in Cronenberg's "Crimes of the Future ", "Shivers" and "Rabid ". It was Cronenberg's first major effort after his two short films, "Transfer" and "From the Drain ". It runs approximately one hour long – longer than ashort film , but not quite a full-length feature. This film is set in 1996.ummary
The film purports to be part of a "mosaic" of educational resources by the Canadian Academy of Erotic Enquiry. It documents an experiment by the unseen Dr. Luther Stringfellow. A young man (Ronald Mlodzik) in a black cloak is seen arriving at the Academy, where he joins group of young volunteers who are being endowed with
telepathic abilities which they are encouraged to develop through sexual exploration. It is hoped that telepathic groups, bonded in polymorphous sexual relationships, will form a socially stabilising replacement for the "obsolescent family unit". One girl develops a secondary personality in order to cope with her new state of consciousness, which gradually ousts her original personality. As the volunteers' abilities develop, the experimenters find themselves increasingly unable to control the progress of the experiment. They decide to separate the telepaths, which results in two suicides. The final sequence shows the young woman who developed an extra personality wearing the black cloak.Production
The film was shot in black and white, and silent because the camera Cronenberg was using made too much noise. A commentary, purportedly by various followers of Stringfellow's theories, and parodying scientific and metaphysical jargon, was added later.
Analysis
The film embodies several themes now common within Cronenberg's body of work. The exploration (voluntary or otherwise) of new states of consciousness via sexual experimentation is a major theme in "Shivers", "
Videodrome ", "Dead Ringers", "Naked Lunch", "M. Butterfly" and "Crash". The idea of telepathy induced by an unknown scientist recurs in "Scanners ", as does the image of one tormented telepath who uses an electric drill to pierce his own forehead in what "Stereo"'s commentary refers to as "an act of considerable symbolic significance".External links
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