Politics of Insects

Canadian film director David Cronenberg has long been a figure of artistic acclaim and public controversy. Bursting into view with a trio of shocking horror films in the 1970s Cronenberg's work has become increasingly complex in its sensibilities and inward-looking in its concerns and themes. This trajectory culminates in the multiplex successes of his most recent films which appear to conclude a straightforward evolutionary arc that begins in the cold outside of shock-horror and arrives in the warm embrace of commercial and critical success. <br/> <br/>Scott Wilson argues persuasively that Cronenberg's career can be divided into broad thematic stages and instead offers a complex examination of the relationship between three inter-related terms: the director as auteur; the industry that support or denies commercial opportunity; and the audience who receive interpret and support (or decry) the vision represented on screen. <i>The Politics of Insects</i> provides an opportunity to explore Cronenberg's films in relation to each other in terms of their thematic continuity and in terms of their relationship to industrial concerns and audience responses.