TITANE - A LOVE LETTER TO DAVID CRONENBERG

David Cronenberg is a major influence in my life - Julia Ducournau, filmisnow.com

Crash  / 
Titane

This isn’t a review or a critique of Julia Docournou’s Titane. While there’s certainly lots of misunderstood reviews and think-pieces out there, you can still find some solid reviews on the film if you look hard enough. Titane is something that touches on everything from auto-eroticism & body transformation to childhood trauma & the idea of family. There’s a lot going on and a lot to write about and plenty to decipher. I just don’t think there’s any point to add yet another “review” or opinion on this heavily talked about film. I would like it to be known that I really am fascinated by this film...

My specific fascination with Titane concerns Ducournau‘s love of David Cronenberg and the imprint he has on her work.

*THIS CONTAINS HEAVY VISUAL SPOILERS SO IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN TITANE YET - DO NOT KEEP READING*

It’s no mystery that Titane is heavily influenced by David Cronenberg’s Crash. That was the big selling point coming out of it’s Cannes debut. Outside of both films being about intense auto-eroticism, Julia Ducournau has admitted to the influence herself…

I prefer the term ‘mutation’ inherited from Cronenberg - Julia Docournou

Crash  / 
Titane

Crash  / 
Titane

Crash  / 
Titane

Crash  / 
Titane

The biggest Crash homage is the opening sequence. It’s not so much that both films essentially start with intense car wrecks. It’s the immediate cut to the operating table in both Titane & Crash that makes the connection stronger…

Crash  / 
Titane

But the Crash influence is just one layer. I’d go so far to say that it’s almost surface. Cronenberg’s DNA is all over Titane. Not just Crash.
In fact - Cronenberg has influenced Julia Ducournau l since day one…

David Cronenberg is a major influence in my life. I discovered his films when I was a teenager - Julia Ducournau, focusfeatures.com

Faith Healer / 
Raw

The Fly / 
Junior

It should also be mentioned that Titane co-star (and veteran filmmaker) Bertrand Bonello also has some light ties to Cronenberg as well.
In On War, Mathieu Amalric (who plays a character name “Bertrand”) watches eXistenZ in one scene…

eXistenZ in Bonello's On War

Throughout the film I caught imagery from Cronenberg’s early (and almost never talked about) stuff like Fast Company…

Fast Company / 
Titane

...to M Butterfly in terms of transformed gender roles. Vincent Lindon’s obliviousness (…denial?) to the true identity of Adrien in Titane is quite similar to Jeremy Irons’ mindstate  in M Butterfly

M Butterfly / 
Titane

Then there’s his more well know films which seemed to have rubbed off in various ways…

Scanners / 
Titane

Dead Ringers / 
Titane

A History Of Violence / 
Titane

Dead Ringers / 
Titane

The Fly / 
Titane

Eastern Promises  / 
Titane

The Brood /  Titane

The Fly / 
Titane

The Fly / 
Titane

Maps To The Stars / 
Titane

Cosmopolis/ 
Titane

Shivers / 
Titane

Shivers / 
Titane

Dead Ringers / 
Titane

A History Of Violence / 
Titane

The Dead Zone / 
Titane

Shivers / 
Titane

At times Titane comes off like a slight reworking of Cronenberg’s Rabid more than Crash. Not only do both films begin with an auto accident that quickly transitions to the operating table (something brought to my attention by Martin Kessler), but the basic plot of the attractive woman that becomes a serial killer post-auto accident is basically the plot of Titane…

Rabid / 
Titane

Rabid / 
Titane

Rabid / 
Titane

A major positive of Titane (besides the fact that it exists) is that it got me to go back and think about how films like Fast Company & Rabid planted the seeds for Cronenberg’s fascination with the story of Crash (in addition to his obvious overall fascination with body transformation).

THE MOVIES THAT DEFINE NEW YORK - PART 2

 

I made a guest appearance in the latest Wrong Reel short; Movies That Define New York.

Click the image above (or here) to see myself, Bill Scurry, Bill Teck, Dan Pullen, Adam Rackoff, James Hancock and Moose Matson talk about some of our favorite New York-based films.

THE BLOOD ORANGES (SPECIAL GUEST BLOGGER NATHANIEL DRAKE CARLSON)

Philip Haas's adaptation of John Hawkes' novel is likely the least celebrated of his 90's era literary adaptations. Both The Music of Chance and especially Angels & Insects garner far more praise and attention. But as much as I respect and respond to both of those this one seems to me an even greater achievement. Its lack of notoriety I attribute mostly to a lack of presence/distribution and an excessive concentration by many of those who have seen it upon what is perceived to be its more risible elements (such as much of Charles Dance's dialogue). But this misses what is remarkable about the picture.

Set in the idyllic splendor of rural, coastal Mexico it's an extended consideration of and elaboration upon the notion of a self created and sustained idea of paradise, of utopia. As such its location in what is otherwise an impoverished area provides some ironic inflection for the privileged characters whose vision this is. Charles Dance and Sheryl Lee portray a married couple extolling the virtues of sexual freedom and open relationships (the movie is pointedly set in 1970 whereas the book is far more oblique in regards to both setting and time period--it really is of the mind's eye there). Into their lives comes another couple who are less uninhibited and must be made to see the merits of such a lifestyle and worldview. Tragic events do follow but they are by no means schematically attributed to any clear cut moral deficiency. It's a subdued tangle of mixed motives and perspectives set against a landscape of heightened expression, resulting in actions that can be understood in a variety of different ways. The "story" could not be simpler on a superficial level but it's the richness of the themes and subtext that are grasped as though on the periphery of vision which leave such a lingering sense of fulfillment. Haas's overall aesthetic is also a fitting complement to the material, amping up all the inherent implications of the romanticizing and exoticizing inclinations of his characters. The story is told out of sequence, in a way that gives appropriate but subtle emphasis to each vignette or scene, and employs an effective series of fade to orange or red transitions straight out of the cinema of someone like Roeg. All of this, meanwhile, is accompanied by a deeply evocative Angelo Badalamenti score.


Though the film was released in 1997 it often really does seem like an artifact from another era altogether, another world even, in which its very particular and pronounced sexual politics might be more acceptable. It may be, however, that an incapacity to read style and understand stylistic expression could form another impediment to an appreciation of the film. There is indeed much in the dialogue alone which exemplifies this (such as Cyril describing himself as a "sex-singer"). But part of the specific difficulty here has to do with the adaptation of a text which is defiantly lyrical in its language and symbolic into cinematic imagery that is inevitably unyielding and literal.

 

I've loved this film since I first saw it when it was initially released on home video but I only finally read the book a few years ago. That was a singular experience for me as I will confess that I regard the book as "better" than the film but this means little since I regard the book as among the very finest pieces of fiction I've ever encountered, almost even a validation of fiction as extreme as that may sound. It's an astonishingly sustained treatment of the comprehensive, all encompassing lyric vision that opens up much further and goes deeper than the film. It also goes far beyond the film's most clearly suggested themes of emphasis upon the controlling power of the narcissistic individual ego. Many critics still like to point that out (as Roger Sale famously said, "There is cruelty here that, because unadmitted, is not even palliated by the relish of sadism.") but as far as I'm concerned part of the book's breathtaking accomplishment is that such critiques are noted ironically within and yet ultimately made to seem minor, inconsequential (much of this has to do with Hawkes' own view on his work vs. what critics just assumed he must be doing). I had a conversation shortly after I read it with a professor of literature who had written a piece comparing the book to the film. He came away very dissatisfied with the film unsurprisingly. And though his arguments are very good, convincing ones they simply fail to give the film credit for what it does do--which is aim for what it can that's within its grasp, the grasp of what cinema can do, and accomplish that with excellence. The true test was in returning to the film after all this, which I did and was relieved and somewhat amazed to discover how well it held up to that kind of scrutiny, the most penetrating kind I can imagine.

- Nathaniel Drake Carlson