...History of Violence is not older Cronenberg....

I meant Cronenberg himself is older, I'll rewrite it

Paired with the title, your meaning was perfectly clear. They’ve gotta be messing with you.

No way. As much as I love History of Violence, Eastern Promises and Crimes of the Future, Cronenberg was at the peak of his powers in the ‘80s with The Fly, Videodrome, Dead Ringers and The Dead Zone.

This is the sub where people post threads about how there is this movie called Dances With Wolves (The Matrix, Speed, Tombstone, etc. Etc) that nobody has ever heard of and they just discovered and everyone needs to watch. Someone posting that History of Violence is what they think older Cronenberg films are is not out of the norm.

I stand corrected: you weren’t messing with them.

I love Scanners, Rabid, Shivers, The fly and videodrome way more than his later works. They have a raw unfiltered cool about them that is simply fascinating.

But I like the rest too.

No.

This. Those are bangers. LONG LIVE THE NEW FLESH!

Sure his more mainstream films like History of Violence are good but he was already on fire long before that.

Hell even his earliest stuff is pretty good.

This.

Holy shit, no definitely not. He did some crazy cool shit and had a following long before that.

Go watch stuff like Videodrome, Existenz, Dead Ringers, Crash etc.

OP never said he wasnt big before

Sure but I think he peaked back then, has had other things since that were as good but not BETTER.

OP hasn't watched a lot of it and I think they should.

well he has the films are just very different doesnt make them worse though

My favorite Cronenberg film is Cosmopolis and I'd still say no.

His earlier work isn't worse either tho, so it's wrong to say the highest point came late. Is all Im saying.

The Dead Zone is incredible. I love the way he structured that story. Each act was more exciting than the previous

Hell no!! His movies from 2003 on are mostly negligible crap. Cosmopolis is one of the worst movies I've been to in a theater. These movies have none of the personality or originality he showed earlier in his career. Videodrome, Dead Ringers, The Brood, The Fly, and even the later eXistenZ are his best by far.

Bit of a matter of taste there. He built his brand essentially in one kind of mode and set a certain standard. The films that make up what could be described as "Cronenbergian" are essential.

But he did shift gears and I find his 2000s films are quite excellent, though give or take eXistenZ he had moved away from the goop quite a bit for most of the 90s already.

Crimes of the Future is very interesting as it exists now, made so late in life but it's even more interesting when you consider it was actually written and almost got made right about the time of eXistenZ.

Crimes of the Future really feels like Cronenberg looking back at what he had done at that point. Artists telling stories about artists always brings some assumption of self commentary or insert and in the case of Saul Tenser, there is some self criticism. Through Saul Tenser, the artist making an art of cutting out his New Flesh, and actually being cop suppressing others, the film reflects that Cronenberg's approach to 'body horror' and changing technologies was more than a bit reactionary. As much as it defined his brand, that kind of transformation and change, and the real life anxieties they reflected were a source of horror. In Crimes of the Future, Cronenberg imagines an oncoming generation that truly embraces those changes and celebrates the beauty in it. Saul Tenser is a bit self conscious when others say they're following his example as he recognizes that they are at root really doing something different and moving beyond him. Locating that writing and self reflection at the end of the 90s and right before he started that run of films with Mortenson that followed it really does seem like he was consciously not just setting his earlier work aside but coming to terms with it before moving on. Fascinating to finally see it made 20 years later with a whole other phase of his career between.

So no, I don't think Cronenberg peaked creatively in the later career, but I do think he gained some perspective. Also, not sure the younger Cronenberg ever made anything quite as funny as Crimes.

I think Videodrome is his best work, I would argue Crash is in that same echelon. After that he kind of peters off IMO, I haven't seen Crimes of the Future yet either though so I don't know how that compares to his older stuff.

Absolutely yes.

All of his films post-Fast Company are strong. In fact, I think he has made the most movies that I like in a row of any director since maybe Kurosawa - 17 in a row and counting.

And personally, I think his "master period" started with Crash in 1995. That film, along with eXistenZ, Spider, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method, Cosmopolis, Maps to the Stars, Crimes of the Future... that's his master period. Maybe you could even extend it so that it starts with The Fly or Dead Ringers, but I feel like he reached new heights.

I say this as someone who loves his early stuff. Videodrome, The Fly, and Naked Lunch are still the Cronenberg movies I've watched the most times by far. Great films. Love them. But as I get older, and he his career continues, I really think the second half of his career is the best.

Here's the thing: he basically stopped making body horror, and so his fans stopped being excited about his movies. Aside from eXistenZ and Crimes of the Future, and some of them liked A History of Violence and Eastern Promises because of the carnage, he basically has two completely different fan-bases for the two halves of his career. The body horror people are disappointed he stopped making those kinds of films. But people who like arthouse dramas probably like at least a few of the movies he made after Dead Ringers.

Personally, I think his absolute best film is Maps to the Stars, or maybe A Dangerous Method. Those two are incredibly underrated. His mastery of his technique was complete at that point, and he had a lot of say with those films. You can rewatch them and get choked up on how much depth of thought and feeling went into each line of dialogue.

Crimes of the Future is a masterpiece, too, but I feel sad that people are calling it a "return to form" just because it's body horror. I feel like people who appreciate him beyond his genre work know that he's been doing great work this entire time.

He gets a bit muddled for me doing the metaphysical. At the same time in the 90s, Haneke took over the similar grounds of Cronenberg's thematic maturity. Except Cronenberg really gets the pleasures of pulp genre (History, Eastern.)