This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of David Cronenberg's body-horror films in relation to their embodied spectators. In these films, the horror is not only about the vulnerability of the mortal body, but also about the horrific consequences of organizing culture around the philosophical splitting of the mind from the body. To analyze this relationship, I utilize Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body, object-relations psychoanalysis, especially D. W. Winnicott's theory of the intermeshed psyche-soma, various pro-feminist approaches to horror films, and a concept of ideology informed by nonverbal communication research. The historical arc of Cronenberg's body-horror films has produced a unique cultural record of the impact of technological change on physical bodies through dark fantasies of biological-medical technologies in Shivers, Rabid, The Brood, and Scanners; video communication technologies in Videodrome; and genetic-engineering technologies in The Fly . / My primary thesis is that Cronenberg's body-horror films encourage spectators to "read" not only with their rational-cognitive skills but with their embodied experience as well, which includes emotional and sensory memories, and fantasies, both archaic and contemporary. Cronenberg's appeal to an integrated psyche-soma reading is crucial for understanding how the culturally induced splitting of the mind from the body impacts on working class resistance to exploitative ideology. / In chapter one I argue that the diverse and contradictory readings of Cronenberg's body-horror films are possible, because of the interdependence of the cinematic text, historical and cultural context, and the embodied experience of spectators-critics. Chapter two is a preliminary step towards developing an alternative theory of the horror film spectator, by exploring the productive tension between an active, creative and embodied real viewer, and an ideologically determined, ideal subject of the cinematic apparatus. Chapter three compares Cronenberg's fantasy of metamorphosis body-horror to the fantasy of "leaving the body behind" depicted in many contemporary cyborg films. Chapter four is a series of close readings, analyzing how Cronenberg embeds "imaginary spectators" into his body-horror films through interweaving the body language of his characters and the nonverbal communication of the mise en scene with narrative strategies formulated through the plot.

This dissertation examines the films of David Cronenberg which all conduct a consistently thorough examination of the relationship between the ideologically constituted Cartesian subject and the disciplinary structures that surround, control and limit this subject. Cinema, because of the presence of both film form and narrative content, functions as a double articulation of this disciplinary activity. Each film’s narrative disciplines, on screen, the bodies contained within the plot, even as each film’s form disciplines both the way in which these cinematic bodies are delivered to an audience, and the way the audience’s own viewing practices are controlled and composed. Thus it becomes vital to explore the mechanisms implicated in these processes, and to gain an understanding of how Cronenberg’s cinema works to highlight and critique them. The primary assertion of this thesis is that Cronenberg’s work functions as a particular style of resistance to hegemony that Slavoj Žižek labels‘heresy’. For Žižek,heresy occurs not when one disobeys one’s ideological requirements, but when one over-fulfills them, thereby extending these ideological demands and disciplinary discursive structures out to a site of logical absurdity. In assessing and charting this territory, the thesis is constructed in the following manner. The first chapter,which outlines my methodology, applies itself to a brief examination of Cronenberg’s least discussed commercial feature (Fast Company). Chapter Two is concerned with charting the disciplines applied to the body in Shivers, Rabid and The Fly, while Chapter Three continues a focus on Cronenberg’s movement and play with framing devices as a means of subverting a stable spectatorial position, utilising eXistenZ, Spider and The Dead Zone as examples. Chapter Four explores the manner with which heretical adherence to a single ideological construction pushes the protagonists towards large-scale disciplinary violations, as detailed in Crash, M. Butterfly and Dead Ringers while the fifth chapter examines notions of discipline and recuperation is focused on Naked Lunch, Scanners and The Brood. A final sixth chapter compares Cronenberg’s most recent film, A History of Violence, with Videodrome in order to explore the changing face of his disciplinary ambivalence and its relationship to a broader cinematic industry.

This dissertation examines the films of David Cronenberg which all conduct a consistently thorough examination of the relationship between the ideologically constituted Cartesian subject and the disciplinary structures that surround, control and limit this subject. Cinema, because of the presence of both film form and narrative content, functions as a double articulation of this disciplinary activity. Each film’s narrative disciplines, on screen, the bodies contained within the plot, even as each film’s form disciplines both the way in which these cinematic bodies are delivered to an audience, and the way the audience’s own viewing practices are controlled and composed. Thus it becomes vital to explore the mechanisms implicated in these processes, and to gain an understanding of how Cronenberg’s cinema works to highlight and critique them. The primary assertion of this thesis is that Cronenberg’s work functions as a particular style of resistance to hegemony that Slavoj Žižek labels‘heresy’. For Žižek,heresy occurs not when one disobeys one’s ideological requirements, but when one over-fulfills them, thereby extending these ideological demands and disciplinary discursive structures out to a site of logical absurdity. In assessing and charting this territory, the thesis is constructed in the following manner. The first chapter,which outlines my methodology, applies itself to a brief examination of Cronenberg’s least discussed commercial feature (Fast Company). Chapter Two is concerned with charting the disciplines applied to the body in Shivers, Rabid and The Fly, while Chapter Three continues a focus on Cronenberg’s movement and play with framing devices as a means of subverting a stable spectatorial position, utilising eXistenZ, Spider and The Dead Zone as examples. Chapter Four explores the manner with which heretical adherence to a single ideological construction pushes the protagonists towards large-scale disciplinary violations, as detailed in Crash, M. Butterfly and Dead Ringers while the fifth chapter examines notions of discipline and recuperation is focused on Naked Lunch, Scanners and The Brood. A final sixth chapter compares Cronenberg’s most recent film, A History of Violence, with Videodrome in order to explore the changing face of his disciplinary ambivalence and its relationship to a broader cinematic industry.

This dissertation examines the films of David Cronenberg which all conduct a consistently thorough examination of the relationship between the ideologically constituted Cartesian subject and the disciplinary structures that surround, control and limit this subject. Cinema, because of the presence of both film form and narrative content, functions as a double articulation of this disciplinary activity. Each film’s narrative disciplines, on screen, the bodies contained within the plot, even as each film’s form disciplines both the way in which these cinematic bodies are delivered to an audience, and the way the audience’s own viewing practices are controlled and composed. Thus it becomes vital to explore the mechanisms implicated in these processes, and to gain an understanding of how Cronenberg’s cinema works to highlight and critique them. The primary assertion of this thesis is that Cronenberg’s work functions as a particular style of resistance to hegemony that Slavoj Žižek labels‘heresy’. For Žižek,heresy occurs not when one disobeys one’s ideological requirements, but when one over-fulfills them, thereby extending these ideological demands and disciplinary discursive structures out to a site of logical absurdity. In assessing and charting this territory, the thesis is constructed in the following manner. The first chapter,which outlines my methodology, applies itself to a brief examination of Cronenberg’s least discussed commercial feature (Fast Company). Chapter Two is concerned with charting the disciplines applied to the body in Shivers, Rabid and The Fly, while Chapter Three continues a focus on Cronenberg’s movement and play with framing devices as a means of subverting a stable spectatorial position, utilising eXistenZ, Spider and The Dead Zone as examples. Chapter Four explores the manner with which heretical adherence to a single ideological construction pushes the protagonists towards large-scale disciplinary violations, as detailed in Crash, M. Butterfly and Dead Ringers while the fifth chapter examines notions of discipline and recuperation is focused on Naked Lunch, Scanners and The Brood. A final sixth chapter compares Cronenberg’s most recent film, A History of Violence, with Videodrome in order to explore the changing face of his disciplinary ambivalence and its relationship to a broader cinematic industry.

This dissertation examines the films of David Cronenberg which all conduct a consistently thorough examination of the relationship between the ideologically constituted Cartesian subject and the disciplinary structures that surround, control and limit this subject. Cinema, because of the presence of both film form and narrative content, functions as a double articulation of this disciplinary activity. Each film’s narrative disciplines, on screen, the bodies contained within the plot, even as each film’s form disciplines both the way in which these cinematic bodies are delivered to an audience, and the way the audience’s own viewing practices are controlled and composed. Thus it becomes vital to explore the mechanisms implicated in these processes, and to gain an understanding of how Cronenberg’s cinema works to highlight and critique them. The primary assertion of this thesis is that Cronenberg’s work functions as a particular style of resistance to hegemony that Slavoj Žižek labels‘heresy’. For Žižek,heresy occurs not when one disobeys one’s ideological requirements, but when one over-fulfills them, thereby extending these ideological demands and disciplinary discursive structures out to a site of logical absurdity. In assessing and charting this territory, the thesis is constructed in the following manner. The first chapter,which outlines my methodology, applies itself to a brief examination of Cronenberg’s least discussed commercial feature (Fast Company). Chapter Two is concerned with charting the disciplines applied to the body in Shivers, Rabid and The Fly, while Chapter Three continues a focus on Cronenberg’s movement and play with framing devices as a means of subverting a stable spectatorial position, utilising eXistenZ, Spider and The Dead Zone as examples. Chapter Four explores the manner with which heretical adherence to a single ideological construction pushes the protagonists towards large-scale disciplinary violations, as detailed in Crash, M. Butterfly and Dead Ringers while the fifth chapter examines notions of discipline and recuperation is focused on Naked Lunch, Scanners and The Brood. A final sixth chapter compares Cronenberg’s most recent film, A History of Violence, with Videodrome in order to explore the changing face of his disciplinary ambivalence and its relationship to a broader cinematic industry.

Cette thèse est une étude approfondie du rapport de William S. Burroughs au cinéma. William S. Burroughs, en collaboration avec Antony Balch, a produit entre 1961 et 1972 des courts-métrages expérimentaux aux formes de montage et de figuration radicales. Ces films, largement ignorés, constituent un pan essentiel du cinéma expérimental. Leur étude met en lumière l'évolution d'une pensée politico-esthétique de l'image chez Burroughs, une pensée voisine de celle de Guy Debord et qui influencera celle de Gilles Deleuze .Burroughs a également travaillé en tant qu'acteur : l'analyse de ses apparitions est ici pensée en fonction de leur rapport à l’œuvre écrite de Burroughs et à son versant biographique, l'écrivain déconstruisant les personnages qu'il joue de la même manière qu'il déconstruisait le cinéma. Un ensemble de films, répondant plus ou moins fidèlement à l’appellation d'adaptations, constituent un aspect important de notre corpus. Ces œuvres, qu'elles travaillent les écrits dans un rapport fondé sur la reproduction, le décalage, ou l'éclatement, produisent des formes inédites. Cette étude est complétée par un retour sur l'influence de Burroughs sur trois auteurs majeurs du cinéma nord-américain contemporain, Cronenberg, Van Sant et Lynch. Tous trois réinvestissent l’œuvre et la pensée de Burroughs dans le cadre de leur propre production, que ce retour se concentre sur l'apparition de la voix, le lien entre signature visuelle et présence ou la fragmentation de la narration classique. En mettant en relation expérimentations, présences et contaminations de l'écrivain au cinéma, ce travail vise la réhabilitation de ce versant de l’œuvre de William S. Burroughs. / This work is an exhaustive study of William S. Burroughs' interest in cinema. Burroughs, in collaboration with Antony Balch, produced between 1961 and 1972 a series of experimental short films with radical editing and visual styles. These widely ignored films are an essential part of experimental cinema. Their study highlights the evolution of the author's political and aesthetic vision, close to those of Guy Debord or Gilles Deleuze. Burroughs also worked as an actor. The analysis of his cinematographic apparitions is linked to their relation to Burroughs' written work and its biographical aspects: the writer deconstructs the characters he plays in the same way as he deconstructs the mise-en-scène.A set of films, which can loosely be said to be adaptations, are another important part of the corpus of this study. These works, in a relation to the written word based on reproduction, shift or blow-out, produce original cinematographic images.This study is completed with a flash-forward to Burroughs' influence on three important north-american filmmakers: David Cronenberg, Gus Van Sant and David Lynch. These three authors reinvest Burroughs' work within the framework of their own production, focusing on the apparition of the voice, the link between visual signature and the notion of presence or the shattering of a conventional narrative.Linking experimentations, presences and contaminations of the writer in the cinematographic art, this thesis aims to rehabilitate this part of Burroughs' work.

This thesis investigates cinema’s attempts to engage in a dialogue with the trace of the physical body. My concern is with the on-screen presentation of the body rather than its treatment as a representation of gender, sexuality, race, age, or class. I examine specifically The Elephant Man (Lynch, 1980), Crash (Cronenberg, 1996), Attenberg (Tsangari, 2010), Taxidermia (Pálfi, 2006), and Sokurov’s family trilogy (Mother and Son, 1997; Father and Son, 2003; and Alexandra, 2007). The recurring tropes in these seven films include references to the medical gaze (both objective and objectifying) and haptic visuality which privileges sensual, close engagement with the image of the material object. I consider the medical and the haptic as metaphors for depictions of the body in cinema. To develop my analysis, I draw on the works of Michel Foucault, Laura U. Marks and Vivian Sobchack amongst others. I conclude that the discussed films, preoccupied with images of corporeal forms, criticise cinema’s conventional treatment of the body as simply a vessel for a goal-driven character and portray bodies which appear to consciousness in their own right.

Utilizando a teoria do polissistema literário de Itamar Even-Zohar, as concepções psicanalíticas de Sigmund Freud e de Erich Fromm, como também posições defendidas por teóricos tais como Roland Barthes, Christian Metz, Julia Kristeva e pelos líderes do movimento Futurista Italiano, entre outros, o presente trabalho analisa duas obras: Crash, romance de J. G. Ballard e Crash, filme de David Cronenberg. O objetivo não é de contrapôlas. Ao contrário, muitas vezes elas serão tratadas como se fossem partes de uma mesma obra, servindo assim uma para expandir a outra. Em relação ao filme, é destacada a forma como Cronenberg assume a autoria de Crash e como o filme rompe os limites do polissistema cinematográfico. É questão central deste trabalho a representação do desastre automobilístico, bem como dos elementos a ele associados, em Crash, romance e filme, especialmente sua reconstituição, bem como o acidente sendo encarado como uma maneira de concretizar o desejo de cometer suicídio e as conseqüências no corpo humano causadas por esse tipo de evento. Para expandir essa análise, aborda-se ainda a maneira como esse repertório é apresentado em outras formas de manifestação artística, fato do qual resulta um diálogo entre cada uma delas e Crash. / Making use of Itamar Even-Zohar’s theory of the literary polysystem, the psychoanalytical ideas expressed by Sigmund Freud and Erich Fromm, as well as point of view expressed by theorists such as Roland Barthes, Christian Metz, and Julia Kristeva, and the leaders of the Italian Futurist movement, among others, this thesis has as its basic aim to analyse two works: Crash, a novel by J. G. Ballard, and Crash, the film by David Cronenberg. The intention here is not to oppose them. On the contrary, in many cases they are to be considered as if they were parts of the same work, each one contributing to expand the other. Concerning the film, special attention is paid to the way Cronenberg takes hold of the authorship of Crash and how the movie breaks through the limits of the cinematographic polysystem. The focus of this thesis is centred upon the representation of automobile disasters as well related elements in Crash, novel and film, especially their reproduction, as well as the accident regarded as a means to commit suicide, and the consequences upon the human body caused by the violence of such events. In order to expand this analysis, the presence of the automobile accident in other forms of artistic expression is examined, a fact which will lead to a dialogue between each one of them and Crash.

Utilizando a teoria do polissistema literário de Itamar Even-Zohar, as concepções psicanalíticas de Sigmund Freud e de Erich Fromm, como também posições defendidas por teóricos tais como Roland Barthes, Christian Metz, Julia Kristeva e pelos líderes do movimento Futurista Italiano, entre outros, o presente trabalho analisa duas obras: Crash, romance de J. G. Ballard e Crash, filme de David Cronenberg. O objetivo não é de contrapôlas. Ao contrário, muitas vezes elas serão tratadas como se fossem partes de uma mesma obra, servindo assim uma para expandir a outra. Em relação ao filme, é destacada a forma como Cronenberg assume a autoria de Crash e como o filme rompe os limites do polissistema cinematográfico. É questão central deste trabalho a representação do desastre automobilístico, bem como dos elementos a ele associados, em Crash, romance e filme, especialmente sua reconstituição, bem como o acidente sendo encarado como uma maneira de concretizar o desejo de cometer suicídio e as conseqüências no corpo humano causadas por esse tipo de evento. Para expandir essa análise, aborda-se ainda a maneira como esse repertório é apresentado em outras formas de manifestação artística, fato do qual resulta um diálogo entre cada uma delas e Crash. / Making use of Itamar Even-Zohar’s theory of the literary polysystem, the psychoanalytical ideas expressed by Sigmund Freud and Erich Fromm, as well as point of view expressed by theorists such as Roland Barthes, Christian Metz, and Julia Kristeva, and the leaders of the Italian Futurist movement, among others, this thesis has as its basic aim to analyse two works: Crash, a novel by J. G. Ballard, and Crash, the film by David Cronenberg. The intention here is not to oppose them. On the contrary, in many cases they are to be considered as if they were parts of the same work, each one contributing to expand the other. Concerning the film, special attention is paid to the way Cronenberg takes hold of the authorship of Crash and how the movie breaks through the limits of the cinematographic polysystem. The focus of this thesis is centred upon the representation of automobile disasters as well related elements in Crash, novel and film, especially their reproduction, as well as the accident regarded as a means to commit suicide, and the consequences upon the human body caused by the violence of such events. In order to expand this analysis, the presence of the automobile accident in other forms of artistic expression is examined, a fact which will lead to a dialogue between each one of them and Crash.

Utilizando a teoria do polissistema literário de Itamar Even-Zohar, as concepções psicanalíticas de Sigmund Freud e de Erich Fromm, como também posições defendidas por teóricos tais como Roland Barthes, Christian Metz, Julia Kristeva e pelos líderes do movimento Futurista Italiano, entre outros, o presente trabalho analisa duas obras: Crash, romance de J. G. Ballard e Crash, filme de David Cronenberg. O objetivo não é de contrapôlas. Ao contrário, muitas vezes elas serão tratadas como se fossem partes de uma mesma obra, servindo assim uma para expandir a outra. Em relação ao filme, é destacada a forma como Cronenberg assume a autoria de Crash e como o filme rompe os limites do polissistema cinematográfico. É questão central deste trabalho a representação do desastre automobilístico, bem como dos elementos a ele associados, em Crash, romance e filme, especialmente sua reconstituição, bem como o acidente sendo encarado como uma maneira de concretizar o desejo de cometer suicídio e as conseqüências no corpo humano causadas por esse tipo de evento. Para expandir essa análise, aborda-se ainda a maneira como esse repertório é apresentado em outras formas de manifestação artística, fato do qual resulta um diálogo entre cada uma delas e Crash. / Making use of Itamar Even-Zohar’s theory of the literary polysystem, the psychoanalytical ideas expressed by Sigmund Freud and Erich Fromm, as well as point of view expressed by theorists such as Roland Barthes, Christian Metz, and Julia Kristeva, and the leaders of the Italian Futurist movement, among others, this thesis has as its basic aim to analyse two works: Crash, a novel by J. G. Ballard, and Crash, the film by David Cronenberg. The intention here is not to oppose them. On the contrary, in many cases they are to be considered as if they were parts of the same work, each one contributing to expand the other. Concerning the film, special attention is paid to the way Cronenberg takes hold of the authorship of Crash and how the movie breaks through the limits of the cinematographic polysystem. The focus of this thesis is centred upon the representation of automobile disasters as well related elements in Crash, novel and film, especially their reproduction, as well as the accident regarded as a means to commit suicide, and the consequences upon the human body caused by the violence of such events. In order to expand this analysis, the presence of the automobile accident in other forms of artistic expression is examined, a fact which will lead to a dialogue between each one of them and Crash.