Il cinema ritrovato (Recovered Cinema)
September 22nd 2022 at 9.00pm
VIDEODROME by David Cronenberg (4K restoration)
Original Language (English) with Italian subtitles
Videodrome tells the story of Max Renn (Woods), the sleazy programmer of a soft-core television channel who discovers a mysterious signal broadcasting a snuff TV show called ‘Videodrome’. Increasingly obsessed with tracing the source of the rogue signal, Max crosses paths with media philosophy guru, Professor Brian O’Blivion (Creley) and his daughter Bianca (Smits). After a series of strange encounters and unsettling visions, he learns that ‘Videodrome’ is transmitted via a frequency that induces malignant tumours in the brain, which in turn cause vivid hallucinations that are indistinguishable from reality. The film’s ambiguous ending imagines a violent and visceral takeover of technology by ‘the New Flesh’. The question of what this ‘New Flesh’ might be is at the heart of the film’s philosophical investigations into the influence and effects of media forms.