David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials

Director David Cronenberg has produced some of the most intriguing and controversial films of the last 50 years, so it’s only fitting that a study of his work is as fascinating as the films themselves. Lucca’s approach is brilliant and intentionally subjective (her mother’s schizophrenia affected her own view of socially acceptable mental illness), and her analysis filters through a Jungian lens, using concepts like individuation, animus, elucidation, and transformation. Lucca writes that Cronenberg’s work is preoccupied by identity, so films like Naked Lunch (1991), A History of Violence (2005), and Crimes of the Future (2022) are ideally suited to this inquiry. The films are covered thematically, which creates a more complete and integrated picture of Cronenberg’s career, and while critics often over-inflate the symbolism behind a film, Cronenberg’s work not only merits this type of attention, it demands it. Lucca writes with the perceptive skill of an academic but the engaging verbal style of a millennial journalist, and this is a visually arresting debut, filled with illustrations. The filmography, which presents each film as a two-page collage, is absolutely stunning in its comprehensive brevity.