Commissioned by the Toronto Film Festival for the 25th anniversary, Camera finds Cronenberg at a very reflexive and contemplative point. Having released eXistenZ the year before, itself a representation of the film industry, this short film turns towards the director’s thoughts about his own death. Familiar-faced Les Carleson plays the aged and worried Actor who has shared a dream that, word for word, matches one Cronenberg had during the 80’s. In it, Cronenberg was infected with a disease while watching a movie, a notion played to full effect in Videodrome. The Actor goes pessimistically on about death and the camera, how it records the death of the moment, and how it is poorly paired with the kids operating the old piece of machinery.
All but the final shot of the film are captured in a grainy, handheld, and disgusting digital format that accentuates Carleson’s age, his wrinkles and lines, his worried eyes and uncomfortable condition. In the final shot, the film camera takes a controlled and nostalgic glide towards the actor as he reclaims a bit of calm. But the final frames, before the film runs out, show him in a state of uncertainty as the light exposes and immortalizes the death of the moment. Cronenberg is obviously cognizant of the growing infatuation with digital cinematography and is calling for the continuation of the original art. His thoughts are less concerns than they are opinionated preferences.
The second piece comes from a collection of shorts commissioned by Cannes’ 60th and features renowned directors from across the globe. Cronenberg’s contribution finds the director himself, the last Jew in the world, taking up residence in the men’s bathroom in the last cinema in the world. With pained facial expressions, Cronenberg caresses a gun, its bullets too, and slowly explores the best way to end his life. Two voice-overs replicate a news broadcast where newscasters observe his actions with feigned interest and complete objectivity. They suggest the weakness and pathetic nature with which the Jew cops out on life.
Shooting himself shooting himself, Cronenberg has commented on the death of cinema before. And in later press interviews suggested that the form of cinema as we know it is already gone. Undoubtedly, Cronenberg understands the nature of the medium, its social relevance, its fluidity and temporariness. In both of these short films, he makes it clear that nothing, not even a medium that ‘immortalizes’ those that it captures, can last forever.
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