It’s a sweeping generalization to say that the 1990s was a curious era for Western culture, but the closer the inspection, the stronger that statement seems to become. As a century of momentous change drew to a close and bastions of a new one had already begun to emerge ― the rise of digital, credit-based economies, the Middle East and China replacing Russia as the West’s primary challengers of power ― it’s as though the cultural leaders of the time knew a change was already underway and opted to get everything out of their systems, at least before the Millennium Bug would come and demolish it all. Art shook off the vestiges of strict, prohibitive 20th century movements and announced that anything, utterly anything, could be art. Fashion went loud, coarse, cheeky, at long last actually affordable. Music embraced challenging genres like grunge, hip-hop and acid house, sending ‘80s acts like Madonna and Prince into creative tailspins. And some of cinema’s leading lights ― Spielberg, Scorsese, Demme, Coppola ― decided now was the right time to try something new.
Spielberg went decidedly split-personality, alternating between blockbusters and Oscar bait. Scorsese tried his hand at a remake, an Edith Wharton period romance, a Las Vegas epic with a 45-minute opening sequence featuring almost no dialogue, a meditative art movie about the Dalai Lama and a quasi-horror movie about a paramedic. Demme went dramatic, dark and serious. And Coppola went back to the Godfather well, let utterly loose with a visionary Dracula adaptation, then made Jack, the single weirdest move of all of the above. And David Cronenberg, the B-movie filmmaker with A-list status, chose to leave his schlocky roots behind him and experiment with material that might, for most filmmakers, appear far less experimental than Cronenberg’s usual, splattery fare.
It was, contemporarily, a bold and somewhat unpopular move for the Canadian maverick. Faced with the choice to pursue genre projects on a bigger scale or to segue into other areas, he chose the latter, yet retained all the qualities in his style and technique that had made his horror and sci-fi movies so distinctive. It is, retrospectively, still a bold move but now, gratifyingly, a much better respected one too. Movies that provoked in strange, unfamiliar, uncomfortable ways like 1991’s Naked Lunch and ‘96’s Crash have subsequently been hailed as misunderstood masterpieces, worthy of far greater fanfare than they were received with upon release. Yet there’s one Cronenberg title from this era ― you might call it his Middle Period ― that remains notably under-appreciated even now, 20 years after its initial release.
Even though 2002’s Spider isn’t a ‘90s work, within Cronenberg’s oeuvre, it comfortably fits in with his ‘90s spirit of artistic exploration. It’s a mystery movie with none of the genre trappings that had run through most of his work up to that point ― in this regard, it’s perhaps a bridge between his ‘90s movies and his ‘00s movies, with both of Cronenberg’s next movies, 2005’s A History of Violence and 2007’s Eastern Promises eschewing genre elements in telling their dramatic mystery tales. Like most of his ‘90s projects, it’s an adaptation, this time by Patrick McGrath from his own novel. Though, unlike some of his other lesser-known titles, Spider wasn’t especially divisive upon release, generally uniting the critics in praise. So why didn’t it achieve the widespread success it deserved?
Alas, one of the most significant changes in Western culture in the final decade(s) of the 20th century was the increasing commodification of art, the ever-firmer assertion that the more money a work of art makes, the better that work of art is. And Sony, who handled U.S. distribution for Spider, didn’t think it had the potential to make much money. After debuting in competition at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, they gave it a quiet awards-qualifying run that December, released it proper in February ’03 under a deluge of major Oscar-nominated movies and let this poor little spider get flushed down the spout into relative obscurity. Those who had seen this movie knew of its greatness. Those who had not? They mostly didn’t know of it at all. Today, it’s his least-viewed film on IMDb since M. Butterfly, with the exception of this year’s Crimes of the Future.
This slippery, somber, brooding puzzle box of a movie is worth so much more than its reputation as an underseen but still “minor” Cronenberg movie. It’s a work of a major talent performing at his highest, eliciting career-best (or close to it) work from several of his principal collaborators. Ralph Fiennes, as the titular “Spider,” a man released from a psychiatric institute to a halfway house, sifting through shattered memories of his childhood to solve a riddle that’s plagued him for decades, is marvelously enigmatic yet so expressive. Lynn Redgrave is chilling as the wretched matron of Spider’s dank, depressing new abode. Miranda Richardson is quite magnificent, playing three separate parts with fabulous brio, the demands of each role bringing out the very best in this most compelling screen performer. DP Peter Suschitzky, in his sixth of 11 collabs with Cronenberg, captures the damp, dreary East London city streets and allotments with characteristic gloom, while Howard Shore’s superb score, played by the brilliant Kronos Quartet with additional parts for clarinet, trumpet and harp, underlays the images with a throbbing, foreboding chill. And the mystery itself is exquisitely laid out, dense and indecipherable until its web is finally, horribly unfolded.
Three years later, the showier A History of Violence, with a leading turn from Viggo Mortensen fresh off of the success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, served as Cronenberg’s biggest overall hit since his 1986 smash The Fly; a simpler, albeit no less disquieting affair, its thriller elements made for a more palatable offering from a filmmaker who was in danger of slipping out of the mainstream cultural consciousness altogether. But now, 20 years later, it’s Spider that stands up as the stronger picture, one that ought to have not only restored people’s faith in Cronenberg as a man of great artistic talent but also signified a successful expansion for a man still looking to explore new artistic territory. At the dawn of a new century and in the wake of more momentous changes in the West, this story of reflection, of forging ahead by filtering through and facing the mistakes we’ve made, was a movie so of its time it was, perhaps, a little too much for some to face back in ’02. It’s good enough, indeed great enough, however, that it’s a movie for any time. And if you still haven’t caught Spider, now’s the time!
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