A Clinical Observation of SHIVERS

Upon initial examination, it might be easy to jump to the conclusion that David Cronenberg lost touch with his artfully sterile examination of society when he progressed from making “films” into making “movies.” It might even appear that he utilized his first feature with Cinepix to understand technique and tap into surface exploitation rather than to expound upon some very unsettling groundwork he laid in his featurettes Crimes of the Future and Stereo. However, in tapping into the horror/ sci-fi genre, Cronenberg is able to fully utilize the elements inherent with the genre to explore his themes even more in depth in Shivers. The genre allows him to explore issues of isolation, perpetual denial, and an absence of intimacy in lieu of sex in a way that would be nearly impossible in a pure dramatic structure. He uses the fantastic to bring his audience into a world that is outrageous. And yet, in doing so, he merely highlights that which exists in human nature; the surreal is utilized much as a microscope: to analyze our world on a microscopic level. As an audience has a difficult time relating to the horrific elements, they are able to watch the film without empathizing. Cronenberg is able to comment on the values of a society around him with the clinical deftness of a scientist by lulling his audience into a state of disbelief.

From the opening scenes of his film, Cronenberg outlines what his audience can expect. As the static shots of the high-rise building bring the audience into the film (much like a slide show), Merrick’s narration points out the most desirable trait that any resident would find in living here: “…it belongs to you and your fellow passengers alone.” There is both possession and a community built on isolation implied in this statement. This idea of isolation is rather cleverly utilized throughout the film via its structure. Although it would be easy to amass all the residents into one character, Cronenberg draws us into peripheral characters by weaving small yet remarkable scenes into the overall dramatic structure of the film and the protagonists’ struggles. The couple that draws the audience into the world of this odd apartment complex is intercut with the jarring scene of the mad scientist chasing and attacking the androgynous schoolgirl. This technique of juxtaposition and parallelism is used throughout the film to connect characters through their isolation. Another striking note to mention during Merrick’s opening narration is the score utilized. There is a sense of loss through the wandering clarinet in this opening. The tune is repeated again at the film’s end, as if to point out that this sense of loss existed long before the parasites were introduced. There has been something unsettling bubbling underneath the surface in this community. In a sense, this highlights the idea that Cronenberg is using the fantastic to magnify a problem already existing rather than to introduce a new problem.

This sense of unease is expressed through Cronenberg’s composition as well. As the couple exits their vehicle to enter the building, the camera, from a low angle, captures something an unnatural an unsettling perspective despite the postures of “intimacy” the couple exudes as they confidently stroll into the apartment complex holding one another. Even though they become dwarfed in the frame as they walk toward the complex, they are trapped in the composition by how the cars are placed. Even in isolation there is a sense of claustrophobia. It is worth noting, as well, that this image is echoed by Dr. St. Luc and Nurse Forsyth after they escape her attack in the car. The sense of entrapment has a much more tangible sense in this context and Cronenberg uses the uncomfortable compositions in both instances to draw attention to the idea that all is not well; there is something foreboding just around the corner. This claustrophobia in isolation is mirrored in the use of sound. The film utilizes silence in the most stifling sense. Although one would associate silence as a form of emptiness, it calls attention to the horrific actions and often makes scenes of violence and disturbing sexuality that much more disturbing; the audience has no release from the visual. There is almost no use of dialogue in scenes of intense struggle. It is a form of sensory deprivation, forcing the audience to focus on the actions in a clinical way.

Cronenberg is able to draw his audience into a darker world once he establishes the visitors. Through juxtaposing the sale of an apartment with the violent death of a young schoolgirl, there is a comedy that is inherent as well. This comedic device is used throughout the film, as well, to keep the audience from sympathizing with the situations. He moves between very static shots that are edited in a very steady rhythm (the sale of the apartment) and very jarring handheld shots that are violent in themselves, even without the action of an older man strangling a young girl. And yet, an odd transition occurs in the middle of this juxtaposition. Once the girl is dead, the shots themselves become very static as well. Although one might take this to mean the camera movement is synonymous with the mad scientist’s psyche, there are other clues that point otherwise. The audience actually moves into the perspective of the dead girl. As the scientist commits suicide, there is a shot-reverse shot technique used between himself and the dead girl. Although it initially looks as though we are seeing her through his eyes in this technique, once he kills himself and breaks eye contact with the girl (even with her eyes closed), the camera returns to the girl, unmoved, as if to imply her as a witness to his grizzly death.

It is also in this graphic scene that a male perspective is setup (that is ultimately countered by the dead girl’s point of view). As she is portrayed from the doctor’s perspective, the audience only sees her naked torso and upper thighs on the table, disarticulating her, objectifying her (not unlike Dr. St. Luc’s perspective of Nurse Forsythe as she changes in front of him). There is a lack of intimacy implied through this sexuality that exists in these two men who are not infected. This disarticulated objectification is played upon, rather cleverly, in the image of Nicholas confronting the dead girl for the first time. With her bent leg in the foreground, he literally holds back the rising bile in the background. The composition of this shot seems to be in reference to the infamous shot in The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman looks on at Anne Bancroft’s extended leg, forced to confront a dislocated sense of his own sexuality. It is the lack of intimacy, the isolation, which Cronenberg points out throughout the film as being the source of the problem. The off-putting demeanor of clinical coolness that Dr. St. Luc maintains throughout most of the film, in fact, is perhaps more disturbing than the rapes and acts of violence he witnesses. It is interesting, then, to see how other characters react to this nature.

Both Janine and Nurse Forsythe are women unsatisfied by the men in their lives. Through their dissatisfaction comes an element of denial that seems to be at the core of the film. Just as the residents want to believe they are fulfilled by their surroundings, Janine and Nurse Forsythe fight to believe certain untruths. For Janine, this expresses itself in a need to allocate Nicholas’ infidelity and distance (which existed before the introduction of the supernatural) to a physical ailment. Although there is some truth to this, it is clear that her fears are not rooted in his mortality but rather his exposure of isolation no one wants to admit to. This idea that she doesn’t want to see what is in front of her is driven home as she crushes her contacts in a fit of tears. The idea that a marriage or that sex could be built on something other than intimacy horrifies her. For Nurse Forsythe, her sexual pursuit of the Doctor is in direct response to his devotion to the clinical, to the observable. He denies her an emotional bond, in fact, until she becomes involved with the parasite he studies. The sense of denial is furthered by other small scenes throughout the film such as the inability for the elderly woman to accept that the bloody smudge on her umbrella could be anything except for a misguided bird.
Cronenberg utilizes this genre to it’s fullest. His focus is not on the supernatural, but rather the irrational sense of security people have. The inability that people have to come to terms with isolation and a lack of intimacy. Although this film is filled with sexuality, there is really no intimacy. The characters are more than secluded from society; they are secluded from each other. In a self-reflexive way, Cronenberg is able to get his audience to view the film in a detached sense. Ultimately, the audience becomes like every character in this film: either isolated through a clinical observation or isolated through a denial that this film is really about a parasite. He manages to portray an internal claustrophobia through isolation in both his sound and compositions. In this sense, Cronenberg treats this genre much like Douglas Sirk treats the melodrama genre: although an audience can easily get caught up in the superficiality of the content, there is turmoil that bubbles underneath waiting to be discovered.