PAPERBACK INCLUDES TWO NEW CHAPTERS

David Cronenberg is one of the most fascinating filmmakers in the world today. His provocative work has stimulated debate and received major retrospectives in museums, galleries, and cinematheques around the world. William Beard's The Artist as Monster was the first book-length scholarly work in English on Cronenberg's films, analyzing all of his features from Stereo (1969) to Crash (1996). In this paperback edition, Beard includes new chapters on eXistenZ (1999) and Spider (2002).

Through close readings and visual analyses, Beard argues that the structure of Cronenberg's cinema is based on a dichotomy between, on the one hand, order, reason, repression, and control, and on the other, liberation, sexuality, disease, and the disintegration of self and of the boundaries that define society. The instigating figure in the films is a scientist character who, as Cronenberg evolves as a filmmaker, gradually metamorphoses into an artist, with the ground of liberation and catastrophe shifting from experimental subject to the self.

Bringing a wealth of analytical observation and insight into Cronenberg's films, Beard's sweeping, comprehensive work has established the benchmark for the study of one of Canada's best-known filmmakers.

William Beard is a professor and film studies program director in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta.

William Beard's profile page

'The Artist as Monster is essential reading in Cronenberg studies.'

Science Fiction Studies

'Timely and insightful ... Highly recommended to anyone interested in the compelling and disturbing work of the éminence grise of contemporary English-Canadian art-cinema.'

British Journal of Canadian Studies

'Beard is less interested in Cronenberg's "authorial sensibility" than in D.H. Lawrence's "Never trust the artist. Trust the tale." He has a sense of the film itself thinking. This allows him to argue with Cronenberg and, as a critic, to go even farther with the films than Cronenberg, as his own critic, may be willing to do.'

Bookforum

'A painstaking and meticulous analysis of the films.'

Edmonton Journal

'Beard's interpretation of Cronenberg's cinema is original and unique ... A fascinating and rigorous critical examination.'

Screening the Past

'The Artist as Monster offers the most thorough and balanced account of David Cronenberg ever published ... Eminently readable and intellectually (as well as emotionally) engaging.'

Canadian Literature

'Essential reading for any fan of the filmmaker.'

Mirror