#The Sound Design of David Cronenberg

Table of Contents

“The Sound Design of David Cronenberg”

     <span class="mx-1">The new flesh makes all kinds of noises (most of it is squelching).</span>
</p><div id="">



                <figure class="sf-entry-featured-media ">
            <img width="800" height="396" src="https://filmschoolrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Crimes-of-the-Future-ear-guy.png" class="articlethumb wp-post-image" alt="Crimes Of The Future Ear Guy" srcset="https://filmschoolrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Crimes-of-the-Future-ear-guy.png 800w, https://filmschoolrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Crimes-of-the-Future-ear-guy-768x380.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px"/>                                    <p>
                    <span class="sf-entry-flag sf-entry-flag-creditline">Neon</span>

                        </figure>

    <!-- START BYLINE -->
    <div class="row align-items-center justify-content-center my-4 text-center medium dark-gray">
        By Meg Shields · Published on July 8th, 2022 
        </div>
    <!-- END BYLINE -->

    <em>Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay that unpacks the sound design in the films of Canadian director David Cronenberg.</em>

Ah, I love the smell of distended flesh and creaking machinery in the morning.

Canadian director David Cronenberg is a man of many talents. His filmography straddles the line between distinguished drama and grotesque genre picture with ease. And it should come as no surprise that the soundscapes of his oeuvre are similarly eclectic and identifiable.

Whether he’s working in a dramatic or grotesque space, Cronenberg’s films have a remarkable tactility. The world in a Cronenberg is something you can touch (and, depending which movie you’re in, is all too happy to touch you right back). Keyboard strokes carry indominable weight; engines splutter and hum with uncanny lividity; and soft, sticky skin dimples under the pressure of instruments and wandering hands alike.

There’s an argument to be made that body horror’s power is, in large part, auditory. For all of the iconic images of the sub-genre (the vast majority of which come from the Baron of Blood himself), all that unpredictable, sloughing flesh looses a degree of its power if you can’t hear it. A forearm breaking during an arm wrestle (The Fly) hits different when you can hear the radius snap like a twig. A man exploring the gaping wound in his own chest (Videodrome) looses a good degree of its impact if you can’t hear the squelching. An exploding head (Scanners) packs that much more of a punch when your ears are graced with the sound of airborne brain matter.

So listen in, if you dare, to the films of David Cronenberg:

Watch “Hearing David Cronenberg | A Lesson in Sound Design”:

Who made this?

This video on the sound design of David Cronenberg movies comes courtesy of the fine folks at Little White Lies, a film-obsessed magazine based in the United Kingdom. Luís Azevedo is the director behind this video with Bruno Medeiros serving as assistant editor. You can follow Little White Lies on Twitter here. And you can check out their official website here. You can subscribe to their YouTube account here.

More videos like this

    Related Topics: David Cronenberg, sound design, The Queue
    <!-- AUTHOR BOX -->

Meg Shields is the humble farm boy of your dreams and a senior contributor at Film School Rejects. She currently runs three columns at FSR: The Queue, How’d They Do That?, and Horrorscope. She is also a curator for One Perfect Shot and a freelance writer for hire. Meg can be found screaming about John Boorman’s ‘Excalibur’ on Twitter here: @TheWorstNun. (She/Her).

    <!-- START RECOMMENDED READING 1 -->
                                <section class="recommended py-5">
            <h3>Recommended Reading</h3>


        </section>
            <!-- END RECOMMENDED READING -->




</div><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on Google News too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.