Camera (2000/III)

Director:

David Cronenberg

Writer:

David Cronenberg (writer)

Genre:

Short

Plot:

While a veteran actor laments the state of film and film acting, a group of young children sneak a Panavision camera into the apartment where the actor resides and decide to make a film with it. |

Plot Keywords:

Confession | Behind The Scenes | Video

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Leslie Carlson	...	The Actor
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Marc Donato	...	Lead
Harrison Kane	...	Lead
Kyle Kass	...	Lead (as Kyle Kassardjian)
Natasha La Force		(as Natasha LaForce)
Katie Lai
Daniel Magder	...	Director
Chloe Randle-Reis		(as Chloe Reis)
Stephanie Sams
Camille Shniffer	...	Lead

Runtime:

6 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Trivia:

David Cronenberg was inspired to make this short film by a dream he had when he was a child in which he was watching a movie in a theater and growing old quickly while watching it.

Quotes:

The Actor: When you record the moment, you record the death of the moment. Children and death are a bad combination.

Cronenbergs short little masterpiece

I saw this short on youtube and have watched it twice and probably will watch it again. Camera deals with an aging actor that has passed his prime, both in life and career vise. The old man talks to the screen about life, acting and the effects a camera that ,,the children" brought home will have on them all. He speaks about the camera as it were a curse that would destroy them all as the children make the camera and other film equipment ready to film the old man.

In over six minutes Cronenberg manages smoothly to summon up the most common human flaw: fear, and its effect. As soon as the old man finishes talking about the terrible effect the camera will have on them and the children start filming the old man starts lying and the short film changes from being realistic to being a fraud.

After watching this film I finally ,,discovered" Cronenberg and what it is that he has been trying to say with pretty much all of his films. Cronenberg has dedicated his career into revealing the ugliness behind mechanism by connecting it with monstrous things such as the scientist who becomes a fly, the victims of a car crash who become perverse, the TV producer who becomes illusional, computer game players who can't separate the game from reality, the exterminator who starts sniffing bug spray and also becomes illusional and can't separate truth from imagination, and most of his other work like in Dead Ringers, Scanners and The Dead Zone and probably in his older work that I have yet not reviewed. They are all trying to examine the horrifying side of machinery and the cause it will have on us in the end. Camera is the piece of film that made me realise the genius of David Cronenberg, even though I had loved most of the films I have seen by him I now have a more profound respect for him and I'm going to watch all of his work that I can get my hands into.

Camera - 10 out of 10.