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The Fly tickets are now available to be purchased or sold online at Stubhub.com. Where does high art and low art meet? You’d best pose that question to David Cronenberg, the famed cult film director whose visions of insect and flesh-inspired horror have influenced movies for decades now. But while he’s made his name in the world of cinema, he’s branching out into an entirely new field. An opera adaptation of Cronenberg’s best known movie, The Fly, will premiere in September 2008 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. Cronenberg directed the opera, and the music was composed by Howard Shore, who was also responsible for the film’s score (as well as many others he’s collaborated on with Cronenberg). There’s a good chance the opera crowd might not be familiar with the gory special effects Cronenberg’s fan base appreciates. For them, this series of articles will be helpful. Each article briefly examines one of the films from the director’s extensive canon. Though it’s developed a cult following since its release, 1979’s The Brood is not a very well-known film. It’s certainly important if you’re familiar with the Cronenberg pantheon, but isn’t one of the first that fans gravitate toward when they discover this director. It’s a shame; The Brood may actually be one of Croneneberg’s most biographical films, and despite having some truly frightening moments, his most tender expression of fatherhood. The story is based on Cronenberg’s traumatic divorce from his first wife. In it, a father has won custody of his young daughter, while his wife has checked into a psychiatric facility. She’s had a very damaging upbringing, and in the course of the film, we meet her mother (an alcoholic) and her father (a cowed man who regrets allowing his daughter to be verbally abused by his wife). It’s somewhat revealing that we never get to know the male lead very well; he remains little more than a caricature of a caring father, but doesn’t have much depth or personality to him. It’s the psychiatric facility we focus most of our attention on. There, an experimental technique allows the emotionally damaged to express their subconscious wounds physically: They break into rashes, or even develop what look like tumors. The lead character’s wife, it seems, has developed a brood of child-like creatures that exact revenge on those who hurt her…including her daughter and husband. While sticking with the theme of repressed emotion, The Brood goes farther than most horror films by commenting on the unfortunate, hereditary nature of mental abuse. No matter how hard we try, it seems like we can’t protect our children completely from the psychological wounds of our parents. Though it’s a horror film principally, there are many scenes that are filled with a weary sadness and intelligence you don’t find in your typical fright flick. Still, as a horror film it shows Cronenberg blooming. The titular brood’s appearance is frightening in itself: They look like children from behind, wearing pastel-colored raincoats. But their faces have snouts and fangs. When one character finds another dead, he looks up just in time to see a hooded face staring at him from the stairs. Little claws leave bloody prints on the banister when the creature flees. In another scene, the daughter is kidnapped by two of the brood’s ever-expanding members and taken to her daughter. In one chilling shot, we see all three of them—two of the troll-like creatures standing at the same height as the daughter, all in matching pastel-colored raincoats, tramping through the snow. The Brood comes highly recommended in this Cronenberg primer. Written by Andrew Good and sponsored by StubHub.com. StubHub sells sports tickets, concert tickets, theater tickets and more to just about any event in the world. Don't miss this Cronenberg classic with The Fly tickets.
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