Videodrome Trailer
Unknown (Michael Lennick?), 1983

Links
link to Videodrome on IMDB

The trailer for David Cronenberg's dystopic masterpiece, Videodrome, is insane. To say this is not really a regression into lazy, reductive California surf vernacular due to any lack of lexical finesse. It's much more a statement of fact. The trailer was created almost entirely on a Commodore 64 and it looks like new-wave apocalypse. If Tron (1982) is the first word in cinematic use of computer graphics, the Videodrome trailer is this form perfected. Twenty years of technical advancements in the field of computer graphics could not hope to improve this piece. Perhaps I'm mistaking a fetishistic subjectivity for a more blanket truth but this is one of those rare works of computer-dependent art that doesn't beg for an upgrade. Unfortunately, it's horribly difficult to find any solid information or credits for this trailer. The credit for 'Special Video Effects' is given to Michael Lennick, but I can't be certain that he was responsible for the trailer. I'm halfway resolved to ask Cronenberg himself. The most interesting aspect about it is that, subsequent to watching this preview, one would be challenged to actually determine what the movie is about. Perhaps it was an experiment in postmodernism. I'm inclined to believe that.

If I haven't made it overtly obvious already, I am completely obsessed with this trailer. It's impossibly cool. It should be mandatory viewing for the entire ITP community. Plasma screens should be devoted to its repeated playback.

Submitted by
Brett Schultz

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