Themes: Future Dystopias, Political Corruption, Psychic Abilities
Main Cast: Jack Messinger, Iain Ewing, Clara Mayer, Paul Mulholland
Release Year: 1969
Country: CA
Run Time: 63 minutes
Plot
The first film by director David Cronenberg, the black and white, hour-long feature Stereo is more self-consciously avant-garde, and less visceral, than his later work. Nevertheless, many of the usual Cronenberg concerns are present: a futuristic setting, bizarre scientific experimentation, and an obsessive exploration of perverse forms of sexuality. Stereo borrows the structure of an educational film, masquerading as a documentary record of an experiment performed by The Canadian Academy for Erotic Inquiry, under the guidance of Doctor Luther Stringfellow. (Indeed, the film is almost entirely silent, except for a series of voice-overs by the experimenters.) The project centers around a series of surgical techniques that are designed to create the ability for telepathic communication. The scientists are successful, and proceed to examine the interaction between the experimental subjects, especially the rise to dominance of one of the telepaths. As the study progresses, the researchers introduce the telepaths to various drugs, including aphrodisiacs, to increase the intensity of their bond and induce a state of "omnisexuality." When the telepaths begin to isolate themselves, however, it becomes clear that the experiment has had unforeseen side effects -- effects that ultimately lead to violence. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide
The film purports to be part of a "mosaic" of educational resources by the Canadian Academy of Erotic Enquiry. It documents an experiment by the unseen Dr. Luther Stringfellow. A young man (Ronald Mlodzik) in a black cloak is seen arriving at the Academy, where he joins a group of young volunteers who are being endowed with telepathic abilities which they are encouraged to develop through sexual exploration. It is hoped that telepathic groups, bonded in polymorphous sexual relationships, will form a socially stabilising replacement for the "obsolescent family unit". One girl develops a secondary personality in order to cope with her new state of consciousness, which gradually ousts her original personality. As the volunteers' abilities develop, the experimenters find themselves increasingly unable to control the progress of the experiment. They decide to separate the telepaths, which results in two suicides. The final sequence shows the young woman who developed an extra personality wearing the black cloak.
Production
The film was shot in black and white, and silent because the camera Cronenberg was using made too much noise. A commentary, purportedly by various followers of Stringfellow's theories, and parodying scientific and metaphysical jargon, was added later. The film was shot at the brutalist building Scarborough College (University of Toronto), which was designed by the famous architect John Andrews.
Analysis
The film embodies several themes now common within Cronenberg's body of work. The exploration (voluntary or otherwise) of new states of consciousness via sexual experimentation is a major theme in Shivers, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly and Crash. The idea of telepathy induced by an unknown scientist recurs in Scanners, as does the image of one tormented telepath who uses an electric drill to pierce his own forehead in what Stereo's commentary refers to as "an act of considerable symbolic significance".
