“So far ahead of his time”: The director Debbie Harry calls a “genius”
With the edgy heart of the 1970s punk scene, the added allure of new wave and a style that screamed sheer glamour, Debbie Harry of Blondie practically defined an era of American music and left a deep impression on its historical landscape, inspiring scores upon scores of the proceeding generations to come.
An unbridled energy onstage was met with a laidback, effortlessly cool attitude off it, and Harry emerged as one of the 20th century’s most undoubted cultural icons. Refusing to conform to the expectations of sexuality and gender, Harry, at the head of Blondie, unapologetically laid the groundwork for what was to come in the punk scene.
However, even aside from her primary profession as a singer, Harry had extended her creative talents beyond the realms of music. The world of cinema has also profited from Harry’s commitment to artistic avenues, and in 1983, she starred in David Cronenberg’s science fiction body horror film Videodrome.
Harry had already featured in the likes of Union City and Roadie prior to her breakthrough acting role, but it was her effort as Nicki Brand in Cronenberg’s horror movie that proved her endless talent. The film tells of a television executive who comes across a strange signal of snuff films before becoming embroiled in a conspiracy of mind control that threatens his sanity.
Nicki Brand, Harry’s character, plays a sadomasochistic radio host who becomes sexually involved with the TV exec. Now, of course, Videodrome featured its fair share of nudity, which Harry had to deliver on screen for the first time, although this seems to not have fazed her in the slightest and was a challenge she took on in full confidence.
“I didn’t really have a problem with it,” she once admitted in an interview with Vulture. “I think I felt pretty good about how I looked, and I didn’t think there was extreme nudity anyway. I mean, everything was very suggested. It went along with everything else that was being suggested in terms of the horror and the weirdness.”
Horror and weirdness are certainly two words that sum up not only Videodrome but also Cronenberg’s oeuvre in general. Praised as being masterworks of the body horror genre, the Canadian director’s films often point at themes like the limits of the human body, its technological advancement (and subsequent dangers) and the psychological and physical impact of modern life.
Harry herself admitted that Cronenberg had been pushing boundaries with Videodrome, which would continue to become cinematic staples in the future of the film industry. “David wrote so many things in that script that are commonplace today,” she said. “It’s amazing. He was so far ahead of his time. He’s really quite a genius.”
Check out the trailer for Videodrome below.
