The Dead Zone

Expanding my knowledge of the Cronenberg oeuvre yet further, I've just watched The Dead Zone, based on the Stephen King novel by the same name. I can assure you, dear reader, it was absolutely superb, even by the very high standards of Cronenberg's catalogue of work. The plot owes much to Cronenberg's earlier classic, Scanners, which itself owes much to John Wyndham's brilliant novel The Chrysalids, but the film's success is indebted greatest to an engrossing central performance by a young Christopher Walken in the role of Johnny Smith. Looking like an intense James Spader, with windswept hair that was so de rigueur in the early eighties, Walken avoids the temptation to overact a role that many would have fluffed. It's a perfect example of flawless casting, and the love interest with Brooke Adams' character culminates in a wrenching denouement that poignantly and appropriately elevates the themes of forgiveness and retribution, love and tragedy to the forefront of the audience's awareness.

After a sudden car accident Smith is left comatose for five years. He awakes to find he has lost his job, his mobility, and most significantly, his loved one. He has, however, gained a curious psychic intuition. He resents his "gift" and rejects any notion of divine intervention. Indeed, perhaps the film's most powerful undercurrent confronts the Problem of Evil. Religion very delicately lingers in the background for much of the story, and is invoked acutely, though powerfully as Smith psychically witnesses a murder. Recoiling, he tells a police officer:

I was there. I saw him. I stood there. I saw his face. I stood there and watched him kill that girl. God. I did nothing. I stood there and watched him kill that girl. God. I stood there. I did nothing.

Smith appears shocked at his own inaction, his inadequacy when confronted with evil. There's a subtle overlap here. Of course, God's omnipresence should, we intuit, eliminate the potential for evil, yet evil remains. However, surely evil cannot exist, by definition, without it's opposite. One senses that this dichotomy plagues Walken's character as he proceeds to come to terms with his new life. It's a remarkable performance entrusted to a remarkable script, and, as always, Cronenberg stamps his brilliance over every scene.