Stereo is a 1969 Canadian film written

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

, shot

Cinematography

Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...

, edited and directed

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

 by David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg

David Paul Cronenberg, OC, FRSC is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the...

. It stars Ronald Mlodzik, who also appears in Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future

Crimes of the Future

Crimes of the Future is a 1970 Canadian film written, shot, edited and directed by David Cronenberg. Like his earlier Stereo it lasts about an hour and stars Ronald Mlodzik. Also like Stereo it was shot silent with a commentary added afterwards. The commentary is spoken by the character Adrian Tripod...

, Shivers

Shivers (film)

Shivers is a 1975 Canadian body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. Cronenberg won "Best Director" at the 1975 Sitges Film Festival.-Plot:Dr...

 and Rabid

Rabid

Rabid is a 1977 horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. It features Marilyn Chambers in the lead role, supported by Frank Moore, Howard Ryshpan, Joe Silver and Robert A...

. It was Cronenberg's first feature-length effort, following his two short films, Transfer

Transfer (film)

Transfer is a 1966 short film written, shot, edited and directed by David Cronenberg. It features Mort Ritts and Rafe Macpherson and has a runtime of 7 minutes....

 and From the Drain

From the Drain

From the Drain is a 1967 short film directed by David Cronenberg while he was in film school.-Plot summary :The film is centered on two men in a bathtub; it is implied that they are veterans of some past conflict but revealed that they are currently in a mental institution. The first man is...

. It is a brief feature

Feature film

In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

 film, with a running time of a little over one hour. This film is set in 1996.

Summary

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 suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

s. 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 parody

Parody

A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...

ing scientific and metaphysical jargon, was added later.
The film was shot at Scarborough College

University of Toronto Scarborough

The University of Toronto Scarborough is a satellite campus of the University of Toronto. Based in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the campus is set upon suburban parkland in the residential neighbourhood of Highland Creek...

 (University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

).

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

Shivers (film)

Shivers is a 1975 Canadian body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. Cronenberg won "Best Director" at the 1975 Sitges Film Festival.-Plot:Dr...

, Videodrome

Videodrome

Videodrome is a 1983 Canadian science fiction body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg, starring James Woods, Sonja Smits, and singer Deborah Harry. Set in Toronto during the early 1980s, it follows the CEO of a small cable station who stumbles upon a broadcast signal featuring...

, Dead Ringers

Dead Ringers (film)

Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological horror film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. Director David Cronenberg co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider; their script was based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland...

, Naked Lunch

Naked Lunch (film)

Naked Lunch is the 1991 Canadian/British/Japanese film adaptation, directed by David Cronenberg, of William S. Burroughs' novel of the same name...

, M. Butterfly

M. Butterfly (film)

M. Butterfly is a 1993 romantic drama film directed by David Cronenberg. The screenplay was written by David Henry Hwang based on his play of the same name...

 and Crash

Crash (1996 film)

Crash is a 1996 Canadian/British drama thriller film written and directed by David Cronenberg based on the J. G. Ballard 1973 novel of the same name. It tells the story of a group of people who take sexual pleasure from car accidents, a notable form of paraphilia. The film generated considerable...

. The idea of telepathy induced by an unknown scientist recurs in Scanners

Scanners

Scanners is a 1981 science-fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan...

, as does the image of one tormented telepath who uses an electric drill to pierce his own forehead in what Stereos commentary refers to as "an act of considerable symbolic significance".