BODY MARATHON: how cinema reinterprets the body
Photo source: imdb.com
The brilliant tragic-farcical body horror The Substance, currently playing in theaters, has sparked conversations not only about the incredible talent and boldness of Demi Moore, who stars in the lead role but also about the human body as one of the most frequently depicted subjects in the history of cinema.
After all, we are a species fascinated by the joy and sorrow of recognition. Cinema allows us to explore our bodies in all their manifestations — be it birth, growth, decay, or decomposition.
Let’s reflect on this, recalling a dozen iconic films where human bodies become battlefields between life and death, between the external and the internal, between our «self» and others.
A film about a movie star whose desperate search for the «fountain of youth» turns into a bloody neon spectacle, raising questions about society’s fixation on youth and unattainable beauty standards, serves as a fitting case in point.
The Substance
is a genuinely radical statement from the young, immensely talented director Coralie Fargeat (rightly awarded the Cannes prize for Best Screenplay) and the great actress Demi Moore, who hasn’t allowed herself to be treated in such a way — physically and emotionally — since G.I. Jane (1997). Perhaps she never has before.
The story begins with Elizabeth Sparkle (played by Demi Moore), a former Hollywood star who has fallen to the level of a popular fitness show host, losing her job. A grotesque producer named Harvey (Dennis Quaid) decides to retire her, opting to find someone younger.
In her desperation, Elizabeth gets involved in an anonymous scheme involving a mysterious drug that promises to create a younger version of herself, offering the chance to reclaim her career and past fame.
Demi Moore, who delivers a career-defining performance, brilliantly portrays a victim of her perfection, battling self-loathing, societal judgment, and a newfound addiction to the miraculous drug.
It took tons of makeup to depict the transformation of the aging Hollywood diva into a grotesque creature, somewhat reminiscent of Lynch’s John Merrick and eventually into pure slime. Flesh, blood, and bones, imbued with life, serve here as essential material for the human viewer’s mind.
People leave the screening pregnant with existential thoughts. Because the body on the screen is not mere physiology but a powerful symbol of human civilization and culture. The human body is represented on the big screen in hundreds of different ways, from glamorous movie stars to frightening humanoid creatures from horror and science fiction.
Cinema, more than any other medium, provides an opportunity to marvel at the bodies and expressive movements of actors who go to great lengths to immerse themselves in their roles and physically embody their characters.
Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Christian Bale, Charlize Theron, and, of course, Joaquin Phoenix subjected their bodies to incredible trials for authenticity — gaining and losing dozens of kilograms (Raging Bull, 1980), enduring special dental prosthetics (first used by Marlon Brando to create Don Corleone on screen, and later by a young Robert De Niro), spending months confined to wheelchairs, or learning to paint with their feet (Daniel Day-Lewis’s astonishing performance in the drama My Left Foot, 1989), transforming themselves to the point of painful unrecognizability (like Christian Bale in The Machinist, Charlize Theron in Monster, or Brendan Fraser, suffering from pathological obesity in The Whale).
While great actors have physically transformed themselves — often to the point of horror — to portray less-than-attractive characters, audiences have been drawn in the opposite direction by the allure of movie stars. These stars are idols, deities, role models…
This theme is brilliantly explored in Spike Jonze’s inventive, unparalleled, and truly genius dramedy Being John Malkovich (1999). In it, a failed puppeteer (John Cusack) discovers a portal that leads directly into the mind of a Hollywood star, allowing a brief experience of seeing and feeling everything the star does.
More precisely, everything John Malkovich experiences. The protagonist immediately turns this anthropological attraction into a business, profiting from those who wish to live their «fifteen minutes of fame» (the exact duration one can spend inside the actor before being ejected onto the side of the road somewhere in New Jersey) in the body of a celebrity.
He escapes reality in the same way and eventually takes complete control of the actor. At one point, he even decides to stay in Malkovich’s body forever, using his fame to start a new, star-studded life. Being John Malkovich delves into the theme of ordinary people’s obsession with the bodies of celebrities, who become vessels of identification for them.
Cinema significantly influences the reinforcement or challenge of societal stereotypes about «physical norms».
Moreover, films serve as showcases of contemporary global culture and its ideals of physical perfection. Bodies on screen often function as elements of erotic spectacle. Margaret Qualley plays such a character in The Substance (2024), as does Emma Stone in Poor Things (2023).
Men are no less subject to objectification than women, although in a different way. The display of the male body does not interrupt the narrative — it is almost always shown in action, highlighting physical strength and agility. It is tested and turned into a «destruction machine» or «damaged, mutilated flesh» bound to a hospital bed.
Take, for example, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), an extraordinary adaptation of the memoirs of the stroke-stricken editor-in-chief of French Elle, written with the use of his left eyelid. In this film, the wildly talented French actor Mathieu Amalric performs a harrowing portrayal of a man imprisoned in his own body, captured through the lens of Spielberg’s cinematographer Janusz Kamiński. Or consider Javier Bardem’s paralyzed character in the Oscar-winning drama The Sea Inside (2004), who dreams of euthanasia.
Characters defined by their bodies — those that contradict cultural norms with their shapes and sizes, age, or non-conforming gender expressions — have a unique cinematic quality.
This is especially evident in screen antagonists, whose injuries and scars set them apart from physically healthy protagonists, symbolizing moral decay and societal alienation. Think of Freddy Krueger, Voldemort, or the grotesque warlord Immortan Joe from the post-apocalyptic
Directors often draw inspiration from the grotesque aspects of the physical form, revealing the dark side of human nature while simultaneously leaving room for a lyrical sense of wonder in life. In Marco Ferreri’s anarchic tragicomedy La Grande Bouffe (1973), for instance, four wealthy bourgeois men (played by four of European cinema’s biggest stars — Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Piccoli, Marcello Mastroianni, and Philippe Noiret) decide to commit collective suicide by eating themselves to death.
The exquisite and luxurious feast turns into depravity, with the characters writhing in their filth and agony. This satire of bourgeois indulgences (where the body is presented as the most earthly essence) ultimately morphs into a near-apocalyptic tragedy. On the other hand, Ferreri doesn’t overly exaggerate.
In the memoirs of Marlene Dietrich’s daughter, there are detailed accounts of how European stars enjoyed risky and unclean amusements. George Cukor’s memoirs similarly describe the «pig-like» revelries of Golden Age Hollywood.
However, none of this compares to splatters and slashers like Hitchcock’s Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, or Scream, with their hyper-grotesque violence. Such films evoke a visceral sense of revulsion, completely obliterating the boundary between the self and the inner world.
The body becomes a canvas for horror. These films expose one of our most primal fears — the finite nature of the human body. They get under our skin and explore our fragile, mutable nature.
The body and its limitless transformations — decay, mutation, and obsession with other forms of life — have long been favorite themes of Canadian auteur David Cronenberg. A master of bumpy abnormalities, he has always made films about the initial mutation of the body, followed by the transformation of the spirit.
His characters become insects (in The Fly, a scientist-experimenter becomes the victim of his own experiment, while in Naked Lunch, a drug-addicted writer, under the influence of hallucinogens, ends up in a mysterious Interzone populated by exotic creatures) and even household appliances (as happens to the overly curious TV producer played by James Woods in the cult classic Videodrome). They experience unprecedented sexual pleasure through injuries sustained in horrific car crashes (Crash).
In these films and others, the body fascinates us primarily through its relationship to our bodies as we sit in the dark theater. In other words, as long as the film offers the «joy or sorrow of recognition», our immersion in the story has an added physical dimension. Our empathy during a movie is so profound that we can feel the character’s body, indirectly inhabit it, and experience its movements with such intensity that we feel as powerful and graceful as the hero on screen.
That’s why our hearts race during James Bond’s stunts, we freeze in fear while watching Joker (2019) or Se7en (1997), we sob uncontrollably at the end of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) or The Wrestler (2008), and leave the theater feeling both drained and uplifted, without having moved a muscle.
Cinema reinterprets the body (recalling Francis Coppola’s somewhat forgotten film Jack, where Robin Williams plays a ten-year-old schoolboy who, due to birth complications, appears as an adult man), becoming a platform for its representation.
The Substance, in turn, lets us inhabit the bodies on screen, allowing us to experience our own in new ways. Together with Demi Moore, the director traps us in a claustrophobic world of cold, high-tech spaces and unfolds a stunning story of doubling, self-identity, self-loathing, and obsession.
Andy Warhol once called Cronenberg’s Videodrome, which explored the aggression of virtual television reality and the remote control of a person caught in a network of channels, the A Clockwork Orange of the 1980s.
In that case, The Substance is the Videodrome of the 2020s. It’s about how modern society’s fixation on youth and unattainable beauty standards affects not only the mind but also shapes new flesh.
When copying materials, please place an active link to www.huxley.media
Select the text and press Ctrl + Enter
