confrontation with the abject

His films viscerally confront bodily transformation and the horror of flesh itself as the ultimate abject, from The Fly to Videodrome.

He unflinchingly presents taboo bodily functions, decay, and the grotesque materiality of human existence in films like Irréversible and Climax.

His provocative cinema weaponizes the abject—excrement, violence, and social waste—to critique civilization, most infamously in Salò.