David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg, CC OOnt FRSCis a Canadian director, producer, filmmaker, screenwriter, actor, and author. Cronenberg is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or visceral horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the psychological is typically intertwined with the physical. In the first half of his career, he explored these themes mostly through horror and science fiction, although his work has since...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth15 March 1943
CityToronto, Canada
CountryCanada
I never thought I was doing the same thing as directors like John Carpenter, George Romero, and sometimes even Hitchcock, even though I've been sometimes compared to those other guys. We're after different game.
I've been to screenings where people laugh at certain points and can see that they are entertained. But this movie is the furthest thing from ironic. If you are entertained, if you laugh, I hope you would ask yourself why. I would hope to make a movie in which the audience questions everything.
I've managed, really, to be pretty successful in terms of getting what I want in a movie. I leave people very happy with what we've done, even when I end up getting what I wanted and they don't get what they wanted.
So that means I want it to be deep, not in a pretentious way, but I guess I can say I am pretentious in that I pretend. I have aspirations that the movie should trigger off a lot of complex responses.
We joked about that on the set. There was a sense this was a portrait of a marriage in all kinds of ways, especially under duress.
I don't think it's a good thing, really, for a filmmaker or an artist of any kind to only want to be appreciated or loved. It's if you start chasing that, then I think you've destroyed yourself.
I don't think I've made a movie that isn't funny, on one level or another, despite having other things going on at the same time, ... and this is no exception. I do ask the audience to take some twists and turns with me in terms of tone, because there's a moment that's funny that immediately turns into something emotionally devastating. Movies these days tend to be pretty clumpy; here's the sad scene with the sad music and the sad everything, and now we go to the reconciliation. Cue the happy music! That's not asking for much from the audience. And that's not the way anyone's day goes.
Certainly, it is more mainstream than Crash or Spider, ... so I thought maybe it was too much of a normal movie for Cannes.
I got my first credibility acknowledged here when I was a young filmmaker, ... I almost feel that my career and the festival's career have ascended in synch, in lock step, because the festival has gone from an interesting concept, as the Festival of Festivals, to being recognized as a brilliant concept and a unique one.
My father used to work here, back when it was The Toronto Telegram. These remind me of him.
I see technology as being an extension of the human body.
Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion.
I don't mind writing so I didn't find that difficult, it's just a question of finding the time to do it. I kind of like the direct connection with the fans actually, it's pretty neat.
It's the perfect car, the dream ... a combination of beauty and technology,