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'm just observing the world. I was born into it, like you were, and then I found out there were some really disturbing aspects to being alive, like the fact that you weren't going to be alive forever - that bothered me.
Do you remember when you found out you wouldn't live forever? People don't talk about this, but everybody had to go through it because you're not born with that knowledge.
I'm simply a nonbeliever and have been forever. ... I'm interested in saying, 'Let us discuss the existential question. We are all going to die, that is the end of all consciousness. There is no afterlife. There is no God. Now what do we do.' That's the point where it starts getting interesting to me.
There is no point in going to Cannes if you're not going to be in competition. That's my feeling. So you've got to get into it.
I wrote a script that I thought had a lot of potential,
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.
It's not as though I have a message . . . I haven't solved any problem. It's a discussion, it's a meditation on the complexity of it.
It is specifically American, ... but that's not to say it's not universal. And I'm not fudging it. It is a parable of art that, to be universal, you must be specific. Otherwise, you are just talking about an abstraction. So you have to talk about a particular person and a particular place. Specificity is the essence of art. But it doesn't mean it doesn't have universal resonance.
It's a funny movie, too. People may wonder what's going on when they hear that about a movie that has the title A History of Violence . I think once they see it, they'll get it.
There's a certain intimacy involved. You have to get very close to the person who's threatening you. It's the opposite of what your instinct is.
It's the perfect car, the dream ... a combination of beauty and technology,
It's almost Twilight Zone y. There's an appeal to that longing for an imaginary pasta yearning for an innocence that was never so pure anyway. It's meant to be recognizably real, but it has to play as mythological as well. That's part of the balancing act.
I should add that Kerry won our election.
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.