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
atheist real believe
It was apparent to me that religion was an invented thing, a wish-fulfillment thing, a fantasy thing. It was much more real, dangerous, to accept that mortality was the end for you as an individual. As an atheist, I don't believe in an afterlife, so if you're thinking of murder, if your subject is murder, then that's a physical act of absolute destruction because you're ending something, a body, that is unique. That person never existed before, will never exist again, will not be karmically recycled, will not go to heaven, therefore I take it seriously.
wall dark reality
For me, it's just a normal artistic endeavour to explore the dark side. Certainly, I'm not alone in it. Artists generally don't like to accept the version of reality that society and culture hand them. They want to know what's really going on. So you're always looking in the ceilings, under the floorboards and behind the walls, trying to find the mechanisms, the structures, and the truth. I find that often leads you into some dark places.
reality self mind
For me, the first fact of human existence is the human body. But if you embrace the reality of the human body, you embrace mortality, and that is a very difficult thing for anything to do because the self-conscious mind cannot imagine non-existence. It's impossible to do.
religious real believe
I have a real aversion to ghosts because I don't believe in them. I think ghosts are actually a religious concept, because it means you believe in an afterlife. And I don't.
youth realizing stereotype
All stereotypes turn out to be true. This is a horrifying thing about life. All those things you fought against as a youth: you begin to realize they're stereotypes because they're true.
ask audience certain furthest hope laugh people points questions
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.
happy leave people successful terms
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.
complex guess means trigger
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.
kinds marriage portrait
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.
artist chasing destroyed filmmaker good start
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.
ask asking audience cue days despite funny happy level moment movies music sad scene tend terms turns twists
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.
crash mainstream maybe normal
Certainly, it is more mainstream than Crash or Spider, ... so I thought maybe it was too much of a normal movie for Cannes.
almost brilliant career concept festival gone lock recognized unique
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.
father remind toronto work
My father used to work here, back when it was The Toronto Telegram. These remind me of him.