It’s kind of like making children

January 29, 2012 5:10 PM

David Cronenberg talks to the LA Review of Books about making movies
posted by Artw (14 comments total)

Really wonderful interview. I was lucky enough to get to interview Cronenberg for five minutes in the days leading up to the opening of "The Fly: The Opera," and I managed to totally rankle him on accident by asking whether revisiting "The Fly" had inspired him to take on any more big, disgusting monster movies. He just replied rather aridly that he doesn't consider his any of his movies disgusting, he considers them beautiful, and after that he seemed to want to get away from me as fast as possible.

I mean, I totally get the point, I'm no philistine -- but COME ON dude, you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't be trippin'.
posted by hermitosis at 5:50 PM on January 29, 2012 [3 favorites]

What do they mean by saying his films are "Cartesian horror"?
posted by Beardman at 6:19 PM on January 29, 2012

What do they mean by saying his films are "Cartesian horror"?

I think he was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir!

(If only Full Metal Jacket were a Cronenberg film...)
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:01 PM on January 29, 2012

"Cartesian horror"

Cartesian dualism.
posted by Wolof at 7:02 PM on January 29, 2012

I was eating lunch with a co-worker in a diner on Queen West in Toronto when he suddenly looks over my shoulder out the front window and says to me excitedly, "David Cronenberg just walked by!" He was a big fan, so he bolts out the door, catches up to Cronenberg on the street and says to him, "Excuse me, didn't I see you in Nightbreed?"
posted by davebush at 7:22 PM on January 29, 2012 [8 favorites]

Best Cronenberg cameo: Blood and Donuts
posted by defenestration at 7:25 PM on January 29, 2012

LA Review of Things.
posted by tumid dahlia at 8:00 PM on January 29, 2012

defenestration: Better than him getting harpooned by Jason Vorhees in Jason X?
posted by Grimgrin at 8:32 PM on January 29, 2012 [1 favorite]

"I’m not bound up in my own head, I mean I don’t have the kind of expectations some people seem to think you have to have as a filmmaker. In other words, I don’t think about my other films. I don’t care about them. I mean they’re there. But I would never go back, I don’t try to make them better by doing CG on old movies; I have no desire to do something like that. They are bound in their own time."

...so much love for this man.
posted by trackofalljades at 10:27 PM on January 29, 2012

davebush: "I was eating lunch with a co-worker in a diner on Queen West in Toronto when he suddenly looks over my shoulder out the front window and says to me excitedly, "David Cronenberg just walked by!" He was a big fan, so he bolts out the door, catches up to Cronenberg on the street and says to him, "Excuse me, didn't I see you in Nightbreed?"

This anecdote is useless without Cronenberg's reaction.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:22 AM on January 30, 2012

By the way, if you like this interview, "Cronenberg on Cronenberg" is a great book. Well, it's great no matter what your opinion of this interview is, actually.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:57 AM on January 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Joakim Ziegler - Cronenberg played along and said with a grin "Yes, yes you did."
posted by davebush at 6:06 AM on January 30, 2012 [1 favorite]

Though I understand and feel that Dead Ringers, Videodrome and The Fly are Cronenberg's best films, I am utterly in love with History of Violence. I have seen it a dozen times and own it on multiple formats. I don't really care for the source material, but that movie got under my skin (pardon the expression) much more than his body horror films that I also enjoy...
posted by slimepuppy at 2:09 PM on January 30, 2012

I don't really care for the source material, but that movie got under my skin

Interesting. Weirdly I find Wagner's version and Cronenberg's version pretty awesome up to the point where they majorly diverge (halfway through the comic, about three quarters through the film) and then i have entirely separate issues with them that leave them being just OK in their own ways.

(Also i have had a pint with John Wagner and have worked with Vince Locke, so I guess with the Cronenberg connection that makes me pretty killer at Kevin Bacon style six separations games)
posted by Artw at 2:16 PM on January 30, 2012