Viggo Mortensen and director David Cronenberg on the set of Eastern Promises.A BRIEF HISTORY OF DAVID CRONENBERG
By
Alex Simon
Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in the December/January 2005-06 issue of Venice Magazine.
David Cronenberg has carved a unique niche for himself as the premiere purveyor of the biological horror film. A self-described “amateur scientist,” Cronenberg’s disturbing, horrific, and often very funny films usually involve some semblance of human chemistry going very, very wrong, with phantasmagorical results for his often unfortunate characters.
Born in Toronto, Canada March 15, 1943, the second of two children to a journalist father and musician mother (sister Denise Cronenberg is one of the top costume designers in the film biz). After falling in love with filmmaking during his days at University of Toronto, Cronenberg formed The Toronto Film Co-op with fellow enthusiast Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters). Cronenberg made a number of short films in the ensuing years, along with directing episodic Canadian television, finally making his feature debut with Shivers (AKA They Came From Within), a prescient thriller about a Toronto condominium complex of swinging singles who find themselves passing around a deadly, sexually transmitted parasite that induces madness and violence. Cronenberg followed this with the equally shocking Rabid in 1977, which explored similar themes, and then tried for a change of pace with the cult hit Fast Company, about itinerant drag racers. 1979 also brought what many consider to be Cronenberg’s most disturbing film, The Brood, starring Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar. Written as the filmmaker was going through a particularly protracted and painful divorce, it was the first of his films to face the wrath of an X rating from the MPAA, and had to be trimmed for American release.
The 1980s saw Cronenberg become something of a household name. Films like Scanners (1981), and Videodrome (1983) continued to push the envelope in their presentation of thought-provoking storylines and metaphors, not to mention stomach-churning violence, although Cronenberg’s fans will insist he is rarely, if ever, gratuitous in his depictions (which we agree with). The Dead Zone (1983), adapted from the Stephen King novel, was a box office and critical hit that proved Cronenberg could deliver a Hollywood studio picture and still maintain his own unique sensibilities. He proved this again with the hit remake of The Fly, starring Jeff Goldblum as a brilliant scientist whose DNA is accidentally crossed with that of the aforementioned household pest. Dead Ringers (1988) featured a tour-de-force from Jeremy Irons in dual roles as twin gynecologists with dark impulses. It was also Cronenberg’s most lauded film to date, sweeping Canada’s Genie awards, as well as many American critics’ “Best of” lists.
Cronenberg continued to make challenging films into the 1990s, none moreso than his skillful adaptation of William Burroughs’ “unfilmable” classic Naked Lunch (1991). Crash (1996), about fetishists who are sexually aroused by automobile accidents, was released uncut by New Line Cinema with an NC-17 rating, a bold move not since duplicated by a major studio. 2005 however, brings Cronenberg’s most acclaimed film since Dead Ringers, and there are rumblings that perhaps Canada’s auteur of the dark will finally receive a long-overdue Oscar nod for his work.
A History of Violence, loosely adapted by Josh Olson from John Wagner and Vince Locke’s graphic novel, tells the story of Tom Stall, a mild-mannered average Joe (Viggo Mortensen, excellent) whose life is turned upside down after successfully defending himself against two psychotic robbers who foolishly attempt to highjack his small town diner. After he becomes a media sensation, Philadelphia mobsters (led by the great Ed Harris) show up on his doorstep, claiming he’s someone named “Joey,” who needs to accompany them back to Philly in order to settle an old debt. A complex, multilayered work that ranks high on anyone’s list of the year’s best films, A History of Violence also features standout work by Maria Bello, William Hurt and newcomer Ashton Holmes, who brilliantly captures the rage felt by every teenage boy who has had to face a bully. The New Line release is still playing in theaters, and is a must-see.
David Cronenberg spoke to Venice recently from his home in Toronto (he has filmed all his pictures in Canada). Here’s what was said:
I read the graphic novel after I saw the film, and the film is quite different. Can you talk about how you wanted to approach the story differently?
David Cronenberg: I never knew the script I got was based on a graphic novel. That’s the weird part of the story. I thought for ages that it was an original script by Josh Olson, and it didn’t say, as it normally does, “based on” on the front page of the script. So, I blindly went ahead developing it with Josh, then did a rewrite myself, and only then did someone at New Line mention the graphic novel, to which I replied ‘What graphic novel?’ So they scrambled around to find me a copy because it was out of print then, and I read it, and felt that we had gone so far in a different direction that it was actually basically irrelevant to me, it was so different. Then I talked to Josh about it, and he said what he pitched New Line was his own specific take on the novel, which wasn’t exactly the novel, which is what they got excited about. So he really started it, going off in this different direction, which focused more on the family, rather than mob politics.
The other thing your film did was really examine the insidiousness of violence and how it’s like a virus.
Yeah, that’s just it. Josh and I were both in synch about where we wanted to go with it, and developed it that way.
How do you like to work with your actors? You’ve always had a gift for putting together wildly diverse groups of actors.
Well, it’s a black art, casting. It’s not much focused on when people talk about directors, but I think casting is one of the things that makes a director good, or not so good. You want to make sure everyone feels like they’re in the same movie. You can have actors who are good, but just don’t seem to belong in that movie. We’ve all experienced that, I’m sure, when you see a performance, not even necessarily a bad one, and it seems to be a performance from some other movie. It’s all about tone. It’s almost like being tone deaf, or having perfect pitch, or being somewhere in between. There’s no rulebook to guide you, basically.
One film kept thinking of while watching A History of Violence was Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, which also explored similar themes. In fact, many people thought it was Eastwood’s apology for making decades of unapologetically brutal, violent films. Did some of those same thoughts go through your mind in making this?
I wasn’t obsessed with the theme of violence so much as I was with the sort of iconic, Americana elements that certainly impinged on violence. Those elements of a western: the man taking the law into his own hands with a gun, and so on. If you hit something right on the head, it’s usually not very convincing. With this script, it was the subtlety of it. You can watch this movie and think that it’s doing what you just said. It can be just a suspense thriller with the conundrum of a family at the center of it, but it’s funny, I like the clinical title A History of Violence. It does sound like a documentary, or something. And there you sort of expect a preachy analysis of violence and condemnation. But what was there was the ambiguity we have towards violence, the ambivalence that there is in the movie. In theory anyway, violence can be exhilarating. That small town that looks so perfect is exactly the kind of place that young people want to get out of. It’s boring for them. They want some danger, not necessarily physical danger, but they want stimulation. They want to come to the edge of something. So, it’s not propaganda, it’s a discussion.
One theme you explore in most of your films, including this one, is what is happening on the surface, and then what the truth is underneath.
I think artists have that impulse, to not accept at face value what society gives us as reality. That’s why artists are always wanting see what’s in the ceilings, what’s under the floorboards, what’s in the walls, where things really function and how they really work. It’s not just my impulse. It’s a basic artistic, creative impulse. I don’t think I’m unique that way. What makes you unique is how good you are at it, your own tone, your own texture.
There’s an honesty that you bring to it. I think you and David Lynch both have that in common: there’s a bluntness to what you reveal being underneath, whereas a lot of filmmakers, especially in today’s culture of fear, who are afraid to go there all the way.
Yeah, there’s always self-censorship, and I think that’s always the enemy. Real censorship from outside is something you can fight. But the triumph of any totalitarian state is to force the censorship inside people’s heads so they do the censoring themselves out of fear, and we have various versions of that right now happening in North America, whether it’s political correctness or just fear of government reprisal. There’s also other ways censorship can be visited upon you, like with economic sanctions. The NC-17 rating is a perfect example of this. It’s a rating that movies in America desperately need, because all it really means is movies for adults made by adults, but it’s been tainted with the porn brush, which has dismantled it, really. You’re punished economically if you dare to release a film that’s slapped with this rating.
And that never made sense to me because the NC-17 was created to combat exactly what you’re talking about.
Absolutely right. In Canada, and Britain and other countries you have a rating that does that. In Canada we have one that’s called “Restricted,” which means you have to be 18 to see the movie. It’s no big deal. But with an R rating, you’re worried that someone’s going to bring a kid, and that changes things. So that “Adult” rating is desperately needed for a mature filmmaking process to happen. When I did Crash in 1996, New Line had the guts to release it with an NC-17. They could have forced me to cut it down to an R, but they didn’t. I did, however, have to do an R version for Blockbuster, who won’t carry NC-17 films. It’s ten minutes shorter and it’s just a mess, not even worth looking at.
If you released that film today, would New Line still have the guts to release intact, with the NC-17?
My instinct says ‘yes.’ I know Bob (Shaye) and I know Michael (Lynne), but who knows. But there’s no question that things have gotten much more conservative now. For example, Atom Egoyan told me when he was talking to the MPAA about Where the Truth Lies, they said “By the way, there will be two representatives of the clergy at this discussion you’re coming in for.” And he said “What do you mean?” “There will be two members of the clergy. They don’t vote, and they won’t say anything, but they’ll be there.” Atom said “Who are they? What clergy?” I think he said there was one Episcopal and one…something else, something very straightforwardly Christian. And Atom said “Is this a rotating thing? Do you sometimes have an Imam there, or a Rabbi?” They said “No, no. Just these two guys.” Now I find that quite sinister.
Yeah, it’s like going back to The Legion of Decency days.
But once again, it’s sort of under the table. Certainly when I was speaking to Dick Hefner about Videodrome, which I had to cut slightly to get an R, there were certainly no clergy in attention.
Let’s get back to your film, and the questions of insidiousness that you raise regarding the nature of violence.
An interesting thing that some people have asked me is “Would you say that violence is a virus, or a disease that spreads?” My answer is no, it’s worse than that. It’s actually a part of what is a healthy human being. That’s even scarier. If it were a disease, you could at least think that some vaccination could be developed against it. When you want to tell stories, and you want to deal with human beings, there’s no point in sugar-coating it. We have to see what we are as a species. It’s the only way we’re ever going to affect serious change on the planet. There is a part of us that thrives on violence and it’s connected partially to our creativity and it certainly goes back to our evolution—another dirty word suddenly—from the primates that we were. And that’s a whole other can of worms we’ve opened.
You just hit the nail on the head as to why I love violence in movies: movies are where violence belongs, because it gives us a healthy outlet to feel and express those base instincts.
I think that’s true. The idea of catharsis is a real function in humans. The idea that things can be expressed in a controlled way or an uncontrolled way, if those things don’t have a way of coming out in a positive manner. That’s a truth, from Aristotle to Freud. As I pointed out to someone the other night during a discussion a Lincoln Center, I witnessed a million acts of (staged) violence on screen, and I thus far have not killed anyone. That means that, at least in my case, to see it is not to do it. The whole idea that you do what you see, that would suggest just showing nice stuff would induce nice behavior. The Nazi era, which was very repressive and very restrictive and very censored showed that philosophy simply doesn’t work. The human psyche is much trickier than that.
Let’s talk about your background and where some of your sensibilities were formed. You were born in Toronto?
Yes. My father was a journalist and my mother was a pianist. The act of creation, of being creative, was always there. It was just like breathing. There wasn’t any pressure on me, and my parents were not famous artists in any sense, but the act of creativity was always there, and always very accessible to me. Moviemaking was not accessible for me the way it would be for someone growing up in L.A. In Toronto, you didn’t know anyone who was in the movie business because there was no film business really happening here at the time.
But there was certainly an abundance of cinemas.
Absolutely. Movie-going was very active and when the art films started to happen in the late 50s and early 60s it was very huge in Toronto, and also the underground art scene, where you grabbed a camera and did your own thing, was very inspiring, too. I always thought I’d be a writer, because that’s what my father was. I wrote short stories and so on, which were never published, but I did send them off to sci-fi magazines and so on. It wasn’t until I was at the University of Toronto that I realized making movies was something feasible. I saw a film called Winter Kept Us Warm, starring my friends as actors, and that was incredibly shocking! Kids now who are ten have already made five movies, but that wasn’t the case then. It was like my friends had been projected from their seats as spectators onto the screen! It was quite stunning. My inspiration was not Hollywood, but the New York underworld. It was, you don’t have to spend ten years carrying film cans for somebody, you can grab a camera and make movies. So Ivan Reitman and I, along with some others, formed The Toronto Film Co-op, which was based on Jonas Mekas’ film co-op in New York, the idea being that your films could be accessed by schools and film societies and anybody who wanted to see them. It was sort of an alternative to film distribution structure.
Your first two films, Shivers and Rabid, were incredibly prescient: both were a warning bell for AIDS.
Yes, yes. As an amateur scientist, because at one point I did want to become a scientist as opposed to an artist, or at least that I’d combine the two, the way that Isaac Asimov had managed to do. He was kind of a hero of mine, because he was a practicing scientist, totally legitimate, but he was also a legitimized sci-fi writer. So I dropped the science eventually, but it always showed up in my movies.
I know I’m not the first person to tell you this, but you’re probably the greatest biological horror filmmaker in history.
I gladly accept that title with all the limitations that it implies! (laughs)
That’s the really terrifying thing about most of your films: all the horror emanates from something organic, making your stories both possible and plausible.
Here’s the thing: I don’t really see it as horrible. I see it as interesting. For me, the first fact of human existence is the human body. That is a source of strength for me, because that is what my understanding is of what it means to be human. It’s a very existentialist approach. It’s atheistic. I don’t do movies about ghosts and demons and all that, because I don’t believe in them, and simply can’t get into those things, in terms of my own philosophy of life. That immediately puts the focus on the body. If you’re a dramatist, it’s always more interesting when things go wrong, than when things go right. Put those things together and you get my movies.
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