David Cronenberg has spent half a century exploring fragility of the human organism is. How our frames can be infected, mutated or corrupted by outside invasion (Rabid, Shivers or The Fly), or by internal disruption, be it mental illness (Spider), addiction (Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch) or destructive desire (Crash). Technology also plays a role be it the VHS implants in Videodrome, the virtual reality of eXistenZ or the body enhancements of Crimes of the Future.
The Shrouds is autobiographical, inspired by your late wife, Carolyn?
She was a very private person. She made a lovely documentary based on A History of Violence that was well received. She was also a film editor. We were together for 43 years.
The film is a fictionalization of some real emotions, and real people. But despite the fact that some autobiography is involved, none of that makes it a good film. It needs to be a good film. The film has to exist whether people know anything about me or my wife, or don’t.
Karsh, played by Vincent Cassel, invented burial tool to connect with the dead
When my wife was being buried, I couldn’t imagine not being there. Of course, in the real world, that’s not possible. There is a way that you can be in the box using technology. It’s hard for me to say the exact moment when I was feeling an emotion that became the seed from which the movie grew.
The Shrouds has body-horror tropes
Yes, but it’s also discussing some very emotional things. I don’t think there’s any fantasy involved in this. That technology could exist. So, when people see a little summary of the film, they think it’s horror film, supernatural film – you’re communicating with the dead. But to me, it’s a very realistic film, not fantastic at all. You could easily make this happen.
Karsh is not really me. I’m not a businessman. I don’t own a restaurant. I don’t own a cemetery. But it’s a philosophical approach to life. To quote from Crimes of the Future, body is reality.
Change of human body from one state to another
There’s a lot of killing and death in cinema, but not too much consideration about the aftermath in physical, real bodily terms. I really wanted to know what happened to my wife once she was buried because I was not prepared to be alone. I didn’t think she was prepared to be alone. It’s like the John Donne poem: “The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace.”
I was thinking maybe there’s a way that, emotionally, you can embrace the dead and use technology. This is sort of a tech invention; it’s hardly sci-fi. You could create the kinds of tombs and burial shrouds I invented for the movie.
Link between bodily pain and erotic pleasure
The approach is really a kind of romantic, realistic, emotional. You live with someone, married to someone. They are struck by some debilitating disease, a condition. You are living with them, you love them. Let’s say, to make it cinematic, instead of having it be something like a virus, it’s something that requires amputation. So, suddenly, physically, that body that you have lived with, that person is radically and dramatically changed in a very physical and visible way.
Movie the limits of the human body?
Rather than any cinematic consideration of body horror, which is not a term I’ve ever used myself, but it’s stuck to me, it’s not just horror. It’s the aesthetics. Karsh in the dream sequences is saying to his wife, you are still sexually attractive to me. I still want you. You’re still beautiful. I can adjust my aesthetics to whatever your body has become.
In making this movie, as always, it’s as though I’ve never made another movie. This film has to work on its own, in isolation, or it’s not worth doing.
Audiences inevitably sees each film in terms of what came before?
That’s fine. It’s just that, often, critics or filmgoers confuse that with my creative process. They think that I must be thinking the same way as they are. And I’m not. Of course, it comes from my nervous system and from my past and everything else and my understanding of the craft of filmmaking, which you hope becomes stronger and more confident. But it really is my meditation on where I am in my life at the moment in some ways, rather than an accumulation of all the other films.
Once the film is done, I can see it within the realm of all my other films. But really, ultimately, this film has to work for a viewer who knows nothing of me or my other films. They have to really relate to the film and find it powerful or interesting, completely on its own and in isolation. That’s the viewer I’m making the film for, not for someone who’s an aficionado of my filmmaking.
The cast for The Shrouds
Vincent Cassel said this was the most dialogue he’s ever had to deliver in one film. Because it’s a talking film. Casting is an interesting process. There are some actors you can’t consider because of the co-financing structure. Guy Pearce, for example, being Australian, we had to get an exemption for him because he’s not Canadian and he’s not from the EU. And this is a Canada-EU co-production. Ultimately, you end up with the right actors for roles, and that can be tricky. I was so happy to have Vincent, I’ve worked with him two other times. And Diane Kruger, I’ve never worked with her before but am a huge follower of her work.
What Cannes means to you?
First of all, most of my films are independent. We don’t have $500 million to promote the film like Barbie, because it was a studio film. You can’t afford to fly all the actors all over the world to various places. Cannes is wonderful because the world comes to Cannes, the cinema world, anyways. So it’s an incredible marketing tool. That sounds very dry because Cannes prides itself on being a celebration of cinema, which it is. But on the pragmatic side, it’s fantastic publicity for your film. It’s an incredible way to introduce your new film to the world, especially if you’re independent filmmaker with no promotion budget. It’s very exciting and it’s a lot of fun, but it can abe terrifying as a filmmaker because you want that spotlight. But then, when it’s on you, it’s pretty scary actually.
Cronenberg being scared in Cannes?
Every time. First of all, you want to make sure you don’t fall going up the red carpet stairs, which are really steep. And the older you get, the more likely you’ll fall. I remember one time when I was going up the stairs and I glanced over and I saw Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki. He was crawling up the stairs on his hands and knees – and with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. And I thought, “Well, OK, that’s one way to go up the stairs if you’re too drunk or something.” And I thought, “I’ll remember that technique for when I can’t walk up the stairs anymore.”
Notoriety of Cannes
It’s great, but I have reclusive tendencies. I don’t get out a lot. I remember J.G. Ballard who came to Cannes for Crash [Ballard wrote the novel the film was based on and co-wrote the screenplay with Cronenberg], at a certain point he was at the press conference and he was so supportive of my film; he said the movie was better than his book. But later, over dinner, he said, “This is too exciting for a writer.”
Crash winning the Special Jury Prize?
It was very exciting, very unexpected. The film was controversial. Our understanding was that Coppola, who was president of the jury, wasn’t crazy about the film and wasn’t in favor of giving me the Special Jury award. But he was outvoted by enough of his jury. That’s the way it goes. The president of the jury only has one vote, so you can’t really conclusively make the decision upon your own about which prizes go to which films.
Soderbergh has retired 20 times already and is still making films. I’m sure it’s an impulse that every filmmaker has. Tarantino has even talked about this next film will be his last. It’s a real impulse because filmmaking is very hard. And there comes a time – and it doesn’t have to be because you’re older – where you think, “Maybe there’s some other things I could do that would be equally fulfilling and maybe not so difficult.”
It would be more balanced and discreet to not mention those moments when you have that impulse because things change. And you might decide you’ve retired and you’re bored, and then you come back. I have no idea right now what I will do next, but I don’t want to say that I won’t make another film, because I really don’t know.
