Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.09.2015, Side 17

17The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 15 — 2015
material, and the vulnerabilities and
mutations of the flesh are also those of
what you might, out of habit, call the
mind or soul.
Where do the sagas fit in with all
that?
Cronenberg's Saga
Now, I don't want to oversell “David
Cronenberg, Viking Groupie” here—
the unflinchingly avuncular Canadian
filmmaker was probably just finding
something nice to give to the local
press, it's not like he's itching to get a
runic tattoo—but a Cronenberg who
remembers the Icelandic sagas, and
who's compelled even just a little bit by
the connection between the Icelandic
country and its culture and stories, is
more like the filmmaker he's evolved
into. Especially if you look past his be-
ginnings grafting intellectual curios-
ity onto exploitation fare.
'The Fly', set largely within a din-
gy warehouse laboratory, could take
place anywhere at all; 'Dead Ringers',
though set within a large city, is al-
most entirely indoors. In both films,
biology—genetics, the womb—is the
primary determinant.
By 'Crash', adapted from J.G. Bal-
lard's novel, the characters
seek “the reshaping of
the human body by
modern technolo-
gy”—all those twist-
ed, gleaming metal machines and the
media mythology of high-speed trag-
edy. The setting is a city, but
one that feels more like The
City, an anodyne urban
modernity whose sterile
locations are pronounced by
the characters as proper nouns:
“The Airport,” “The Hospital,”
“The Traffic.”
But 'Eastern Promises' is a flavour-
some glimpse of London's criminal
underworld and migrant subcultures.
We can trace in Cronenberg's films an
opening outward, so that it's not just
the body that shapes identity, but a
whole ecosystem, which is more and
more specifically a particular society
(a trend which continued with the
period continental settings of 2011's
'A Dangerous Method', and the New
York and LA of 2012's 'Cosmopolis'
and 2014's 'Map to the Stars').
“There's the solipsistic mode of
filmmaking,” Cronenberg tells me
when I lay this theory on him in
breathless yet excruciating detail—
a mode that naturally begins with a
person alone in a room, writing about
things of immediate personal inter-
est. But because the self is connected
to the wider world, he continues, the
art eventually becomes larger, less
solipsistic, and more interesting.
All films are political—which is not
to say necessarily politically “dog-
matic,” Cronenberg clarifies, but cer-
tainly engaged with the culture. That
1975's 'Shivers' (aka 'They Came from
Within') is set entirely within a single
apartment complex was partly a mat-
ter of finance and logistics during the
early stages of his career, Cronenberg
tells me, while allowing that “as you
get older perhaps the balance chang-
es,” and you're more attuned to the
way the self opens up into the world
of society and politics, and more inter-
ested in following it out there.
The kick inside
Interiors remain vital for Cronenberg,
of course. It's a very, well, gynecologi-
cal selection of films we're getting at
RIFF. Not just 'Dead Ringers', but also
'The Fly', in which Cronenberg cameos
as an OB/GYN as Geena Davis dreams
of delivering a nonhuman baby; and
'The Brood', which climaxes with
the revelation of Samantha Eggar's
demons manifesting in fetal form. In
both scenes, the pregnant woman has
what feels like an alien being inside of
her; Davis’s character is horrified, but
Eggar’s, in an especially memorable
scene, embraces it, to our own horror.
For David Cronenberg, the process
of making any film is equally wrapped
up in an intimacy he describes in
physical terms. “All films are person-
al, which is not to say autobiographi-
cal,” he tells me, because the film has
to be something that will sustain your
interest. His projects seem to take
about ten years to come to fruition,
on average, he reflected, for various
funding reasons (he talks frequently
and matter-of-factly about the role
of money in his filmmaking process.
You would, too, if your career involved
filming a diseased Jeff Goldblum as he
dissolves his food with thick silvery
corrosive acid vomit, and you were
not independently wealthy).
To sustain your excitement
over the material, the
connection has to be emo-
tional—even the abstract
intellectual curiosity needs
to remain “ticklish.” You have to be
aching to bring this piece of art into
the world, it seems—as an example,
he recalls the long gestation period
of 'Spider' (2002), which was so close
to falling apart before Ralph Fiennes
came aboard to star, and then all of a
sudden “Spider was so close, we could
see him and taste him.”
A History of Cronenberg
(and more)
The tactility is very Cronenberg. If a
film project is like a child, I suggest,
a finished film is like the person that
a child grows up to be, often quite
surprisingly different from the par-
ent—alien, even. RIFF audiences will
be treated to some wonderful perfor-
mances in some frankly impossible
roles: Jeremy Irons's precision and
sensitivity as the yin-yang twins Bev
and Elli Mantle; Jeff Goldblum and
Geena Davis, so touching in their love
even as his ears start to fall off. “The
physical presence of the actor becomes
important,” he responds when asked
about the role of actors in embodying
or challenging the longed-for film, be-
cause “before that it's just dialogue, re-
ally. Just words on a page.”
So the films at RIFF exist for us
perhaps a little differently than they
exist for David Cronenberg—who con-
ceived them and was present at their
birth, as it were. Retrospectives are
a constant for the filmmaker, who
seems both gratified and bemused by
the process, immediately telling me
that “my first retrospective was after
I'd made two underground films”—he
thinks it was something to do with
an effort to build up a Canadian film
culture. So though he's scheduled for
a “Master Class” discussion on Sep-
tember 30 (1pm, at the University of
Iceland), and Q&As following screen-
ings of 'Crash' (6pm, Háskólabíó,
September 29) and 'The Fly' (8:15pm,
Háskólabíó, October 1), don't expect to
see him in the auditorium at any of the
other ones. His films, he says, “are ba-
sically diaries. I can't watch my movies
as movies,” because every scene brings
back memories of what he was doing
on set that day, his life at the time. He
chuckles to himself. “But maybe that'll
change as I get more senile and start to
forget.”
People used to treat the sagas as
precise, hyperlocal records of individ-
ual existences, too—but now we know
they're stories of their time and place.
Naked Lunch
(1991)
William Burroughs’s unfilmable book
filmed by David Cronenberg, featur-
ing scenes from the life of the author
and, of course, giant bugs. Not half bad.
Also, Peter Weller, seen for the first
time without his Robocop gear. Unless
we were hallucinating.
Crash
(1996)
As every North American knows, there
is nothing quite as sexy as cars. Or
sex. Put the two together and you get
‘Crash’, a film about a group of people
who can’t get off without engaging in
foreplay that involves being in a to-
talled vehicle(?). The film caused a big
debate, surprisingly. Some wanted it
banned. Martin Scorsese loved it.
A History Of Violence
(2005)
The first of Cronenberg’s “later, less
creepy ones,” ‘A History Of Violence’
still has the odd splash of ultravio-
lence and is one of the less comic-
booky comic book adaptations. Viggo
Mortensen carves out a post-Aragorn
career. Ed Harris broke a glass promot-
ing it. Perhaps Cronenberg’s best, for
those who aren’t into giant bugs.
Eastern Promises
(2007)
Viggo returns, this time as a Russian
gangster in London. A rarity in the
Cronenberg universe, aspiring to real-
ism. So much so that I was assaulted by
Eastern Europeans wielding a knife af-
ter the screening (true story). Even the
tattoos are based on fact, and there is
plenty of time to admire these as Viggo
engages in a steamy naked knife fight,
in a sauna. Of course.
A Dangerous Method
(2011)
A tad sexier than their real-life coun-
terparts, Viggo and Michael Fassbend-
er star as psychoanalysts Freud and
Jung, battling it out over who gets to
explain the subconscious to the Victo-
rians (and Keira Knightley). It was about
time David Cronenberg did a period
drama, and perhaps it is inevitable that
he made it about the men who dabbled
in both sexuality and nightmares.
“I think the mind grows
out of the body. I don’t
believe in an afterlife. I
don’t see the mind or the
spirit or the soul continuing
after our body dies.
The mind and body are
completely dependent
and interrelated. The
mind is somehow organic
and physical. It’s only our
perception and our culture
that keeps them separate.”
“All films are personal,
which is not to say
autobiographical,
because the film has to be
something that will sustain
your interest.”