David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg is a Canadian film director and occasional actor.
He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal 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, Cronenberg explored these themes mostly through horror and science fiction, culminating in his visceral and emotional remake of The Fly (1986), with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, followed by Dead Ringers (1988), with Jeremy Irons in the lead role.
Cronenberg has worked with Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), both crime thrillers, and period drama A Dangerous Method (2011), also with Michael Fassbender (Promotheus)and Keira Knightley, and Twilight star Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis (2012) and Maps to the Stars (2014), also featuring Julianne Moore.
Consumed (2014) is the first novel by Cronenberg.
“When you're in the muck you can only see muck. If you somehow manage to float above it, you still see the muck but you see it from a different perspective. And you see other things too. That's the consolation of philosophy.”
“Even Hitchcock liked to think of himself as a puppeteer who was manipulating the strings of his audience and making them jump. He liked to think he had that kind of control.”
“Anybody who comes to the cinema is bringing they're whole sexual history, their literary history, their movie literacy, their culture, their language, their religion, whatever they've got. I can't possibly manipulate all of that, nor do I want to.”
“See, you can't rewrite, 'cause to rewrite is to deceive and lie, and you betray your own thoughts. To rethink the flow and the rhythm, the tumbling out of the words, is a betrayal, and it's a sin, Martin, it's a sin."--Hank (Kerouac)to Martin (Ginsberg) in the film Naked Lunch”
“Everybody's a mad scientist, and life is their lab. We're all trying to experiment to find a way to live, to solve problems, to fend off madness and chaos.”
“Do you remember when you found out you wouldn't live forever? People don't talk about this, but everybody had to go through it because you're not born with that knowledge.”
“Censors tend to do what only psychotics do; They confuse fantasy with reality.”
“Long live the New Flesh!”
“As an artist you look into yourself to understand the human potential to be all kinds of things that are not necessarily pleasant but are real - a criminal, a murderer, a sadist, a rapist; to be all of these things that many people are. You can't allow yourself to say, 'I'm a different species from those people.' Because you aren't.The criminal as monster is kind of common. That's very convenient because you can then say, 'Of course I'm not a monster, therefore I'm not a criminal therefore I have no potential in tern of criminality.' And that lets you off the hook. That gives you a nice wall between yourself and them.”
“Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to. (William Lee-Naked Lunch)”
“As a citizen, of course. As a parent, of course. But as an artist, that's where the paradox is - your responsibility is to be irresponsible. As soon as you talk about political or social responsibility, you've amputated the best limbs you've got as an artist.”
“I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontation. Films that make you confront aspects of your own life that are difficult to face. Just because you're making a horror film doesn't mean you can't make an artful film.”