Mr. Cronenberg, people often refer to body horror films as being “Cronenbergian.” How do you feel about your surname being used as an adjective?
If it's used in the right way, I love it, of course! I mean, I used to joke that the goal of a filmmaker is to be Fellini-esque, you know, when your name means something in that way? We often say something was a very Fellini-esque experience. So if you say a film is Cronenbergian… I like that. The thing that does bother me a little bit is “body horror,” because I never use that term! It was a young journalist who invented that term and it stuck, it’s out of my hands. But I would never have thought that what I did was body horror.
How come?
I mean, I'm actually talking about the beauty, the incredible beauty of the body, even inside the body!
The filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos said something similar recently, that his focus is on the body of his actors, rather than their soul.
Oh, I agree, I think he is absolutely right. When you're a filmmaker, what do you film? You film the bodies of your actors. That's the subject. The way that you dress the body, where the way you light the body, the movement of the actor's body through space, and how you they have a dance with the camera. It’s all body stuff. People say, “Why are you obsessed with bodies?” But I think, speaking as a filmmaker, every filmmaker is obsessed with the body, and most sculptors and most painters are also obsessed with the body, because that's your subject. If you're dealing with the human condition, you must begin with the human body. That is the human condition. If you’re religious, that is true. It’s even more true if you're atheist like me, because you don't believe in an afterlife, it's ultimately absolutely to do with the body.
“The meaning of life is life itself: the experience of life, living life to the fullest. You feel it, you live it, you experience it.”
Are you very interested in those big questions about the meaning of death, the soul and the body?
All my movies are about death in one way or another. With my last film The Shrouds, which focuses on a troubled widower who develops a machine designed to communicate with the deceased, I’ve explored this. When the body dies, that person is gone. There's no person anymore. There's no spirit, there's no soul, nothing. Therefore, the body that's left is what's left, and if you have an attachment, if you're not ready to let go, then the body is important to you. I don’t know if there will really be a clientele for a grave like this. But when you look at burial practices all over the world, there's some very odd burial practices, beginning even with the pyramids and the killing of servants and animals and putting them in the grave with the Pharaoh, so that they go in the afterlife. I mean, these are very strange things. So, I don’t think the ideas in the film are so far off.
It definitely seems like something that could be accomplished these days. Technology is making anything possible.
It could absolutely be easily done. You know how small cameras are now on your phone, they have LED lights that can last maybe for 10 years. You could absolutely do this. I am not going to do it, but you could do this, and I have a feeling you would find in some surprising places in the world that they would be interested in it.
Are you also thinking about the meaning life?
Here's the thing, what is the meaning of life? To me, it's very straightforward, the meaning of life is life itself: the experience of life, living life to the fullest. Perhaps you have children, you have grandchildren, you feel it, you live it, you experience it. There is pleasure, there is pain, there is suffering. There has always been war, there's always been suffering, there's always been destruction. Human beings can be hideous, but they can also be very beautiful and amazing, and you have to accept that reality.
“Film is always really autobiographical in that way, you're always revealing so much of yourself when you write.”
What about your own life? It seems like this was a more personal film for you, having also recently suffered the loss of your wife.
Well, everything you do as an artist is based on your understanding of life. It doesn't have to be autobiographical exact, but it's your sensibility, your culture, your context, what you understand about people and how they work. That’s also why I haven't really done many period pieces, most of my movies have been set in the present. My films are happening now because I'm happening now. Film is always really autobiographical in that way, you're always revealing so much of yourself when you write, especially when you write a script and you direct it, you are revealing many things.
Do you ever have a sense of trepidation getting so personal with your work?
No. No trepidation. We are all vulnerable, it’s the same with actors, we’re very vulnerable. You know, you can come to a film festival and you show your movie for the first time, and you have never sat with this audience before, you have over 2000 people, they might all hate it, and you are vey vulnerable but what are you going to do? This is the game we play. You can't make art if you're afraid.
Does it make you feel vulnerable, for example, when you go back and watch your own movies?
No, but I hate looking at them. I don't look at them when I'm asked to look at them, for instance if I have to do a check up on an old movie to see if the color is correct, because there's a new Blu-ray or something, I hate it. I'm not really interested in looking at them. Maybe eventually when I get old, I’ll watch them all. You never know!