David Cronenberg - Quotes

Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Cronenberg, David.

Murder is a serious thing. I am taking it very seriously.
Cronenberg, David.

If I'm flipping channels and I come across one of my movies, I turn it off immediately. It's strange, I haven't figured it out because I have no desire to go back and correct things. As far as I'm concerned those old movies are artifacts. Besides, I can't watch them like movies because they're really documentaries of how I was feeling that day. If I ever get Alzheimer's it might be one of the upsides that I get to watch my movies again.
Cronenberg, David.

You have to divest yourself of worrying about a lot of stuff like what movies are hot, what movies are not hot, what the budget of this movie might be. You have to stop worrying about what people might expect from you because of the last thing you did...you have to stop worrying about your other movies.
Cronenberg, David.

Well, I really liked insects as a kid, so where I came from that immediately meant that you were weird. But I thought that was ridiculous because insects are amazing. I mean, people want to go to other planets to see alien life forms and we've got them right here. They're incredible.
Cronenberg, David.

Well, one of the primary things about cars was the fact that you could have sex in them. And now that's sort of lost. I mean, people have lost sight of that initial excitement! But when I was a kid, the guy who had a car had sexual power over the girls in class. He could take them away. It was a place you could have sex in. It wasn't just status. You could take the girl away from the protection of her house and now she is more or less in your power. We all know that "my way or the highway" routine, and that was very real. When I grew up, that was a reality -- if you had a car you had sexual power.
Cronenberg, David.

I do get kind of cranky. I have turned stuff down that would have made a lot of money. I would love to be able to spend $150 million. I think this would be a lot of fun.
Cronenberg, David and Brian B. Johnson (Interviewer). "Macleans.ca Interview: David Cronenberg - The filmmaker on selling out and auditioning for Tom Cruise." in: Maclean.ca. April 2, 2009. (English).

I don’t necessarily know any of the religious or philosophical beliefs of any of the actors I’ve worked with, or my crew. Every now and then you have a special relationship with an actor that involves discussing such things.
Cronenberg, David and Brian B. Johnson (Interviewer). "Macleans.ca Interview: David Cronenberg - The filmmaker on selling out and auditioning for Tom Cruise." in: Maclean.ca. April 2, 2009. (English).

At the moment, it’s been very congenial because the four producers—Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Nick Wexler, Mary Parent and Cale Boyter (the executive who oversaw History of Violence at New Line)— they’re great. They are very smart. And they want me to be me.
Cronenberg, David and Brian B. Johnson (Interviewer). "Macleans.ca Interview: David Cronenberg - The filmmaker on selling out and auditioning for Tom Cruise." in: Maclean.ca. April 2, 2009. (English).

Q: So, Atom Egoyan is working with Ivan Reitman and David Cronenberg is working with Tom Cruise—the world has changed. A: The world has turned topsy-turvy, yeah. . . What was the budget of Atom’s film [Chloe], I wonder?
Cronenberg, David and Brian B. Johnson (Interviewer). "Macleans.ca Interview: David Cronenberg - The filmmaker on selling out and auditioning for Tom Cruise." in: Maclean.ca April 2, 2009. (English).

But once I start shooting, wherever I am just becomes a big film set. Talk about a subculture—when you’re shooting you’re barely aware of anything else.
Cronenberg, David and Amy Taubin (Interviewer). "David Cronenberg talks about his strangely intimate new Russian mafia movie Eastern Promises and snuff films on the Internet." in: Lincoln Film Center. 2007. (English).

And there are very few characters in the violent scenes. It’s intimate, which makes it more intense. The placing of those scenes is crucial. We need to know all the time that they are criminals and they are dangerous. The response I’ve gotten is that the movie is incredibly violent. And I keep saying, “Did you see The Departed? The body count there and the brains all over the wall?” But some people seem to feel that this movie is more violent than The Departed. So then, what are you talking about? You’re not talking about how many incidents, because The Departed has dozens and we have four. Somehow, it’s the close-up, the intensity, the carrying-through.
Cronenberg, David and Amy Taubin (Interviewer). "David Cronenberg talks about his strangely intimate new Russian mafia movie Eastern Promises and snuff films on the Internet." in: Lincoln Film Center. 2007. (English).

Let’s propose we’re down to the last Jew. What does America think, and what does popular media culture think?
Cronenberg, David and Amy Taubin (Interviewer). "David Cronenberg talks about his strangely intimate new Russian mafia movie Eastern Promises and snuff films on the Internet." in: Lincoln Film Center. 2007. (English).

The current biggest provider of snuff pornography is the Muslim extremist movement. Remember when Al Goldstein from Screw magazine offered $50,000 if someone could bring him a real snuff film, and no one could? Now they’re everywhere, and most involve beheadings and throat slitting, and once again, as in Eastern Promises, it’s very sexual, very intimate. And needless to say, very disturbing.
Cronenberg, David and Amy Taubin (Interviewer). "David Cronenberg talks about his strangely intimate new Russian mafia movie Eastern Promises and snuff films on the Internet." in: Lincoln Film Center. 2007. (English).

To me an act of murder is the act of total destruction, it's absolute. There's no comeback, there's no going to heaven, that's it. And it is very easy for that to be veiled or covered up, in a movie especially.
Cronenberg, David and Janet Guttsman (Interviewer). "Cronenberg gets down and dirty with Russian Mob." in: Reuters. September 10, 2007.

We hear the Russian criminals are loving the movie because of the accuracy.
Cronenberg, David and Janet Guttsman (Interviewer). "Cronenberg gets down and dirty with Russian Mob." in: Reuters. September 10, 2007.

The moral aspect of it is not really the issue for them. The issue is are we being mocked and did we get it right? Or did we get it wrong? And so far we have passed. They are not worried about being shown being criminals because they are, so why should they be upset about it?
Cronenberg, David and Janet Guttsman (Interviewer). "Cronenberg gets down and dirty with Russian Mob." in: Reuters. September 10, 2007.

The original version was manipulative and unconvincing, although beautifully written, and there would be a kind of dissonance with the audience that is not good, as opposed to the kind I enjoy. Also, the novel is full of special effects of the kind that people think I like, and the first script had lots of effects that I took out. They are completely legitimate in terms of the hallucinations a schizophrenic would have, but I didn´t want anything to separate Spider from the audience, so that´s why we don´t even mention schizophrenia or anything like that in the movie.
Eisner, Ken. "David Cronenberg." in: Georgia Straight. Volume 37, No. 1836, February 27 - March 6, 2003.

I was recently at a Q&A for Spider in New York, I think it was. Some guy stood up and commented, 'You´re a master at creating unease.' And I said, 'I´ve just been watching CNN in my hotel room, and they´re a lot better at it than I am.' I felt really uneasy.
Eisner, Ken. "David Cronenberg." in: Georgia Straight. Volume 37, No. 1836, February 27 - March 6, 2003.

I remember my father taking me to see the Washington Monument, and the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. And I had an uncle who taught German and drama at New York City College, so I visited there quite often.
Eisner, Ken. "David Cronenberg." in: Georgia Straight. Volume 37, No. 1836, February 27 - March 6, 2003.

I don´t think about my other movies or the arc or evolution of them. That´s sort of a critical question, and I could be analytical about it, I suppose, but my opinion in that area would really be no better than anyone else.
Eisner, Ken. "David Cronenberg." in: Georgia Straight. Volume 37, No. 1836, February 27 - March 6, 2003.

I think everything I do is Cronenbergian - or rather, that´s much too self-aware for what I´m doing. I´m very stubborn in this regard. I don´t mind confounding people´s expectations; if you ask people what a Cronenberg movie called Spider might be about, they would have all kinds of expectations, and I can tell you the movie is not that.
Eisner, Ken. "David Cronenberg." in: Georgia Straight. Volume 37, No. 1836, February 27 - March 6, 2003.

Modern technology is more than an interface. We ARE it. We've absorbed it into our bodies. Our bodies, I think, are bio-chemically so different from the bodies of people like 1,000 years ago that I don't even think we could mate with them. I think we might even be, in other words, a different species, we're so different. This technology, we absorb it, it weaves in and out of us, so it's not really an interface in the same way people think about a screen or a face. It's a lot more intimate than that.
Cronenberg, David and Rob Blackwelder (Interviewer). "Controversial visionary David Cronenberg sees technology, mankind, sexuality merging in 'eXistenZ'." in: Spliced Wire. 1999. (English).

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. I don't think that kind of control is possible beyond a very obvious kind of physical twitch when something jumps out of the corner of a frame. I also think the relationship I have with my audience is a lot more complex than what Hitchcock seemed to want his to be ...
Cronenberg, David and Rob Blackwelder (Interviewer). "Controversial visionary David Cronenberg sees technology, mankind, sexuality merging in 'eXistenZ'." in: Spliced Wire. 1999. (English).

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.
Cronenberg, David and Rob Blackwelder (Interviewer). "Controversial visionary David Cronenberg sees technology, mankind, sexuality merging in 'eXistenZ'." in: Spliced Wire. 1999. (English).

I'm often surprised -- I expect to be surprised -- by my audience's reactions to things.
Cronenberg, David and Rob Blackwelder (Interviewer). "Controversial visionary David Cronenberg sees technology, mankind, sexuality merging in 'eXistenZ'." in: Spliced Wire. 1999. (English).

Each movie generates its own little biosphere and has its only little ecology and its climate, and you're attune to that more than anything else.
Cronenberg, David and Rob Blackwelder (Interviewer). "Controversial visionary David Cronenberg sees technology, mankind, sexuality merging in 'eXistenZ'." in: Spliced Wire. 1999. (English).

What is appropriate? What works within the ecology of that movie? So in one movie sex and blood would be very up front, like in "Crash" because it's sort of the subject of the movie. But in another movie, like "The Dead Zone," it would not be appropriate. It would be disproportionate.
Cronenberg, David and Rob Blackwelder (Interviewer). "Controversial visionary David Cronenberg sees technology, mankind, sexuality merging in 'eXistenZ'." in: Spliced Wire. 1999. (English).

It's all intuitive. For me it's very much like sculpture. I don't do storyboards or anything like that. I need to be on the actual set with the real lighting and the real actors and work with them, and I use the monitor a lot because that sort of becomes your canvas. I wanted it to be seductive, because I knew that much of it was going to repel a lot of people.
Cronenberg, David and Susie Bright (Interviewer). "The director of "Crash" talks about gender-bending, propaganda and the sexual iconography of the Edsel." in: Salon. March 21, 1997. (English).

So yes, you can imagine doing "Crash" with deliberately really ugly actors. That's not an invalid possibility. But I wanted to go the other way. I wanted to seduce the audience but not compromise what the film was saying.
Cronenberg, David and Susie Bright (Interviewer). "The director of "Crash" talks about gender-bending, propaganda and the sexual iconography of the Edsel." in: Salon. March 21, 1997. (English).

Things can get so politicized that you can't see beyond the politics.
Cronenberg, David and Susie Bright (Interviewer). "The director of "Crash" talks about gender-bending, propaganda and the sexual iconography of the Edsel." in: Salon. March 21, 1997. (English).

I don't think of myself as a bisexual, and certainly my obvious orientation is hetero. But even in my very first movies I was intrigued by it, interested in it, and I find it sexy, too. I mean, if it's sexy, it's sexy. I think that in this movie the people are beginning to move beyond gender. And I don't mean to be evasive by saying that. I really do think what happens in "Crash" is that the gender of whoever you're fucking starts to be irrelevant -- your own gender also.
Cronenberg, David and Susie Bright (Interviewer). "The director of "Crash" talks about gender-bending, propaganda and the sexual iconography of the Edsel." in: Salon. March 21, 1997. (English).

Sometimes it's hard to judge. But I try not to self-censor and anticipate, because I'm aware from experience that you can't really second-guess censors, you know?
Cronenberg, David and Susie Bright (Interviewer). "The director of "Crash" talks about gender-bending, propaganda and the sexual iconography of the Edsel." in: Salon. March 21, 1997. (English).

And if I start to say, OK, Spader, I really want you on close-up so your cock's, you know ... suddenly people are saying, hey, that's Spader's cock, how big is it? That takes you out of the movie ... So, yes, we talk about Vaughan's penis being scarred and so on, but he's got scars on his face, he's got scars on his body, we've sort of done that. And then, you know, do we put makeup on Elias' cock if it's not scarred, which I'm assuming it isn't?
Cronenberg, David and Susie Bright (Interviewer). "The director of "Crash" talks about gender-bending, propaganda and the sexual iconography of the Edsel." in: Salon. March 21, 1997. (English).

I think that the appeal of real art is to the unconscious and the subversive. Art is always subversive of society. I think that's one of its functions. The relationship between art and society is always uneasy. If civilization and authority are repressive, then art, by appealing to the unconscious, is subversive of civilization. And yet art needs society. You don't create art in a vacuum. And civilization seems to need art somehow as well. They need to go together. It's a strange duality. I think I do my best subversiveness by not worrying about whether I'm subversive or not.
Cronenberg, David and Susie Bright (Interviewer). "The director of "Crash" talks about gender-bending, propaganda and the sexual iconography of the Edsel." in: Salon. March 21, 1997. (English).