Filmmaker David Cronenberg has been radio silent for six years, his last film being 2014’s “Map to the Stars”. Has he been resting up? It doesn’t sound like it according to the man himself in a new interview with The Guardian.
Cronenberg has helmed some very well known genre vehicles over the past few decades from “The Fly” to “Videodrome,” “Dead Ringers” and “Naked Lunch” before spinning into well regarded dramas with an edge with the likes of “A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises” and “A Dangerous Method”.
Netflix recently passed on a mini-series based on his novel “Consumed,” though he’s shopping the scripts for the first two episodes around. He’s also working on a ‘very personal’ film script but there’s no word on if that will ever get produced. Cronenberg did pop up in headlines last year in Venice when he presented a restoration of his 1996 vehicular erotic thriller feature “Crash”.
This week he revealed he’s still working hard to get projects made with several pots on the boil, but adds that he won’t be distraught if he ends up retiring from filmmaking altogether:
“Whichever one happens first, I’ll do. No matter whether you’re in Canada or not, with independent film, it’s difficult to get anything made. The more unusual a film is, the more resistance you’ll face.
It’s been a long, difficult process even in the era of streaming or whatever. You’re accumulating possible investors, people lose interest, more investors. You talk to maybe Canal+ or a broadcaster, and you wait, and you hope.
As I said in Venice when we were showing the restoration of ‘Crash,’ if I never make another movie, that’s perfectly OK. People were upset by that, but it’s true. If one of these projects gets greenlit, I’ll become obsessed again, throw myself into it completely as I always have.
But I don’t feel the desperation to create that I used to when I was a young man trying to make a name for myself. I wanted to get all my ideas on screen, and now, I have. I don’t know if this is a Buddhist or Zen way of thinking. All I know is that it’s a nice place to be.”
Cronenberg will be seen in a small performance in “Disappearance At Clifton Hill” which is available on VOD from tomorrow.
