David Cronenberg
DIRECTOR

Director David Cronenberg's reputation as an authentic auteur has been firmly established by his uniquely personal body of work including the films for which he wrote the screenplays: Shivers, Rabid, Fast Company, The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, Crash and eXistenZ. The films he directed from other screenplays are The Dead Zone, M. Butterfly, Spider and, most recently, A History of Violence.

His films have won him awards and recognition around the world, among which is an Honorary Doctor of Law Degree from the University of Toronto, which he received in June 2001, and a January 2003 appointment as an Officer to the Order of Canada. He was invested Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, bestowed by France in 1990 and upgraded in 1997 to Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 1999, he presided over the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, he was recognized as GQ Man of the Year, received the Sonny Bono Visionary Award at the Palm Springs Film Festival, and the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Stockholm Film Festival.

Born on March 15, 1943, in Toronto to a journalist father and pianist mother, early on Cronenberg submitted fantasy and science-fiction stories to magazines. Although none was accepted, he received encouraging letters from editors urging him to keep writing.

He entered the University of Toronto Science faculty, but after a year switched to English Language and Literature, graduating in 1967. While at university, he became interested in film and produced two shorts in 16 mm, Transfer and From the Drain. His first films in 35 mm were Stereo and Crimes of the Future, both shot in the late 1960's. In these works, Cronenberg established some of the themes and preoccupations that would characterize much of his later work.

In 1975, Cronenberg shot his first commercial feature Shivers (aka They Came From Within or Parasite Murders), which became one of the fastest recouping movies in the history of Canadian film. His next feature, Rabid, starring Marilyn Chambers, went on to make $7 million on a production investment of little more than $500,000 which provided Cronenberg with an impressive track record after just two pictures by 1977. He then directed the drag-racing film Fast Company, inspired in part by his own passion for cars and racing.

He moved on to direct The Brood in 1979, starring Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar. The film was psychologically intense rather than action oriented, with well delineated characterizations and remarkable imagery that caught the attention of many critics. The film was an artistic breakthrough for Cronenberg and led him to larger budgeted and more ambitious films.

Scanners, which centred on the telepathic powers of an underground element of society, was aimed at a wider audience than his earlier horror/fantasy films and became his biggest hit yet, prompting Newsweek to comment, "a 37-year-old Canadian...climaxing his five-year rise to the top of the horror heap." The week it opened, Variety listed Scanners as the number one box office film in North America.

Cronenberg's next film, Videodrome, starring James Woods and rock star Deborah Harry, released in early 1983, was hailed by Andy Warhol as "the Clockwork Orange of the eighties." In 1993, Videodrome moved out of the cult realm into the mainstream cyberpunk market. The film delves into the clandestine operations of a highly secret underground organization that uses television as the ultimate weapon. Blurring the boundaries of reality and consciousness, the film is a high-tech, nightmarish satire involving violence, sexuality and biological horror, all by now familiar Cronenberg themes.

The Dead Zone followed in 1984, based on the best-selling novel by Stephen King. Financed by Dino de Laurentiis, released by Paramount and starring Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams and Martin Sheen, the film is an allegorical good-versus-evil story revolving around the fate of a man cursed with power to see into the future of those he touches. The most mainstream of Cronenberg's films, The Dead Zone still retains the director's identifiable style and design and went on to earn three out of the five Avoriaz Film Festival prizes of that year as well as seven Edgar Allen Poe award nominations in the U.S.A.

Mel Brooks then approached Cronenberg to direct The Fly for Twentieth Century Fox, starring Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum. The Fly was a huge popular and critical success for Cronenberg, earning many accolades, including an Oscar for Best Special Effects/Makeup and a shared jury Prize at the Avoriaz Festival. A remake of the 1958 horror classic, Cronenberg's The Fly was a reconceptualization of the original, detailing the story of a scientist whose genes and molecules become fused with those of a common housefly during an experiment in matter transmission. The film was successful as both a horror-fantasy film and as a compelling love story. It also marked Cronenberg's second cameo appearance as an actor (the first was in John Landis' Into the Night). In The Fly he played a gynecologist who appears in a central horrifying fantasy sequence featuring Geena Davis.

Gynecology surfaced again in Dead Ringers starring Jeremy Irons and Genevieve Bujold, a psychological thriller about inseparable twin brothers who work as gynecologists and love the same woman, with tragic results. The film was a departure for Cronenberg.

"Dead Ringers is not science-fiction and the fantasy element which is in most of my films is not there. The film is much more naturalistic," stated the director. Nonetheless, Dead Ringers continued Cronenberg's fascination with the darker side of human psychology and behaviour. Dead Ringers won accolades from the L.A. film critics for Best Director.

In 1989, Cronenberg returned to acting as the lead in Clive Barker's Nightbreed. In the horror fantasy, Cronenberg played a psychiatrist who convinces a man that he is responsible for a series of brutal slayings, while at the same time hiding the dark side of his own personality. During this period, Cronenberg began writing the screenplay for his version of William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch.

For artistic and practical reasons, Naked Lunch was not a literal translation, but a fusion of Cronenberg's own work with that of Burroughs. Drawing on the counterculture novel and other Burroughsian sources for the script, Naked Lunch is about the act of writing something dangerous and complex and how it affects the person writing it. Shot in Toronto in 1991, the film starred Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, Julian Sands, Monique Mercure, Nicholas Campbell, Michael Zelniker and Roy Scheider.

In 1992, Cronenberg directed M. Butterfly, starring Jeremy Irons and John Lone, adapted from the Tony Award-winning Broadway hit based on the true story of a French diplomat who, for 20 years, was so obsessed with a Chinese diva from the Beijing Opera, he could not discern that the object of his love was really a man. But when they were arrested for espionage, he was forced to face reality. M. Butterfly took Cronenberg abroad for the first time to film in China, Hungary, France as well as Canada.

The same year, Naked Lunch won eight Genie Awards including Best Motion Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. In addition, The National Society of Film critics voted Cronenberg Best Director and his script, Best Screenplay. The New York Film Critics' Circle awarded him Best Screenplay and Naked Lunch earned a third Best Screenplay award from The Boston Society of Film Critics.

Cronenberg next adapted Crash from J.G. Ballard's cataclysmic novel, starring Holly Hunter, James Spader, Elias Koteas, Deborah Unger and Rosanna Arquette. A film about technology and eroticism, Crash created international controversy, went on to win the Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival for "audacity and innovation" and collected five Canadian Genies for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Sound Editing. In addition it won the Golden Reel Award for the Canadian film with the highest Canadian box office gross.

In 1995, Cronenberg wrote eXistenZ, inspired by an interview with author Salman Rushdie which triggered the idea of an artist who suddenly finds him/herself on a hit list and forced to flee into hiding. He made the hero a game designer thinking that game design could possibly ascend to the level of art. Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as the game designer opposite Jude Law as a novice security guard who links into Leigh's world. Willem Dafoe, Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, Don McKellar and Callum Keith Rennie play various heroes and villains who weave in and out of the game.

eXistenZ went on to win a Silver Bear at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival for Outstanding Artistic Achievement and a Genie Award for editing in addition to Golden Berlin Bear, Catalonian International Film Festival Best Film, Saturn Award and Golden Reel nominations.

Based on Patrick McGrath's novel, Spider was released in 2002 to both controversy and acclaim. This film about psychosis and the reconstruction of reality follows a man rebuilding his past while coping with a recent transition from an asylum to a halfway house. Not only did actors Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, and Gabriel Byrne earn worldwide praise for their work, but the film won several awards, including Best Canadian Feature from the Toronto International Film Festival, Best Feature from the Directors Guild of Canada, and Best Direction from the Sitges International Film Festival. Cronenberg also won a Genie for Best Achievement in Direction from the Academy of Canadian Cinema.

A History of Violence was released in the fall of 2005, after premieres in Cannes and the Toronto International Film Festival. It examines how far a man is willing to go for redemption and to protect his family. Viggo Mortensen stars as Tom Stall, a man who leads a quiet, charmed life with his loving wife and family in a small town. But an unexpected incident turns bloody and brings unwanted attention to him and questions his very identity. A History of Violence features an accomplished supporting cast including Ed Harris, William Hurt and Maria Bello. The film landed on Top Ten lists as the Best Film of 2005 and received awards and accolades, including Best Director and Best film on the Village Voice Film Critics' Poll and two Academy Award nominations.

Viggo Mortensen worked with David again in 2007 for Eastern Promises, which was written by Steve Knight (Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Dirty Pretty Things). The film explores London's Eastern European immigrant experience. Cronenberg describes the film as "a mob crime thriller intricately interwoven with familial dramas - all unfolding in a subculture that dwells within another very strong culture." Naomi Watts stars as a hospital midwife and is joined onscreen by Armin Mueller-Stahl, Vincent Cassell, Sinéad Cusack, and Jerzy Skolimowski. Eastern Promises premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, winning the top prize, the Cadillac People's Choice Award. The film and performances received critical praise and earned Viggo Mortenson a British Independent Film Award for Best Actor.

In July 2006, Cronenberg worked with the Art Gallery of Ontario as a guest curator for the exhibition, Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters, 1962-1964. David combined more than 25 Warhol paintings with dozens of the artist's rarely seen films for an exhibition exclusive to the AGO. In addition, he created an innovative soundtrack audio guide with additional commentary by several of Warhol's contemporaries, including actor Dennis Hopper, film critic Amy Taubin, and artist James Rosenquist.

Through 2008, Cronenberg has worked on adapting The Fly into an opera. It premiered in Paris at the Châtelet Théâtre in July 2008, followed by its U.S. premiere at LA Opera. David works with conductor Plácido Domingo for the first time, and reunites with David Henry Hwang (M Butterfly) for the libretto, Howard Shore on the score, and Denise Cronenberg for the costumes.

On television, Cronenberg directed two docudramas for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's series Scales of Justice, which recreates true criminal cases. He also directed a controversial commercial for Nike and a short to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Toronto's International Film Festival.

The Toronto International Film Festival was the first to honour Cronenberg with a retrospective in 1983. Simultaneously the Academy of Canadian Cinema published The Shape of Rage: The Films of David Cronenberg, a comprehensive anthology of critical essays about his work which was updated in 1990 by the Quebec Cinematheque for distribution in Europe. Most recently, the University of Toronto Press published the 2001 edition of The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg, by William Beard, and Les Cahiers du Cinémas published a collection of interviews in 2000. UK documentary filmmaker Chris Rodley edited the 1991 edition of Cronenberg on Cronenberg, published by Faber and Faber of London, England. The second edition was updated and published in 1993 upon the release of M. Butterfly. Rodley also made two films on Cronenberg: Long Live the New Flesh and the making of Naked Lunch.

The most comprehensive retrospective of Cronenberg's work was mounted in Japan in March of 1993. Sponsored by Tokyo's Seibu department store, the governments of Ontario and Canada and Toronto's Cinematheque of Ontario/International Film Festival, the two week event included screenings of all Cronenberg's motion pictures, television films and commercials. Accompanying the films was an exhibition of 300 artifacts, props, stills and posters and special effects puppets including 16 mugwumps and the "sex blob" from Naked Lunch. In May of 1998, New York's Thread Waxing Space Gallery hosted a two-month exhibition entitled "Spectacular Optical," featuring a group of visual artists who share thematic affinities and were influenced by various phases of the artistic production of David Cronenberg's films. The exhibit included film elements, props and drawings from Cronenberg's work.

Recent retrospectives were held in Paris by The Festival d'Automne and the Canadian Cultural Center in 2000 and in Sao Paulo, Brazil at the 2001 Carlton Arts Festival. New York's Museum of the Moving Image held a retrospective of Cronenberg's films to coincide with the release Naked Lunch in early l992. Other retrospectives have been held at the Fantastic Film Festival in St. Malo, France; Rome's Fourth International Exhibition of Fantasy and Science Fiction; the Edinburgh Festival, France's Metz Film Festival; the Cinematheque Francaise and the Fantasporto Film Festival in Portugal.

During the past several years, Cronenberg has acted in a number of other films. "When I'm being a writer, I start to feel disconnected from the set, as if it's just a sort of weird fantasy that I'm actually a director. Acting is an easy way to reconnect with being on a film set." He had a cameo role as a Mafia hitman in Gus Van Sant's To Die For; played a moonshiner in Moonshine Highway for Andy Armstrong, appeared in Trial by Jury with Armand De Sante and in John Landis' The Stupids. He appeared in the Canadian films Henry and Verlin, Blood and Donuts and most recently, Don McKellar's Last Night after playing the lead in McKellar's short film Blue. He also appeared in Russell Mulcahy's Resurrection, Mick Garris' The Judge and James Isaac's Jason X. In 2003, Cronenberg appeared on J.J. Abrams' acclaimed television show Alias as experimental memory scientist Dr. Brezzel.