David Cronenberg, film director and screenwriter: biography, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-17 12:35

Perhaps the world-famous director David Cronenberg knows everything about horror films. He is an inspirational and creative person.

Since the beginning of his cinematographic career (1975), David has made nineteen feature films, unique in concept, one after another, in each of which meticulous film critics did not notice a single directorial stamp inherited from previous works. In recognition of the genius of one of the most distinctive directors of independent cinema, he was commissioned to head the jury at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.

However, we will traditionally start the story about him with a biography.

Third generation immigrant

David Cronenberg was born on 1943-15-03 in Toronto. His grandfather, a first-generation emigrant, a Lithuanian Jew, had the surname Forman. However, having sailed to Canada, the ancestor immediately changed it to Konenberg. Perhaps he wanted to deceive fate? After all, the richest resident of his homeland was called Leopold Cronenberg. An enterprising grandfather created a small family business (a bookstore) in a new place,which he gave to David's father. He, receiving income from the shop, also worked in the Toronto Telegams newspaper as a journalist. The mother of the future director was a musician by education. She accompanied the dancers in the Canadian Ballet.

Study. Movie craze

After high school, David Cronenberg entered the university of his hometown. There he showed his humanitarian orientation. In the course of his studies, the student transferred from the faculty, where he studied exact sciences, to the faculty of English literature, from which he graduated in 1967.

At the university, David became interested in cinema. The case helped. One of his friends made a short film about classmates. Cronenberg watched him spellbound. He was attracted by the possibility of transforming reality with the help of cinema.

He first directed and directed two short films, Out of the Gutter (1967) and Moving (1969).

Original philosophy of creativity

David was an atheist, he did not want to accept the divine nature of man as a dogma. The creative personality was attracted by transcendental mutations of the mind and body of people. Developing the unique direction in cinema art invented by himself, the young director obviously proceeded from the principle “do not believe your eyes.”

Student David Cronenberg questioned the obvious in knowledge about a person, fantasized the visible, giving it a mysterious and mysterious nature. He formulated the cornerstone idea of his future work, which said that any person is like a mad scientist, and the life surrounding him is a laboratory.for experiments.

Adept Cinema

His next two short films - "Stereo" (1969) and "Crimes of the Future" (1970) - were already created according to the concept. David developed the theme of human mutations, the discovery of unknown abilities in him, deformations of his psyche. The aspiring Canadian filmmaker stubbornly placed deviation from the norm at the center of his work, and on the one hand, it looked like madness.

But on the other hand, you see, only God knows where the line between genius and mental illness is drawn. Even Plato called human thought nonsense, bestowed from above. According to the memoirs of his students, this ancient Greek philosopher himself talked for a long time with someone invisible. Suffice it to recall the biographies of some people of creativity. After all, according to modern scientific data, Dostoevsky (a severe form of epilepsy), Gogol (schizophrenia) are recognized as mentally ill. Periodically from madness (this is confirmed by interviews) the literary king of horror Stephen King is also treated.

One thing is certain: aspiring director David Cronenberg created his worlds by bizarrely reflecting the human essence in the distorting mirror of scripts.

First feature film

1975 marks a new stage in the director's work. His first feature film "Convulsions" is released on movie screens. David Cronenberg (hunting worse than bondage) saved up funds for a budget film. His script is about a crazy geneticist who has developed new human parasites that affect the enhancement of human sexual function. He lives on one of the residential islands,located near Montreal. The unfortunate scientist makes the first experiment on the implantation of parasites on his mistress. However, the situation soon gets out of control - a whole epidemic breaks out on the island, turning respectable citizens into violent sex maniacs.

Filmography of Maestro Cronenberg

David Cronenberg's films actually originate from this flawed film. The list of them at the moment, as we have already mentioned, includes nineteen titles: from Convulsions (1975) to Star Map (2014).

However, already in "Convulsions" he showed himself as a real director. Dialogues are checked out. The leitmotif of the film is felt: irony. You can see the efforts of the actors. Everything that could be done to increase the quality of a cheap film was done by David Cronenberg. The filmography of the director is really impressive. Apparently, after the success of the first film, the young director did not rest on his laurels, but was looking for new stylistic finds, original means of expression.

Then followed the search for style in the next three budget pictures. And, finally, in 1981, the creative search brought the author a result. Obvious luck followed: the film "Scanners", created according to the script written by the director himself, brought him recognition in the world of cinema. Experts qualified the genre of the picture ambiguously, calling it an explosive mixture of detective, horror film, science fiction, shock horror (the script told about the accidental creation of a new human race as a result of a pharmaceuticalexperiment).

Looking ahead, we present the full filmography of the director. We will talk about it further.

n/n	Original title	Title at the box office	Year of creation
1	Shivers	"Convulsions"	1975
2	Rabid	"Rabies"	1977
3	Fast Company	Reckless Company	1979
4	The Brood	"The Brood"	1979
5	Scanners	"Scanners"	1981
6	Videodrome	"Videodrome"	1982
7	The Dead Zone	"Dead Zone"	1983
8	The Fly	"Fly"	1986
9	Dead Ringers	Death Tied	1988
10	Naked Lunch	Naked Lunch	1991
11	M. Butterfly	"M. Butterfly"	1993
12	Crash	"Car Crash"	1996
13	eXistenZ	"Existence"	1999
14	Spider	"Spider"	2002
15	A History of Violence	"Justified Violence"	2005
16	Eastern Promises	"Fault for export"	2007
17	A Dangerous Method	"A dangerous method"	2011
18	Cosmopolis	"Cosmopolis"	2012
19	Maps to the Stars	"Star Chart"	2014

Movies of the 80s. Iconic Dead Zone ribbon

Director David Cronenberg became recognizable in his works by the topical issues that sound in them. Scientific and technological revolution has really begun to influence human life. The audience frankly expected new works from the creative Canadian in much the same way as the Russian reading public now expectsanother novel from Viktor Pelevin. And the author did not disappoint. His next film, Videodrome, surprised with the depth of the director's vision of the social problems brought into society by commercial television and the press. In the depth of the disclosure of the problem, the handwriting of the master was visible. Film critics, overwhelmed by this level of foresight, found themselves in a state of overloaded computer.

And next year, "The Dead Zone", Cronenberg's film based on the novel by Stephen King, wins two international prizes at film festivals. Critics call this film work the best horror film of 1984. Let us briefly outline the plot of this wonderful work. Primary school teacher Johnny Smith, a resident of Maine, gets into a severe car accident. He has been in a coma for five years. Finally, having come to his senses, Smith discovers the Gift in himself: the future of other people is presented to him clearly and understandably.

To the nurse who cared for him, Johnny points out the mortal danger that threatens her daughter. The mother, who immediately returned home, manages to save the child from the fire.

Smith is mentally unprepared for his transformation. The attending physician suspects an aggravated mental disorder, he examines the patient, he takes him by the hand … and sees the past. He sees the war, a young woman giving the child to the evacuees in the leaving car. The doctor is shocked, this is his mother, and she is alive (until then he considered her dead)!

Johnny doesn't know how to live with his gift. His girlfriend returns to him, still in love withhim. However, the next story that happened to him finally takes him out of his unsteady mental balance. The police use him as a psychic to investigate the serial murders of young women. Suddenly, in the middle of an investigative experiment, the sheriff's deputy leaves. Johnny Smith sees the face of the departed, and he goes with the sheriff to that house. The assistant's mother shoots at those who came from the threshold of the house, but misses, and the return shot of the sheriff turns out to be true. Bursting into the house with the sheriff, Johnny sees her son pierce himself with scissors - a maniac who had previously committed these terrible murders.

He is shocked that he has become an instrument of fate … Smith becomes a recluse, settles in a hut. But human glory haunts him, people go to him for advice. The predictor manages to prevent another misfortune: a man, having changed his mind, saves his son, who was supposed to fall through the ice.

The viewer is really drawn in and captivated by the "Dead Zone". The film, created as a result of the joint work of Stephen King and David Cronenberg, turned out to be fascinating and extraordinary.

But it ends tragically. Sarah, beloved of Johnny, becomes a volunteer in the election campaign of a contender for the presidency of the United States. Candidate Stilson, who arrived at the meeting with voters, shakes hands with people, while touching the main character of the film. He sees his future: becoming president, the candidate will unleash World War III.

John understands that his mission is now global - to save the world. But for this, Stilson must be killed. That is, to him, the teacher of children,the Commandment of God is to be violated (“Thou sh alt not kill!”) The predictor is going through a spiritual crisis, but decides to take such a step. Moreover, he knows that his attempt will be successful. But he doesn't see the details…

However, no shots were fired. When John pulled out a gun, Stilson covered himself with Sarah's child. The reporter manages to capture this, and the published picture destroys the applicant's career, pushing him later to commit suicide.

The teacher is ahead of the candidate's security. They open fire on him and mortally wound him. John dies before he can explain what happened to his beloved.

Growing in popularity, rising film budgets

It was a success! Judge for yourself: with a $10 million budget for The Dead Zone, box office revenues in the US alone were over $20 million! The world audience, as you know, paid another 20 million dollars. The film was named the best horror movie of the year and won awards at international film competitions.

After this film, another director would rest on his laurels. However, David Cronenberg is unstoppable in his work. Films for him are his life. He sees the income received not as a source of enrichment, but as a way to get funds to create new films. By the standards of the townsfolk, he is simply obsessed … The fanatic director "burns" the income received from the "Dead Zone" to the ground in the production of the new blockbuster "Fly". This film seems to have been watched by the whole world… Do you think (by analogy with the efficiency of the previous film) that the income from "The Fly" amounted to 40 million dollars? Don't you want 60?!

90s. Recognition, awards

After"Flies" the name of David Cronenberg becomes a brand in the world. In the last decade of the twentieth century, the self-taught director entered the recognized and venerable. He succeeded in everything! He began to experiment in genres, and successfully. William Burroughs praised the film adaptation of his dystopia Naked Lunch. In 1990, the master tried himself in the film adaptation of D. Hwang's play. He managed to shoot a rating film "Madama Butterfly", recognized by experts. Of course, he also works in his favorite genre of horror films. The film "Crash", based on the work of James Ballard, brings the director an award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1999, David Cronenberg was recognized as the world's No. 1 director. The filmography of the master was replenished with the cult film "Existence". The author managed to show the process of how the human mind gets trapped in virtual computer reality and begins to replace the real world with it.

He is assigned to head the jury of the Cannes Film Festival. And he holds the most scandalous awarding in the history of the competition, bypassing the awards of the masters and handing them to newcomers. After all, for Cronenberg, who began his career with budget films, there is only one criterion for creativity: talent in its purest form. So the “sacred cows from the cinema” had no choice but to make a good face on a bad game.

Cronenberg's New Age Movies

In 2002, the chamber minimalistic thriller "Spider" set the tone for the entire competitive program of the Cannes Film Festival. Master cometiculous Dostoevsky plunged the audience into the depths of the human psyche. Consumed by schizophrenia, Dennis Cleg is globally subject to the Oedipus complex. The film leaves an impression of the complete hopelessness of the protagonist's life situation.

The ways of creativity are inscrutable. The crime drama Justified Cruelty (2005) based on the novel by D. Wagner was nominated for an Oscar. The subsequent films of the director were box office, but only in 2014 the film-allegory "Star Map" was awarded the "Oscar". As the work of the master of recent years shows, he gradually moved away from the topic of gene mutations, focusing on plots with a philosophical second bottom.

The talented director also showed himself as a writer. David Cronenberg never ceases to amaze with the versatility of his creative gift. “Used” is just his starting novel, but when you read it, the impression of a classic pen remains. Readers are convinced that the Canadian is fluent in more than just the language of cinema. His novel captivates and keeps readers in suspense from the beginning to the last page.

Instead of a conclusion

What is interesting for the general public director David Cronenberg? In fact, he is self-taught. They do not train graduates of literary universities to make films. Did it bother him? Probably no. Helped. Precisely because no one told David how and what to shoot, he went in his own unique way.

An analogy suggests itself with A. S. Pushkin, who was an unloved child in the family, and therefore, until the age of 9, he was left to himself(at the same time, his brother was “drilled” by his father, and his sister by his mother). This was enough to lay the foundations of genius…