The Body Is the Essence of Human Existence

For a guy who’s made legendary films like The Fly, Scanners and Shivers, you’d think David Cronenberg would be used to the feeling of releasing a new film. But as the Canadian director tells Tom Power, that’s not really the case. David says that every time he makes a new film, he feels incredibly exposed, like he’s opening himself up and showing the world the most vulnerable parts of himself. It’s similar to what the main character in his new film Crimes of the Future goes through, except Saul Tenser (played by Viggo Mortensen) is literally cutting himself open and giving the insides of his body to his audience as a representation of his creativity. David tells Tom why a film he wrote more than 20 years ago is more relevant than ever, how his home country of Canada wasn’t the most supportive of his films when he was starting out, and why he doesn’t see his work as body horror.