David Cronenberg: « Art is not therapy”
The script for your previous film dates back to the early 2000s. Can you tell us about the background to this one?
David Cronenberg – It’s much younger. It’s only a few years old. Initially, I turned to Netflix to develop it as a series. They were very enthusiastic. They commissioned what they call a prototype, and then a kind of pilot. But in the end, for some reason, they decided to stop development of the project. Still, I’m grateful to them for financing the script and allowing me to see its potential. I liked it so much that I reworked the script to try and turn it into a film.
The film is produced by Saïd Ben Saïd and Saint Laurent Productions, the company set up by Anthony Vaccarello. What was their involvement?
This is the second film I’ve made with Saïd, after Maps to the Stars. Anthony’s contribution also came about for the film’s costumes. Having access to the power and design of Saint Laurent only made the film more interesting. It was an excellent collaboration.
Another long-term collaboration is with Howard Shore, with whom you’re making your 17th film.
Yes, and once again his work is exceptional. It’s not easy to talk about music; words can’t always describe it, and we don’t talk much together. I always trust him completely. He saw the film very early on and came up with a score that gave me a very precious range of subtlety.
Let’s move on to the actors and actresses. Léa Seydoux was considered for the female role, but was replaced by Diane Kruger.
Yes, I wanted to go back to her because we worked so well together on my previous film (Crimes of the Future, 2022). She read the script and wanted to do it, but she needed time for herself and her family. I immediately thought of Diane Kruger, whose career I’d been following for some time. I thought she’d make a great duo with Vincent Cassel.
Oui, c’est fou de se dire que nous travaillons tous les trois depuis un demi-siècle. J’ai très envie de voir leur film. Francis a été président du jury 1996, je présentais Crash en compétition et le film avait remporté un Prix spécial du jury. J’ai été très choqué à l’annonce de la mort de sa femme. J’ai une grande sympathie pour lui.
The physical resemblance to Vincent Cassel is striking. Did you work on it together?
Ah, I thought you would ask me that. But I can assure you, I didn’t pick Vincent because of his haircut. It was a coincidence, because we really don’t look alike. I have to say that a large part of that resemblance comes from his acting. He watched me very carefully. We’d already worked together twice, on Eastern Promises in 2007 and A Dangerous Method in 2011. I think he felt he was playing a version of me. So he slowed down his acting a bit to compose a more relaxed, articulate personality than his usual characters. In particular, he told me that this was the film he’d made where he had the most dialogue. Beyond the differences I have with the character – I’m not a businessman and I don’t run a restaurant – his performance definitely brings him closer to me.
Your film will be presented in competition alongside those of Paul Schrader and Francis Ford Coppola. You’ve been making films side by side for almost fifty years now.
Yes, it’s crazy to think that the three of us have been working for half a century. I can’t wait to see their films. Francis was president of the 1996 jury, I was presenting Crash in competition and the film won a jury Prix Spécial. I was very shocked to hear of his wife’s death. I have great sympathy for him.
Most people carry images of their deceased with them. In your film, it is the live image of their buried body which evolves.
What’s interesting is the evolution of this image. My character wants to see the decay of his wife’s body. He doesn’t want to let her go without witnessing what’s happening to her body. His physical passion for her survives her death, and he needs to turn this passion into an enterprise that allows others to fulfill this fantasy of accompanying him beyond death.
You get the feeling that while one is decaying, the other, the living one, is recomposing their life in the light of this impossible mourning.
Yes, that’s exactly it. In a strange way, he keeps her alive to survive her death. It’s very often the case that the widow or widower of an artist feels invested with the mission of keeping the works alive and, in this way, continues a form of relationship with the deceased. In my films, I’ve always considered bodies as a form of artistic creation. So this idea seems quite natural to me.
Film theorist André Bazin defined cinema as « the art of fossilizing time ». Do you feel inspired by this definition?
Yes, I completely agree. Le cinéma est un cimetière. (In French, Cinema is a graveyard.) I watch a lot of old films, especially on the Criterion platform. The people have often all been dead and buried for a long time. And yet they seem so alive on screen, it’s like remembering a lost family member. For me, this mortifying dimension of cinema isn’t negative; I think it’s beautiful. Before the advent of smartphones, only movie stars were entitled to this kind of sublime mortuary embalming that is cinema. Now it’s possible for everyone. Most people have videos of loved ones they’ve lost. Today, people can have their own intimate graveyard in their pockets. And that’s a good thing.
The interweaving of technology and existence has always been at the heart of your cinema. Where did you get the idea for this idea that lets you observe the process of decay of a buried body?
My own difficulty when it comes to mourning. Many of the things said in the film were said in real life, by me, by my wife, by people I know. The origin of the film is neither philosophical nor metaphysical. The starting point is the physical lack I’ve felt since my wife died. Every cell in my body was affected by this grief. Later on, I realized that there were also more philosophical or metaphysical implications to this story. But the first urge for the film came from a very intimate and primitive place.
Sexuality plays a major role in the film, which is rarely the case when it comes to mourning.
Yes, but sexuality carries with it the love of a woman. Physical loss is something we never get over. It’s our primitive side. We’re animals, after all.
Another admirable thing about the film is the way it depicts in its second half a world plagued by all kinds of conspiracy theories.
For me, conspiracy theories are a form of religious approach to life. In the same way that a god brings meaning to life, conspiracy theories help some people make sense of what happens to them. When a loved one dies tragically, it’s easy to fall into a conspiracy. This gives you energy and anger. The meaning of your life then becomes to find out what is pulling the strings of this conspiracy of which you are also a victim. The two characters who revolve around the hero of my film, Terry (Diane Kruger in one of the three roles she plays in the film) and Maury (Guy Pearce), have developed conspiracy theories about everything and anything. This not only gives meaning to their lives, but also a sense of control and pride in being privileged with knowledge that most don’t have access to. In the end, it helps to make mourning bearable.
The death of your wife is the defining element of your last two films. Is this a way for you to move forward in your mourning process?
I was recently interviewed by an Italian psychoanalyst and film buff, who asked me if I thought I needed psychiatric treatment since my wife’s death. I told him I was just suffering. He replied that my answer meant I didn’t need psychiatric care. In other words, grief is a suffering with no way out, you just have to learn to live with it. I think these two films help me to live with it, but they are by no means a cathartic undertaking. Art is not therapy, at least not for me. For me, these two films are a way of looking at my grief through a prism other than that of reality. The mourning of a loved one lasts a lifetime, but it becomes more bearable with distance. Honestly, if I’d been thinking about it with the same intensity since she died, I’d have killed myself. The life force that forces us to survive when such tragic events happen to us eventually enabled me to hold on. So, of course, the pain sometimes resurfaces. If I let myself go, I could start crying right here, right now, in a fetal position, right in front of you, but today I have a distance that allows me to contain this suffering.
We could envision the main character’s enterprise as a refusal of death, but also as a way of accepting it, while maintaining a closeness, a relationship.
Yes, exactly. He’s willing to accept the fact that this new relationship is grotesque, shocking, disgusting, as most might think when seeing the decomposed body of a loved one. Mummification, for example, is a process aimed at preserving the body, in other words, refusing death and its attendant decomposition. For me, the character’s true love is to accept this new stage in the life of the body he adores.
Traduction Emma Frigo