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Global News
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Global News
‘The body is reality': Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg on mortality and making movies
For nearly his entire career, David Cronenberg has been considered a trailblazer of the 'body horror' subgenre — and it's easy to see why. The renowned Canadian filmmaker is behind Scanners, Videodrome and the 1986 remake of The Fly — just some of the highly influential sci-fi and horror classics he's made throughout the decades. Many of the films share a focus on disturbing and graphic violations of the human body. Yet the 82-year-old Torontonian has only reluctantly accepted that title — or allowed others to connect the phrase 'body horror' to his films. 'I've never used that term to describe my own work,' Cronenberg says in an interview with Global National's Eric Sorensen. 'But it has stuck, and I'm stuck with it.' Personal connections For the average moviegoer, Cronenberg's latest work, The Shrouds, won't necessarily help with his defence. The film is all about a tech entrepreneur inventing a machine that monitors corpses as they decompose inside their graves — allowing people to watch their dead and buried loved ones slowly wither away. But it is one of Cronenberg's most personal films yet, having been inspired by the death of his wife in 2017 and the grief that followed. The movie itself makes that no secret. Like Cronenberg, the morbid inventions of the film's protagonist are a product of his longing for his own late spouse. In past interviews, Cronenberg had described an intense urge to join his wife inside her coffin during her burial — a feeling also mentioned in the film. Advertisement 'The death of my wife was the instigator of this movie. I wouldn't have made this movie, I wouldn't have thought to write it, if it hadn't been for that. But I think you could overstress the idea of the personal aspect of it because I think all art is personal in some way,' Cronenberg says. View image in full screen Director David Cronenberg poses on the red carpet for the movie 'The Shrouds' during the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto on Wednesday, September 11, 2024. Nathan Denette / The Canadian Press 'There's always an autobiographic element because it's your life that allows you to understand what your characters are, who they are, how people relate to each other.' For the uninitiated, that raises questions about what else inspires the disturbing visions present in Cronenberg's other movies, such as a man's sexual fetish for deadly car collisions in Crash or the harrowing human mutations driven by technology in Crimes of the Future. [Embed GN story here] But for Cronenberg — long fascinated with the human body — these extremes simply reflect just how intense our anxieties are for our changing bodies and our mortality. 'There comes a time when a child learns that the child will not live forever … That's pretty difficult. That's a major turning point in any human's life,' he says. 'The body is reality. Once you start with that and then you consider death is inevitable — and if you're an atheist like me, you consider that death is oblivion — I mean, it is the end of you. You disappear. We put all that together, then you have my movies.' True to Canada Cronenberg never made it a point to be this subversive when he started making movies more than 50 years ago. Son of a musician and a writer, he was just a creative attracted by the potential of the medium to express his ideas. With short films and no formal training, all he cared about then was being any good at it. 'It wasn't even the idea of the subject matter that was considered. It was my ability to be a filmmaker technically,' he says, while recollecting the challenges of making his first commercial film. 'At first, I thought, 'Oh my God, I don't think I can do this. The faces of the heads are the wrong size in the frame. The angle is not right. The two shots don't really work together.' And I thought maybe I really don't have the sensibility.' Cronenberg also wasn't sure whether his career as a filmmaker would even thrive in Canada. Partly motivated by better financial incentives in the American film industry, he pitched his first feature, Shivers, to Hollywood executives first. He also considered moving permanently to the U.S. since he already had personal ties south of the border through his American father. It was only when he secured funding from the Canadian Film Development Corporation, now Telefilm Canada, that he decided to stay. He preferred that anyway and still does. 'I really felt that my sensibility was Canadian and different from the U.S.,' he says. 'I don't think in the U.S., they imagine that Canadians were different, but I really could feel it when I went to America how different it was.' View image in full screen Canadian film director and screenwriter David Cronenberg is honoured at the Marrakech International Film Festival, in Morocco, on Dec. 2, 2024. Mosa'ab Elshamy / The Associated Press Quintessentially Cronenberg…and Canadian Decades of international acclaim later, the eccentricity of Cronenberg's movies is now considered quintessential Canadian cinema. His impact and influence beyond it is also emblematic of how Canada's filmmakers do their best work when they are not trying to mimic mainstream Hollywood. Advertisement Not that Cronenberg hasn't found success there either, having directed star-studded dramas like A History of Violence and Eastern Promises. He was even initially approached to work on crowd-pleasers like Top Gun, Star Wars and, to his confusion, Flashdance. 'I thought I probably would have destroyed that film (Flashdance) somehow,' Cronenberg admits. '[But] I took it as a positive appraisal of my skills as a director.' It's clear Cronenberg's distinct body of work will continue to fascinate audiences and aspiring filmmakers alike long after he's gone. Even if that also means his name will be forever associated with the 'body horror' genre. But true to his beliefs, he's not all too concerned about legacy. 'I'm not worried about it,' he says. 'Once I'm dead, it's not going to be a problem.'
Fox Sports
30-04-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Last Night in Baseball: Daulton Varsho, how did you make that catch?!
There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to handle themselves. That's why we're here to help, though, by sifting through the previous days' games, and figuring out what you missed, but shouldn't have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball: Daulton Varsho trips, then turns into Daredevil The Red Sox had no trouble scoring runs against the Blue Jays on Tuesday night. Wilyer Abreu crushed a three-run homer, while Jarren Duran, Alex Bregman, Kristian Campbell and Rafael Devers all had solo shots as Boston cruised to a 10-2 win. Duran only had that one hit, but he could have had another if not for the Daredevil stylings of Daulton Varsho. In the fourth inning, Duran sent a ball to deep center field. As Varsho was trying to track the ball, the 28-year-old then tripped over his own feet. Embarrassing, right? Then he did an awkward sideways roll, like a preschooler in tumbling class. Still kind of embarrassing, but at least he was trying to save face. And then, while kneeling on the warning track, he stuck his glove out backwards and somehow, despite not being able to see what he was doing, snagged the ball based on pure instinct. OK Daulton "Matt Murdock" Varsho, no need to show off. Even more amazingly, that was Varsho's 2025 debut! He sat out the first month of the season while recovering from shoulder surgery. Last year, Varsho earned his first Gold Glove. He might have just earned his second based on that play alone. Mets put on a Gold Glove show, all in one inning Varsho's heroics overshadowed a defensive gem of the inning for the Mets in their 8-3 win over the Diamondbacks. In the top of the fourth inning, Randal Grichuk blasted the ball to third base. A diving Mark Vientos wasn't able to field it cleanly, but he did deflect the ball right into the glove of Francisco Lindor, who fired a perfect strike to Pete Alonso for the out. Pitcher David Peterson looked stunned, but appreciative. The next batter was Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who smacked a slider that looked destined to fall into the gap between left and center field. But Tyrone Taylor was flying as soon as the ball made contact, covering a lot of ground in very little time at all, and made a spectacular diving grab — and on his mom's birthday! Happy birthday, mom. Peterson celebrated, still looking a bit incredulous. Finally, Eugenio Suarez came to the plate and hit a rocket to Lindor, who snared it off the hop and got the ball to Alonso with plenty of time to spare. The Mets headed to the dugout and surprisingly, Peterson's head didn't explode like that scene from "Scanners." Phillies win on a walk-off wild pitch in a wild ninth inning On Sunday, we saw the Giants walk off the Rangers, courtesy of a Little League home run. Two days later, the Phillies also scored the winning run in a way reminiscent of youth baseball: on a wild pitch. With two outs and Bryson Stott on third, Nats closer Kyle Finnegan missed the plate badly, leading to Stott's slide home and Finnegan's second blown game of the season. It was an eventful ninth inning all around. Nathaniel Lowe's three-run dinger — only one of those runs was earned — in the top of the frame pulled the Nats ahead 6-5. In the bottom of the ninth, Johan Rojas sent a fly ball to right field with runners on second and third. Dylan Crews was waiting for it, then threw a laser to the plate. If catcher Keibert Ruiz had fielded the ball cleanly, then Alec Bohm would've been out, game over. Ruiz did not field it cleanly. Three pitches later, he couldn't corral Finnegan's splitter either, and then it really was game over. Ohtani's Dad Strength is here Shohei Ohtani is now the father of a newborn, and you know what that means: dad strength. Dodgers' manager Dave Roberts is a true believer, and he's been waiting for Ohtani to unleash it. Ohtani, though, has scuffled a bit since the birth of his daughter, which mostly reminds of another dad-related item worth considering: dad fatigue. Maybe Ohtani has just been a little tired lately, you know? That would explain his .125 average as a dad since coming back from parental leave. Ohtani must have gotten a good night's sleep before Tuesday's game, at least, as he was finally able to put his newfound dad strength on display with a homer: Sure, maybe Ohtani just scuffled like normal, and now he's hitting a homer like normal with his already prodigious strength, but it's much more fun to imagine he's tapped into some new wellspring of power that opposing pitchers have to be worried about from here on out. deGrom is (finally) a winner again Poor Jacob deGrom. He has all the talent in the world, except for the ability to stay healthy, and it's cost him for the last few years. deGrom threw over 200 innings in a season in three consecutive years from 2017 through 2019, then another 68 in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Since then, he's thrown a combined 230 frames and made just 41 starts. All that time off of the mound means deGrom hasn't picked up a win in ages. In over two years, in fact. He last won a game on April 23, 2023, then underwent Tommy John surgery shortly afterward – deGrom returned to the mound in 2024 for three starts in which he didn't pick up a dub, and was win-less in 2025… until Tuesday night. Facing off against the Athletics – the last team he picked up a win against over two years ago now – deGrom threw six innings with seven strikeouts, scattering four hits without walking a single A's batter. Not that the Rangers needed that level of dominance from him in a game they'd win 15-2, but hey, better to be safe than sorry and hold your opponent scoreless while you can, just in case. Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account , and follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily! recommended Get more from Major League Baseball Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more
USA Today
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Would you watch your loved ones decompose? 'The Shrouds' imagines a grave future
Would you watch your loved ones decompose? 'The Shrouds' imagines a grave future Show Caption Hide Caption A man clings to his dead wife in David Cronenberg's 'The Shrouds' Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger star in David Cronenberg's "The Shrouds," following a husband haunted by the memory of his late wife. David Cronenberg knows exactly how he wants to be buried. In his new movie 'The Shrouds' (in theaters nationwide April 25), the Canadian filmmaker imagines a near future where high-definition cameras are placed in luxury coffins, allowing people to check in on their loved ones via livestream after they die. It may sound macabre, watching your family and friends as their bodies gradually decay through the years. But if such technology actually existed, Cronenberg would be all in. 'I would have done that, I really would,' he says on a Zoom call. 'In Toronto, we have a walk of fame with plaques in the sidewalk. I thought, 'I would like to be buried under my plaque.' In fact, it should have Plexiglass so people could look down and see me there disintegrating. I know my fans would love that.' Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox 'The Shrouds' movie tells a 'very personal' story about grief 'The Shrouds' follows an anguished entrepreneur named Karsh (Vincent Cassel), who starts a casket surveillance company known as GraveTech following the death of his wife, Becca (Diane Kruger). But after her cemetery plot is vandalized one night, along with many others, Karsh sets out to catch the culprits and uncover the secrets of Becca's past. The film is extremely meaningful to Cronenberg, 82, the body-horror maestro behind 'Scanners,' 'Videodrome' and 'The Fly.' In 2017, he lost his frequent collaborator and wife of 38 years, Carolyn Zeifman, to cancer. She was 66. 'I made a lot of notes throughout the two years I was taking care of my wife,' Cronenberg says. Writing this movie, 'I just had to remind myself what I was thinking and feeling.' In an early scene, Karsh explains to a blind date (Jennifer Dale) why he invented GraveTech. Watching as Becca was lowered into the ground, he felt an intense urge to hop in there with her. ('I couldn't stand it that she was alone in there, and that I would never know what was happening to her,' Karsh says.) That sentiment is drawn from Cronenberg's own grieving experience. 'I might not have jumped, but I would have been in there,' Cronenberg says. 'Those were feelings that really surprised me; I didn't anticipate them, but they hit me very hard. Without really being conscious of it, I always thought I was her protector. When she died, I realized how vulnerable I was to the world and that she had been protecting me all that time.' Kruger plays three characters in the movie, including Becca's consoling twin sister, Terry, and Karsh's A.I. assistant bot, Hunny. Reading the script, 'there seemed to be this enduring love story in the film that was very emotional and touched me profoundly,' the German actress says. Meeting him afterward, "David was very generous in sharing a lot of stories and inspirations for these characters. It made it very personal.' 'Shrouds' helped Kruger to understand the physical torment of losing your soulmate. She wonders how it must have felt for her grandfather, who was married to her grandmother for 70 years before she died. 'The pain of continuing to exist, and not having her body, has new meaning to me,' Kruger, 48, says. 'It's uncomfortable and sad to think about death: the fear of really being gone and not seeing that person again. It's not something I particularly look forward to.' 'Shrouds' director David Cronenberg reflects on his own mortality, legacy Cronenberg, who is atheist, has long-explored mortality and the unhappy realities of the human body, most recently in his 2022 sci-fi drama 'Crimes of the Future.' British writer Christopher Hitchens once said that 'death causes religion,' and 'I think that's the truth,' Cronenberg says. 'People can't face it. It's very powerful for us to imagine not existing, and so to avoid imagining our own oblivion, we make up stories that say you will not really disappear; that you'll be in heaven or get reincarnated.' But ultimately, life is about 'accepting the beauty and absurdity of existence. It's that very beauty that makes it so painful to imagine leaving it.' Cronenberg has worked steadily for six decades, directing Oscar-nominated films such as 'Eastern Promises' and 'A History of Violence,' although he himself has never been nominated. The unassuming filmmaker downplays his Hollywood impact, but speaks highly of horror provocateurs Coralie Fargeat ('The Substance') and Julia Ducournau ('Titane'), both of whom have cited him as a major influence. 'They're really talented and it's very sweet. They're like my cinematic daughters,' Cronenberg says. 'The fact that I've inspired younger filmmakers is lovely, but it doesn't pay the bills.' He also has little patience for directors like Quentin Tarantino, who has proclaimed for years that he plans to retire after his 10th and final movie, as a career 'mic drop.' 'Who cares? The people who like his films won't remember which order they were in,' Cronenberg says with a shrug. 'Frankly, you're kidding yourself if you think you're in control of your legacy. You aren't."
New York Times
19-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
David Cronenberg Lost His Wife and the Will to Make Movies. Then Came ‘The Shrouds'
In 2017, during the funeral of his wife and longtime collaborator Carolyn Zeifman, the director David Cronenberg found himself struck by an unusual impulse: As the coffin holding her dead body was lowered into the ground, he wanted more than anything to get into that box with her. That reluctance to let go is taken to even more morbid extremes in Cronenberg's new movie, 'The Shrouds,' about a high-tech cemetery where the ongoing decomposition of a corpse can be viewed through a video livestream meant for the loved ones left behind. When those graves are mysteriously vandalized, it's up to the cemetery owner Karsh (Vincent Cassel) to determine the culprits, who he suspects may have something to do with the death of his own wife (Diane Kruger). The 82-year-old Cronenberg has always been guided by a unique point of view as a filmmaker, and his classics like 'Scanners,' 'Videodrome' and 'The Fly' helped establish the body-horror genre. Still, he admitted in an interview via Zoom this month that 'The Shrouds' could be considered one of his most personal films: It's not for nothing that Cassel is costumed to look like his director, donning dark suits and teasing his gray hair upward in a familiar manner. Even so, Cronenberg cautioned against drawing too many links between himself and his lead character. 'As soon as you start to write a screenplay, you're writing fiction, no matter what the impetus was in your own life,' Cronenberg said. 'Suddenly, you're creating characters that need to come to life. And when you start to write them, they start to push you around if they're really alive.' Here are edited excerpts from our conversation. As your wife was dying, did you think you might channel what you felt into your work someday? Or did it feel too taboo to tackle? At that point, I thought I wouldn't make any more movies. I thought possibly I'd end up writing another novel, but the moviemaking process seemed just too overwhelming. I just didn't think I'd have the heart for it when my wife died, which surprised me because it made me realize how much her support meant to me in everything that I was doing. I wouldn't have thought that it would be: 'She's gone. I can't work anymore.' But that's how I felt, really. Does making a film like 'The Shrouds' give you any perspective on what you've gone through? Not really, no. It's the exercise it's always been, which is to understand and explore the human condition as you personally experience it. So in that sense, it's cathartic, but it's not in the sense that it can alleviate or lessen grief. In other words, I don't think of art as therapy. I think it might work better for people who see it than for me. Meanwhile, I'm just left with the grief that I always had. 'The Shrouds' originally began as a show you pitched to Netflix. What intrigued you about tackling it as a series rather than a film? I was really fascinated by the whole streaming phenomenon. It's a different kind of cinema, in the sense that a movie is more like a short story or novella but a series is quite close to being a novel and that lets you take your time and really get into details of things that you cannot do in a movie. I've never made a movie that was two hours long — they've all been under two hours. So the idea of making a 10-hour movie, wow, that's pretty shocking. Honestly, I don't know if I would have had the stamina to do that. I talked to Steve Zaillian about 'Ripley,' which I thought was a fantastically good series that he wrote and directed every episode, and it took three or four years. Very exhausting. I talked to Alfonso Cuarón about 'Disclaimer' — same thing, he wrote and directed every episode. I asked him if he would do that again and he said, 'I'm not really sure I would.' And I knew that David Lynch had just about destroyed himself doing 20 episodes of 'Twin Peaks.' How did Netflix receive your pitch? They liked it enough to finance the writing of the first episode, then they liked that enough to finance the writing of a second episode. And at that point, they decided not to continue with it. I was disappointed, but I had to say: 'Well, thank you Netflix for at least getting me to this point. I have two episodes written that I quite like and I'm going to try and see if I can make this as a feature film.' What I was pitching to Netflix, and perhaps this was one of the things that scared them, was that every episode would take place in a different country. So if it was eight episodes, it'd be eight countries. Now that is an expensive series, and although they had a lot of money at that point, the pinch was already starting with Netflix. They could see that once they hit the upper limit of their subscribers, they were not going to be able to finance $300 million for a series so simply. Streamers used to spend that money like it was nothing. I think the streaming entities are very conservative now. They pulled back on their financing and they're getting to be very mainstream in their thinking. I went to Netflix hoping that they would be some strange alternative to the studio system where they would be more willing to take chances and basically do independent filmmaking, but what I felt there was that they were already well on the way to becoming just another studio entity. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just that I was hoping they'd be a little more radical. You've previously compared cinema to a cemetery and said, 'I'm often watching movies in order to see dead people.' Particularly during the pandemic, when I was watching a lot of old movies, it occurred to me that every person who worked on this movie is dead now. The director, the producers, the actors — they're all dead, and I'm watching their ghosts. I suppose somewhere back in my head there was that idea with Karsh's shrouds that basically the shrouds are cinema. The audiovisual presence of the dead in our lives has certainly grown over time. It used to just be pictures or letters. Now there are so many more ways that the dead feel present in a way that's nearly tangible. And beyond that is the artificial-intelligence avatar where people now have enough data on their loved ones — videos that they've taken, recordings of their voice — that it's very possible to find a company that will create a very spookily realistic avatar of the dead person you're missing who can actually talk to you. The thing that will always be there, though, is that they're still disembodied. You still can't hug them. You can't go to bed with them. You can't walk down the street holding their hand. So is that more frustrating? Is it going to exacerbate the grief or will it alleviate it? We shall see. But at the moment, body is reality, as the line from 'Crimes of the Future' goes. That's one way to use A.I., and Karsh has his own A.I. assistant in 'The Shrouds.' But what do you make of A.I. that's based on art that you've made, that could be trained on screenplays that you've written? I understand the copyright wars but honestly, once it's out there, it's up for grabs. It always has been. I mean, when James Joyce wrote 'Ulysses' and showed English-speaking writers a different way to write a novel, that was up for grabs and you could use that in the work that you were doing. So in a way, it's not really different, the A.I. thing. The complexity of copyright — Is it theft or plagiarism? — you have to let that play out in specific cases with lawyers. But it doesn't surprise me and I think it's inevitable and in a way it's always been there, frankly. How would you feel if we went to ChatGPT right now and said, 'Generate a plot summary for a new David Cronenberg movie?' It's been done. I haven't done it myself with my own work but apparently, sometimes the results are actually quite viable. It's like, 'Yeah, this is a movie that could get made.' And does that unnerve you or tickle you? No, no, it tickles me. I enjoy it, actually. We have filmmakers like Coralie Fargeat and Julia Ducournau who are obviously taking inspiration from you. Oh, yes, I watched 'The Substance,' I saw 'Titane.' I've met Coralie, I've met Julia. It's very sweet, they're like my cinematic daughters. And I have a son and a daughter who are also moviemakers, so it doesn't threaten me, I don't feel like I've been taken advantage of. Especially in those cases, they completely acknowledged that I have influenced them and it doesn't diminish my movies. Coralie got a couple of Oscar nominations that I've never had for writing and best picture and director, so it pleases me, honestly. Viggo Mortensen, who starred in many of your films, has chastised the Academy for never nominating you. What do you make of those snubs? 'The Fly' won an Oscar for best makeup, and that was my first time attending the Oscars. It was interesting and fun, but you can only take it so seriously. I think I have 50 lifetime achievement awards from various festivals and things and it would be nice if I could live those 50 lifetimes, so it's all in perspective. [At least] I wouldn't have to make an Oscar speech and get really nervous and perhaps fall as I went up onto the stage and break my hip like old guys tend to do. So that's the upside. When 'The Shrouds' premiered at Cannes last summer, there was speculation that it could be your last film. Is that your intention? No, I'm writing a script based on my novel 'Consumed,' so we'll see how that works out. Definitely, I'd be willing to do another movie. I felt doing the last two movies that I did have the focus and the stamina and all that stuff that you need. Eventually, I might get to the point where I don't feel that I have the energy or the focus because it is rough making a movie. It's physically difficult. But at the moment, I seem to be OK, so we'll see what happens. Does the notion of your eventual final film have any importance to you? For example, Quentin Tarantino has announced he only plans to make one more movie, but he's had some difficulty picking a project that feels like a worthy end point. It means nothing to me. Zero. You never think, 'Well, if this is my last movie, at least it feels right'? No. Five years later, they won't even know it's your last movie. They won't know which movie you made when and they won't care, either.
Washington Post
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
‘Freaky Tales' is a four-part love letter to '80s trash cinema
If you were alive and adolescent and wired on junk culture in the 1980s, 'Freaky Tales' will have you counting the pop references until you run out of fingers and toes. 'The Warriors' and 'Scanners,' 'Repo Man' and 'Liquid Sky,' martial arts action and grindhouse revenge schlock — it's all here, stitched together with static-y VHS splices, a doomy synth score and a lot of patently fraudulent blood.
