Crimes of the Future marks director David Cronenberg’s return to horror… or does it?
The new film stars Viggo Mortensen as Saul Tenser – a performance artist who uses high-tech surgery to modify his body during high-concept performance pieces. But while Cronenberg’s return to body horror has fans sweating already, it looks as though those same fans might be in for a very different kind of movie.
Cronenberg and Mortensen recently chatted with IGN about how they brought the director’s decades-old vision to the big screen for Crimes of the Future, and whether it’s even a horror movie at all.
But first, we had to ask about those walkouts during the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Viggo Mortensen: In our screening, one person left.
IGN: One person? I thought there was a lot more than that…
Viggo Mortensen: One. I think about 12 or 15 left the press screening. But I think it had a lot more to do with incontinence than it did with repulsion.
David Cronenberg: Yes, because apparently the one person who left the big screening was me. I had to have a pee, and they counted me as a walkout, so I thought that was pretty entertaining.
One thing that’s obvious from spending some time with Cronenberg and Mortensen is that they’re having an absolute ball working together. Frequent collaborators, the pair have made four movies together at this point, starting with A History of Violence in 2005.
But this marks the first time Mortensen would star in a Cronenberg horror.
Well, sort of.
You see, Cronenberg himself thinks Crimes of the Future is actually more of a film noir.
I’m just like anybody else. I want everybody to love my movie.
“I’m just like anybody else. I want everybody to love my movie,” he explained. “We’re making it for an audience, and we want them to love it. And there are many ways they can love it. They can find it sad, or they can find it funny, or they can find it thrilling or tense because it’s a film noir. There are many ways to love it. There’s really only one way to hate it. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was not a big walkout movie.”
There are definitely some serious neo-noir vibes within Crimes of the Future.
A droning synth score and dimly lit streets are reminiscent of Blade Runner among others. There’s even a central mystery at the heart of Crimes of the Future as Saul Tenser tries to uncover a secret that might just be the key to human evolution.
However, Cronenberg isn’t going to have his work pinned down to just one genre…
If you go back to Cronenberg’s early work, it’s easy to see why fans were expecting a return to form for the iconic body horror filmmaker. But that would be a mistake.
“I don’t think about genre,” he said. “It’s a movie and I don’t connect it with my other movies while I’m making it because that creatively doesn’t give me anything. What do I take from that?”
Cronenberg made a name for himself back in the '70s and '80s with the likes of Scanners, Videodrome, and The Fly… but while he popularised body horror, he doesn’t think his past work has influenced Crimes of the Future at all.
“The film is in a bubble,” he explained. “It’s difficult because we're creating a new world in this particular movie. Are there cars in the street? How much technology is there that’s recognizable or not? The lighting, the tone, the ambiance of this new place that the audience will not know… that’s a lot to do without worrying about all your other movies or somebody else’s movie.”
Still, when it comes to body horror, Crimes of the Future doesn’t exactly shy away. And yet it’s nowhere near as gory as some Cronenberg fans might expect. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – Crimes of the Future is a thoughtful, intelligent sci-fi flick with a lot to say. And while the film has its fair share of gory moments, it’s all for one purpose…
“How does it move the story forward?” asked Mortensen. “What’s great about it? If I see this movie 10 years from now, am I going to look at it and go, ‘Well, that was a nice thing for shock value, but who gives a shit?’”
“Some movies, extreme violence is needed,” said Cronenberg. “There are other movies where there's a violent action that takes place narratively, but doing it in an extreme, gory way would derail the movie, it would take people out of the movie because of the tone of the rest of the movie. Each movie has its own demands and that's all I was paying attention to completely with this movie. And that for me is the normal way.”
Although Cronenberg might object, there are some similarities to his earlier works in Crimes of the Future – in particular, the body horror elements.
Crimes of the Future presents a future where surgery is the new sex… and for people who can’t feel pain, well, they’re not quite as squeamish as we are. One particular scene has Caprice (Léa Seydoux) perform a sex act on an open wound on Saul’s abdomen…
“Well, it's something that I do at least once a week. I wish,” joked Cronenberg. “Yeah, it just seems like an obvious thing. The idea of a scene of oral sex would be natural for some porn film, or just even a movie about a sexual couple. Except there is no sex in the movie, except techno sex, or new sex. So, how does that work? That seemed obvious, really, that the idea of the narrative leads you directly to that. It was a scene that wrote itself. I didn't have to write it.”
The scene itself is reminiscent of Crash – one of Cronenberg’s earlier films about a couple that becomes sexually aroused by traffic incidents.
In fact, the whole idea of pushing the boundaries of sex seems to be a recurring theme.
“That scene? It was fun,” said Mortensen. “Léa has a good sense of humor and we enjoyed doing that actually.”
“There was no question with her about should I do this? Should I be nude? Should I not? No question,” added Cronenberg. “Just that was in the script, she’s doing it, and [she] does it like she means it. Part of being a great actor is you have to be able to do that.”
Seydoux and Mortensen certainly commit in one of the most cringe-inducing scenes in the movie.
Whether or not it’s body horror, or simply retains elements of Cronenberg’s classic body-horror style, is up for debate. But one thing’s for certain – the filmmaker has once again created a movie that we’ll be talking about for some time.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading...
The new film stars Viggo Mortensen as Saul Tenser – a performance artist who uses high-tech surgery to modify his body during high-concept performance pieces. But while Cronenberg’s return to body horror has fans sweating already, it looks as though those same fans might be in for a very different kind of movie.
Cronenberg and Mortensen recently chatted with IGN about how they brought the director’s decades-old vision to the big screen for Crimes of the Future, and whether it’s even a horror movie at all.
But first, we had to ask about those walkouts during the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Viggo Mortensen: In our screening, one person left.
IGN: One person? I thought there was a lot more than that…
Viggo Mortensen: One. I think about 12 or 15 left the press screening. But I think it had a lot more to do with incontinence than it did with repulsion.
David Cronenberg: Yes, because apparently the one person who left the big screening was me. I had to have a pee, and they counted me as a walkout, so I thought that was pretty entertaining.
Crimes of the Future Is More of a Film Noir
One thing that’s obvious from spending some time with Cronenberg and Mortensen is that they’re having an absolute ball working together. Frequent collaborators, the pair have made four movies together at this point, starting with A History of Violence in 2005.
But this marks the first time Mortensen would star in a Cronenberg horror.
Well, sort of.
You see, Cronenberg himself thinks Crimes of the Future is actually more of a film noir.
I’m just like anybody else. I want everybody to love my movie.
“I’m just like anybody else. I want everybody to love my movie,” he explained. “We’re making it for an audience, and we want them to love it. And there are many ways they can love it. They can find it sad, or they can find it funny, or they can find it thrilling or tense because it’s a film noir. There are many ways to love it. There’s really only one way to hate it. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was not a big walkout movie.”
There are definitely some serious neo-noir vibes within Crimes of the Future.
A droning synth score and dimly lit streets are reminiscent of Blade Runner among others. There’s even a central mystery at the heart of Crimes of the Future as Saul Tenser tries to uncover a secret that might just be the key to human evolution.
However, Cronenberg isn’t going to have his work pinned down to just one genre…
David Cronenberg and Making Movies in a Bubble
If you go back to Cronenberg’s early work, it’s easy to see why fans were expecting a return to form for the iconic body horror filmmaker. But that would be a mistake.
“I don’t think about genre,” he said. “It’s a movie and I don’t connect it with my other movies while I’m making it because that creatively doesn’t give me anything. What do I take from that?”
Cronenberg made a name for himself back in the '70s and '80s with the likes of Scanners, Videodrome, and The Fly… but while he popularised body horror, he doesn’t think his past work has influenced Crimes of the Future at all.
“The film is in a bubble,” he explained. “It’s difficult because we're creating a new world in this particular movie. Are there cars in the street? How much technology is there that’s recognizable or not? The lighting, the tone, the ambiance of this new place that the audience will not know… that’s a lot to do without worrying about all your other movies or somebody else’s movie.”
Still, when it comes to body horror, Crimes of the Future doesn’t exactly shy away. And yet it’s nowhere near as gory as some Cronenberg fans might expect. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – Crimes of the Future is a thoughtful, intelligent sci-fi flick with a lot to say. And while the film has its fair share of gory moments, it’s all for one purpose…
“How does it move the story forward?” asked Mortensen. “What’s great about it? If I see this movie 10 years from now, am I going to look at it and go, ‘Well, that was a nice thing for shock value, but who gives a shit?’”
“Some movies, extreme violence is needed,” said Cronenberg. “There are other movies where there's a violent action that takes place narratively, but doing it in an extreme, gory way would derail the movie, it would take people out of the movie because of the tone of the rest of the movie. Each movie has its own demands and that's all I was paying attention to completely with this movie. And that for me is the normal way.”
A Future Where Surgery Is the New Sex
Although Cronenberg might object, there are some similarities to his earlier works in Crimes of the Future – in particular, the body horror elements.
Crimes of the Future presents a future where surgery is the new sex… and for people who can’t feel pain, well, they’re not quite as squeamish as we are. One particular scene has Caprice (Léa Seydoux) perform a sex act on an open wound on Saul’s abdomen…
“Well, it's something that I do at least once a week. I wish,” joked Cronenberg. “Yeah, it just seems like an obvious thing. The idea of a scene of oral sex would be natural for some porn film, or just even a movie about a sexual couple. Except there is no sex in the movie, except techno sex, or new sex. So, how does that work? That seemed obvious, really, that the idea of the narrative leads you directly to that. It was a scene that wrote itself. I didn't have to write it.”
The scene itself is reminiscent of Crash – one of Cronenberg’s earlier films about a couple that becomes sexually aroused by traffic incidents.
In fact, the whole idea of pushing the boundaries of sex seems to be a recurring theme.
“That scene? It was fun,” said Mortensen. “Léa has a good sense of humor and we enjoyed doing that actually.”
“There was no question with her about should I do this? Should I be nude? Should I not? No question,” added Cronenberg. “Just that was in the script, she’s doing it, and [she] does it like she means it. Part of being a great actor is you have to be able to do that.”
Seydoux and Mortensen certainly commit in one of the most cringe-inducing scenes in the movie.
Whether or not it’s body horror, or simply retains elements of Cronenberg’s classic body-horror style, is up for debate. But one thing’s for certain – the filmmaker has once again created a movie that we’ll be talking about for some time.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.
Continue reading...