Scanners (1981)

David Paul Cronenberg 

is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is a principal originator of the body horror genre, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation, infectious diseases, and the intertwining of the psychological, physical, and technological.

Cronenberg’s films have polarized critics and audiences alike; he has earned critical acclaim and has sparked controversy for his depictions of gore and violence. The Village Voice called him “the most audacious and challenging narrative director in the English-speaking world”.

His films have won numerous awards, including the Special Jury Prize for Crash at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, a unique award that is distinct from the Jury Prize as it is not given annually, but only at the request of the official jury, who in this case gave the award “for originality, for daring, and for audacity”

David Cronenberg was born in Toronto, Ontario, on March 15, 1943. Cronenberg is the son of Esther (née Sumberg), a musician, and Milton Cronenberg, a writer and editor.[8] He was raised in a “middle-class progressive Jewish family”

His father was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and his mother was born in Toronto; all of his grandparents were Jews from Lithuania.

The Cronenberg household was full of a wide variety of books, and Cronenberg’s father tried to introduce his son to art films such as The Seventh Seal, although at the time Cronenberg was more interested in western and pirate films, showing a particular affinity for those featuring Burt Lancaster.

A voracious reader from an early age, Cronenberg started off enjoying science fiction magazines like The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Astounding, where he first encountered authors who would prove influential on his own work, including Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov, although he wouldn’t encounter his primary influence, Philip K. Dick, until much later.

Early films that later proved influential on Cronenberg’s career include avant-garde, horror, science fiction, and thriller films, such as Un Chien Andalou, Vampyr, War of the Worlds, Freaks, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Alphaville, Performance, and Duel. However, Cronenberg has also cited less obvious films as influences, including comedies like The Bed Sitting Room, as well as Disney cartoons such as Bambi and Dumbo.

Cronenberg said he found these two Disney animated films, as well as Universal’s live-action Blue Lagoon, “terrifying” which influenced his approach to horror. Cronenberg went on to say that Bambi was the “first important film” he ever saw, citing the moment when Bambi’s mother died as particularly powerful. Cronenberg even wished to screen Bambi as part of a museum exhibition of his influences, but Disney refused him permission

Cronenberg attended Dewson Street Public School, Kent Senior School, Harbord Collegiate Institute and North Toronto Collegiate Institute. He enrolled at the University of Toronto for Honours Science in 1963, but changed to Honours English Language and Literature the next year. He graduated from university in 1967, at the top of his class with a general bachelor of arts

Cronenberg’s fascination with the film Winter Kept Us Warm (1966), by classmate David Secter, sparked his interest in film. He began frequenting film camera rental houses and learned the art of filmmaking. Cronenberg made two short films, Transfer and From the Drain, with a few hundred dollars.

After two short sketch films and two short art-house features (the black-and-white Stereo and the colour Crimes of the Future) Cronenberg went into partnership with Ivan Reitman. The Canadian government provided financing for his films throughout the 1970s.

During this period, he focused on his signature “body horror” films such as Shivers and Rabid, the latter of which provided pornographic actress Marilyn Chambers with work in a different genre, although Cronenberg’s first choice for the role had been a then little-known Sissy Spacek.

Rabid was a breakthrough with international distributors, and his next two horror features, The Brood and Scanners, gained stronger support.

Cronenberg directed The Fly (1986) starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. The film is loosely based on George Langelaan’s 1957 short story of the same name and the 1958 film of the same name. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox and was a box office hit making $60 million. Cronenberg has not generally worked within the world of big-budget, mainstream Hollywood filmmaking

At one stage he was considered by George Lucas as a possible director for Return of the Jedi (1983) but was passed over.

Since Dead Ringers (1988), Cronenberg has worked with cinematographer Peter Suschitzky on each of his films. Suschitzky was the director of photography for The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Cronenberg remarked that Suschitzky’s work in that film “was the only one of those movies that actually looked good”, which was a motivating factor to work with him on Dead Ringers.

Cronenberg has collaborated with composer Howard Shore on all of his films since The Brood (1979), with the exception of The Dead Zone (1983), which was scored by Michael Kamen. Other regular collaborators include actor Robert Silverman, art director Carol Spier (also his sister) sound editor Bryan Day, film editor Ronald Sanders, his sister, costume designer Denise Cronenberg, and, from 1979 until 1988, cinematographer Mark Irwin.

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