37 Facts About David Cronenberg

David Paul Cronenberg was born on March 15,1943 and is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor.

David Cronenberg is a principal originator of the genre commonly known as body horror, with his films exploring visceral bodily transformation, infectious diseases, and the intertwining of the psychological, the physical and the technological.

David 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.

David Cronenberg's 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 read comic books, noting his favorites were Tarzan, Little Lulu, Uncle Scrooge, Blackhawk, Plastic Man, Superman, and the original Fawcett Comics version of Captain Marvel, later known as Shazam.

Early films that later proved influential on David 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, David Cronenberg has cited less obvious films as influences, including comedies like The Bed Sitting Room, as well as Disney cartoons such as Bambi and Dumbo.

David 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.

David 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.

David Cronenberg even wished to screen Bambi as part of a museum exhibition of his influences, but Disney refused him permission.

In terms of conventional horror films that frightened him, David Cronenberg cited Don't Look Now.

David Cronenberg began writing as a child and did so constantly, mainly working in the science fiction genre.

David Cronenberg attended high school at Harbord Collegiate Institute and North Toronto Collegiate Institute.

Cronenberg's fascination with the film Winter Kept Us Warm, by classmate David Secter, sparked his interest in film.

David Cronenberg began frequenting film camera rental houses, learning the art of filmmaking, and made two 16mm films.

The novel was considered "unfilmable", and David Cronenberg acknowledged that a straight translation into film would "cost 400 million dollars and be banned in every country in the world".

David Cronenberg stated that while writing the screenplay for Naked Lunch, he felt a moment of synergy with Burroughs' writing style.

David Cronenberg has said that his films should be seen "from the point of view of the disease", and that in Shivers, for example, he identifies with the characters after they become infected with the anarchic parasites.

Disease and disaster, in David Cronenberg's work, are less problems to be overcome than agents of personal transformation.

David Cronenberg worked for nearly a year on a version of Total Recall, but experienced "creative differences" with producers Dino De Laurentiis and Ronald Shusett; a different version of the film was eventually made by Paul Verhoeven.

David Cronenberg has said that the decision to direct it was influenced by his having had to defer some of his salary on the low-budgeted Spider, but it was one of his most critically acclaimed films to date, along with Eastern Promises, a film about the struggle of one man to gain power in the Russian Mafia.

David Cronenberg has collaborated with composer Howard Shore on all of his films since The Brood, with the exception of The Dead Zone, which was scored by Michael Kamen.

In 2008, David Cronenberg directed Howard Shore's first opera, The Fly.

Since Dead Ringers, David Cronenberg has worked with cinematographer Peter Suschitzky on each of his films.

Suschitzky was the director of photography for The Empire Strikes Back, and David 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.

In 2008, David Cronenberg realized two extra-cinematographic projects: the exhibition Chromosomes at the Rome Film Fest, and the opera The Fly at the LaOpera in Los Angeles and Theatre Chatelet in Paris.

In July 2010, David Cronenberg completed production on A Dangerous Method, an adaptation of Christopher Hampton's play The Talking Cure, starring Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, Vincent Cassel, and frequent collaborator Viggo Mortensen.

David Cronenberg has stated that it is not a traditional sequel, but rather a "parallel story".

However, in 2012, David Cronenberg commented that the Eastern Promises sequel had fallen through due to budget disagreement with Focus Features.

In February 2021 however, Mortensen said David Cronenberg had refined an older script he had written and hopes to film it with Mortensen that summer.

David Cronenberg further hinted that it is a "strange film noir" and resembles Cronenberg's earlier body horror films.

David Cronenberg has appeared as an actor in other directors' films.

Cronenberg appears as himself in the minute-long short film The Death of David Cronenberg, shot by his daughter Caitlin, which was released digitally on September 19,2021.

David Cronenberg married his first wife, Margaret Hindson, in 1972: their seven-year marriage ended in 1979 amidst personal and professional differences.

David Cronenberg said that he found the shooting of the climactic scene, in which Nola was strangled by her husband, to be "very satisfying".

David Cronenberg received the Special Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival for Crash.

In 2009 David Cronenberg received the Legion d'honneur from the government of France.