David Cronenberg, I have to make the word be flesh

A hotelroom, a camera, two monitors, Serge Grünberg and David Cronenberg himself make up the ingredients of this austere but penetrating documentary about the striking Canadian film-director of works such as The Fly, Crash, Videodrome, Deadringers and Naked Lunch. Parting from film-sequences on the monitors, french writer Grünberg, asks short but well-informed questions, answered by Cronenberg with his customary wit and sharp tongue. The film's undertitle comes from a central quotation taken from the film: ''I have to make the word be flesh because I can't photograph the word''. Based upon this, penetrating lines of argument regarding the difficulties in transforming abstract philosofic ideas into film are delivered as the conversation also reflects upon an other basic Cronenberg thesis: ''The body is the primary fact of Human Existence''. Grünberg's documentary thereby takes focus on the core itself in Cronenberg's filmoeuvre which has been acknowledged as his films have become increasingly accepted within cultural circles. Cronenberg's world is based upon the idea that the body is the main issue in man's existence, from which everything else is,sprung. As the body changes, so do we. In contrast to that of the majority, Cronen berg's opinion is that changes, like these, often caused by ill-health, can be positive. or as he himself once said: ''I take parts with the tumor. You see, it tries to change that life that already exists in large numbers''. With a scene from the William Burroughs-inspired Naked Lunch the essential themes in Cronenberg's world are presented: Machines, Monsters, Sex, Transformation and The Written Word - that is, the pure thought that has to become flesh and reality in order to be filmable.

Medverkande
David Cronenberg, Serge Grünberg (interviewer): Producent
Xavier Carniaux: Manus
Andre S. Labarthe: Foto
Andre S. Labarthe: Talat språk
English