WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1638 - David Cronenberg

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

David Cronenberg starts making each new film of his as though he’s making a movie for the first time. Marc sees connective tissue through all of David’s work, consisting of “the meat, the machine, mutations of desire, and pain.” David and Marc explore these ideas in specific films, including Scanners, The Brood, The Fly, Naked Lunch, Crash, Cosmopolis, and Maps to the Stars, as well as David’s latest film The Shrouds, which he considers to be a discussion with his audience about grief. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. Alright, let's do this. How are you what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck, Nick? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast. Welcome to it. If you're just getting here, it's not that you're too late, but there's a lot to catch up on. How's everyone doing? Today on the show, I talked to David Cronenberg. David Cronenberg, the impact of that dude's stuff. I mean, I'm sure many of you have seen the movies. If you don't know who he is, maybe you saw Scanners,

The Dead Zone, The Fly, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, many, many movies. He's got a new film out. it's called The Shrouds. Some of his movies are challenging for different reasons. Some of his movies are challenging for narrative reasons. Some of his movies are challenging for graphic kind of you know grotesque body horror which is just a a subgenre imposed by critics on Cronenberg. I think he's just a filmmaker that has a thematic kind of, I wouldn't say obsession, but you know, he is working out life through art in the way that he does, and a lot of it is a

bit on the gnarly side. The new film is really kind of a complex meditation on grief and mortality. And I enjoyed it. I rewatched some of his movies and I watched some for the first time. And some of them, like the ones I hadn't seen, I'm like, why, how the fuck did I not know about this movie? I mean, I never saw Cosmopolis. Did you even hear of it?

Cosmopolis with that guy, what's his name, Pattinson? It's kind of a great movie and it's based on a Don DeLillo book and I'm like a Don DeLillo guy. I mean, I kind of lost touch with Don after the 9-11 book, I can't remember what that's called. But early on, I can't remember what that's called, but early on I'd read all his books. I was obsessed with Libra, I was obsessed with White Noise, Great Jones Street, Ratner's Star,

I mean they were great books. And he's got a very specific tone, and when I watched Cosmopolis, which is based on a Dalilo novel, I was like, oh my God, it's all like Dalilo language, and it made me miss reading Dalilo novel, I was like, oh my God, it's all like Dalilo language and it made me miss reading Dalilo. But it's kind of a great examination of that first wave of tech money and these young men who became filthy rich. There's kind of an element of American psycho

in there, but not the violent element. And there's an amazing performance by Giamatti who kind of comes in at the end. But I watched that and I watched Maps to the Stars again, which is based on a Bruce Wagner book. And Bruce Wagner wrote the screenplay and I had watched the movie before. And Bruce Wagner is a genius. He's a fucking seer.

He's a mystic. I had him on here. His books blow me away. And I remember watching that movie, but I don't remember the movie. And then I watched it again. I'm like, this is a dark fucking amazing movie. Kind of rides the edge of satire of Hollywood

and just kind of tragic arc to that story. And I watched The Brood. I watched History of Violence recently. I watched, I didn't rewatch The Fly. I watched some very early ones. I rewatched Scanners fairly recently. But some very, you know, interesting and challenging films. It was kind of an honor to talk to the guy.

I'm at Dynasty Typewriter tomorrow. That's April 29th. Then I'm in Toronto at the Winter Garden Theater on Saturday, May 3rd for two shows. Burlington, Vermont. I'm at the Vermont Comedy Club for two shows on Monday, May 5th and one show on Tuesday, May 6th. Portsmouth, New Hampshire. I'll be at the Music Hall on Wednesday, May 7th.

Then I'm in Brooklyn for my HBO special taping at the BAM Harvey Theater on May 10th. Two shows there. You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all my dates and links to tickets. Go there, get the right ones. And here's something that was brought to my attention by Kit, and you know, we can only do what we can do,

and I hope you're doing it, whatever that may be. Ultimately, it's not going to be satisfying because we are up against a lot of tsunami of authoritarian bullshit. But here in LA, and this is local, but the latest budget proposal is set to close multiple animal shelters and reduce more than 120 staff positions. And look, you know, I am a cat guy, I'm an animal guy, you know, Kit is a cat person and a dog person, and you know, she was involved with Pasadena Humane for a while.

And I mean, this just means less care for sheltered animals, fewer adoptions, and more killing of animals that can't be taken care of. And it's tragic. This is the killing of true innocence. If you live in LA, there's a gathering today at 3 p.m. downtown at City Hall to speak out against the funding cuts.

You can also call your council member and tell them why they should restore the funding. Organizing on this is being led by Beezy's Rescue in LA, so shout out to them. Let's help the animals. I mean, if you can't do anything else or you haven't figured out a way to, if you live here in LA, I mean, this is a very tragic, sad thing. I get very emotionally invested in animals, as you know, with Charles, the ever-evolving story of Charles. Yeah, that's taking a big turn. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. When you run your own website like we do,

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I'll tease that right now Alright, yeah, but I going to talk about Charles for a minute because I know people are dug into this particular arc. The fish arc is sporadic, but there was anticipation on the behalf of fish fans and people who don't like fish, my listeners in terms of after I talked to Trey, would I indeed go to my first fish show? And I did. But first, Charles.

Charles, Charlie, Charlie Beans, Charlie Beans Roscoe, has been problematic as of late. a massive diarrhea event, a very large and ongoing aggressive behavior events where Charlie was experiencing stress and anxiety and beating up on the other cats. And when I was away, he was shitting all over the house and it got to such a level of chaos that I put him on Prozac. And two weeks into that, I felt awful. And I took him off the Prozac. And then I just kind of waited it out and he was still beating up on the old guys.

And then I came across, well, my vet came across something, or I mean, she knew, I mean, she didn't come across it. She had given me some, prescribed some gabapentin, which is a painkiller and a doofus maker, which I still have on tap, I haven't used it yet, but I tried this other stuff she said, xylkein, or xylkein, and it's some sort of supplement, derived from bovine milk, and I was ready sort of supplement, you know, derived from bovine milk.

And I was ready to try anything, and this was easier. It was capsules, but you could open them up and mix them with the food. She prescribed two a day for Charlie. And I just was the other night, few nights ago, I was like, I'm gonna try this at night, because that seems to be when he goes nuts and gets really kind of crazy.

And I gave him this zilkine in his food and within a couple hours he returned to normal. He was loving and kind of warm and sweet and connected. All the aggravation had left. He wasn't aggro. He wasn't beating up on the cats. He was just having a nice time. And it was a fucking miracle. And I just hope it sticks.

And the weight off of my back, I mean, when you live in a house with animals, and they're fucking out of their minds, it is stress all day long. I can't even imagine, I mean, with kids, it's gotta be crazy. But I'm not a kid guy, I'm a cat guy. And it was just causing me so much anxiety,

as you guys knew. And I gave him this stuff, oh yeah, and I bought a kid guy, I'm a cat guy. And it was just causing me so much anxiety as you guys knew. And I gave him this stuff, oh yeah, and I bought a cat tree, I put together a cat tree, and that's now taking up space, but it's not as terrible. And he's into it. He's like back to his old self, sleeping with me, being sweet. He's still an asshole and he's still a troublemaker,

but that fundamental aggravation has gone and it was such a fucking relief I just hope it sticks, you know, cuz I got to take one more trip out there on the road and I guess we'll see You know, I've got the gabapentin. I'm back up and this this zilkene stuff She said I could give him twice a day and they maybe we can keep him level but it was almost like it reconfigured his brain You know back to who he used to be day and maybe we can keep him level. But it was almost like it reconfigured his brain, you know, back to who he used to be. It feels like he was stuck in this aggravated space and God knows I relate to that. I mean, you know, you don't know what's going to make something pass, but I feel like, I don't know if this is the direct effect of administering

the medicine, the supplement, or whether, you know, just kind of Re-engaged with himself and with me and now I'm gonna disrupt that This week, so we'll see but what a relief for me and for those of you who were Going through that with me. So, okay Most of you know that I interviewed Trey from fish not long ago And all of you knew that I was entering that interview after years of people pestering me to do it, not really being a Fish fan, but not really knowing anything about Fish either. I was judging the phenomenon,

I was comparing it to the jam band that was around when I was younger but already old, The Grateful Dead, and I just assumed it was this proto-hippie stuff, which I don't really have a problem with, but my joke was I don't have, I don't know how much time I have left in terms of letting another jam band into my heart. But nonetheless, after I talked to Trey and listened to some fish,

I realized it was a completely different music in a lot of ways, and the jam band I grew up with to a degree. I used to live with deadheads and I'd been to a few shows I was never a guy who traveled with them but I I can get into the zone pretty easily and I lived in the zone for you know, a couple of years with these guys and So I knew the groove in terms of what a jam band show should be or what a jam band in terms of what a jam band show should be or what a jam band event is and what jam band music does and how it works. I can't lock into it.

I didn't know what to expect from it. But Trey said, I told him I'd never been to a show. He said, he got to come to a show and I'll get you into the show when you want to come to the show. And they were here in LA. So I reached out and he got me a nice box over at the Hollywood Bowl to see my first fish show. Now look, there's no doubt that they're great musicians,

okay? But what I didn't expect going to the fish show, and I guess I should have, is there's, you know, obviously a lot of fish fans listen to that Trey episode. And most of them, I would say 99% of them loved it. And Trey loved it. But I didn't really realize, stupidly, that this community is so interwoven and so tight and so specific that I was walking around and they were like, ah, you made it, huh? He got you here.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are like, hey man, you made it, huh? He got you here. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people are like, hey man, this is it, huh? First fish show, have a good set, man. You know, and it was kind of overwhelming. I was like, and I felt pressure. I felt a little pressure, you know, like all eyes were upon me when they weren't on fish, but they weren't, but there were some people watching me.

And so I got set up in the box and, you know, Kit came about, you know, half hour later, she had gotten off work and the groove of the fish community was exactly what I anticipated in the way of like, let's get, let's do this. You know, let's get into this groove and see where it takes us. The lights were amazing. The lights were amazing.

The sound was amazing. It's not too loud at the bowl. And it was good. The first set was kind of songs with not a lot of exploration. And then there's a nice break. And then they come back and they do the other thing, which is the journey, I imagine.

I don't know, I didn't do any research into how one speaks about these things, and I wouldn't say I'm part of the fish fam at this point in time, but I understood how it worked, and it was good. But the odd thing about a jam band world and the jam band community is that, if you know the songs and I knew none, so that level of excitement was not there. And if you are part of these experiences, these shows, and you go to many of them,

you're waiting for different versions or comparing versions of songs or versions or sort of experiences with the second set, with other second sets. And I know all that exists, but I knew none of the music. But I was able to walk into the songs and kind of, you know, I did the jig, I wiggled, I did the, I grooved a little bit, I rocked back and forth, I got into it. The headspace was, I know how to get there without weed, without shrooms, without that help. There was enough weed around me to where I'm sure I got a little buzz,

but the music itself will get you there. I understood how it worked. I knew we were building towards something in that second set, but I think that once you know the songs, if you know the songs, and you wonder what's gonna come next or what they're gonna put together, I get it. I get the journey.

I was on the journey. But I gotta be honest, I left early. And I don't wanna be judged for that. It's just, it's my anxiety, it's my age. And in my defense, I left the stones early. I do not want to be caught in traffic. I do not want to be caught in some sort of massive exodus. But I stayed for about an hour and a half

of the second set and the full first set. And I was there an hour before. I hung out, I talked to people, saw a lot of people I knew there, but my experience was good and I enjoyed it. I get it. The music was great. The journey was good until I stopped it on my own

to take my own journey home before everyone else did. But I did feel, I felt like I was sneaking out because I felt like there were some eyes upon me. Like, Maren left early! But no, it was great. And I thanked Trey and the guitar playing was amazing. But that's my takeaway great show great set I don't know the fish fam language, but But my mind is now open

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with a healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for full details and important safety information. So look folks, as I said earlier, David Cronenberg is on the show today. And I think we got a good conversation

out of our experience here. The Shrouds, the new movie, is now playing in theaters. This is me talking to David Cronenberg. to David Cronenberg. Bruce, so I texted Bruce because I was watching, you know, I kept watching your movies. And I'm a huge Bruce Wagner fan. Me too, of course. Well, but my feelings about him are kind of strange because I think he's some sort of mystical seer.

He has that element. Yes. To the point where it's like, when you read his work, you're like, where does this even come from? Yeah. Like he's like being, he's a vessel of something. It's funny because I remember trying to talk somebody into getting Bruce to write a screenplay,

something and he said, well, you know, Bruce is basically a satirist. And I thought, no, he's not basically a satirist. There is satire there, but that's not all of it. Yeah, that's just a delivery system. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, that's kind of interesting, the notion or the nature of satire, because for me,

in horror in a general sense, it feels like a high percentage of horror is satire. Yeah. Right? I agree. But in talking about Bruce Oh, and I guess we could, it's very, when I have a reaction,

when somebody has as many films as you and such a big amount of work, like I usually write, you know, I usually watch and then I just, I scribble like something that looks like a math equation. Yeah. In terms of what I'm trying to think about it. And then at the bottom of this equation, it just says the depth of his secular

anti-mysticism would rather deal with the meat, the machine, mutations of desire and pain. You're talking about me or Bruce? You. Yeah, it makes sense. The meat and the machine. Yeah. But how you interface with the work of other writers is interesting to me because I'm a huge fan of the movie Dead Zone.

And then that was Stephen King and then you did Burroughs and then you did Bruce and you did DeLillo. DeLillo, yes. And Patrick McGraw with Spider actually. Oh really? And then also with History of Violence, that was a graphic novel, right? Yes. But the ones that you seem to have chosen, you know, on your own to engage with are very

specific kinds of writers. I mean, right? So Stephen King's a horror writer. And Burroughs is sort of, I would say, a kind of astronaut satirist. Yes. I would... I can agree with that, yeah. And then like, De Willo, I had not seen that film before, and I think it's great, Cosmopolis. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's...

I wrote the script in like six days, and I did it by just taking his dialogue. That's it. Because his dialogue is so good and so unique. Yeah. And I thought, I wasn't sure if it would be a movie. And I thought, okay, I will just take the dialogue and use it verbatim. Right.

And see if it's a movie. And I thought, not only is it a movie, I just written the script in one of those days, yeah. Well, that was, I think, the challenge, I mean, I guess, as a director as well, is to, I had the experience when I was watching Inherent Vice as well, which is a pension, and that's hard. In dealing with actors where you're like,

these are the words of a writer who writes novels. So they're not necessarily the same. That's correct. As writing dialogue. That's right. And it's really up to the actors to figure it out. That's correct. And how did you direct them on that?

I say, figure it out. I mean, because famously now, but Diane Kruger was really a little bit freaked out when she came to Toronto and discovered that there was no rehearsal time blocked for actors. Yeah, what she called the table read, which is sort of a theatrical term. But it's-

For the new movie or the last, or for Cosmopolitan? No, for the Shrouds, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for the Shrouds, yeah. And, you know, where you sit around the table and you read the script to each other. And I said, well, I don't rehearse. I don't want to rehearse.

And what's more, I don't want to micromanage your performance. I want you, when we block the scene on the day that we're going to shoot it, that's when I'm going to hear the dialogue for the first time. And I'm going to hear what you feel works. Yeah. Your intuition, your, actually, I cast you because I think you you feel works. Yeah. Your intuition, your, actually I cast you

because I think you can do this. Yeah. So, I mean, that's one of the things about directing that young filmmakers don't really hear from film school is that half the battle with acting is in the casting. As a director, you need to be a good caster and it's tricky, It's a black art. So, yeah. So, it's, at that point,

the script is being the director. Right. And it's directing the actors through the dialogue. Well, I think that that's not, I think there's two schools of it, or maybe more. Because I remember I talked to Walter, is it Walter Hill? Yeah, Walter Hill.

Yeah. You know, he doesn't engage with actors at all other than like, I cast you because you're the guy. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I do more than that. But on the other hand, I was just talking to Paul Schrader a while ago in Toronto and he said, rehearsal is everything. And I said, Paul, rehearsal is nothing for me.

So it works for you, but it doesn't work for me. I find when you do rehearsal in that artificial situation where you're just sitting around a table, you get into all kinds of strange things. Actors get competitive. There's these, you start to over-interpret. And then when you get on the real set with the real lighting and the costumes, everything changes. The dynamic is completely different.

So I feel that the time spent that way, as a rehearsing, is really useless. It's a waste of time. Well, I guess I can understand. Like, the thing I could see working for a read-through is that if you, as a director, want to tweak things as it's scripted, you know, once you hear it out of mouths. But I guess you can do that scene to scene.

But you can do that when you're blocking it. That's right, yeah. You don't say, yeah, you're doing too much. Right. You're overemphasizing. Or lose that line. I mean, even as simple as saying you're overacting, bring it down.

Right. And that's about it. Right. But the rest is, unless they're really somehow derailed, I don't really have to say much. Yeah. So with this movie, it's a lot, this movie. There's a lot. I mean, this is the most dialogue that Vincent Cassel has ever had in any movie.

And it's in English, which is not his first language. So it was nervous making for him, you know, it was a big challenge for him. But what's interesting to me in terms of your work is it really seems that, like, I don't know where, well, I kind of do, but where you're at in terms of your career, but it seems like all of your themes are in this.

Yeah, I honestly, I don't really think about it. I mean, I know that it will happen naturally because all of my movies come from me and my nervous system and whatever. But I don't, I really take each movie as my first movie. It's like I never made a movie before and I'm trying to make it work within its own little universe.

In other words, I'm not self-referential deliberately. There are some directors who do like to do that. They like to refer to their own. Okay, well, maybe not self-referential, but for me, as somebody who talks for a living, you know, on stage, that I've noticed over time that there are things that I am either, you know, not repeating structurally, but it seems that there are areas that I am still working on. Yes.

That will show up every, you know, year or so in the hour or two that I develop for the stage. Yeah. And I don't know that if that's a movement towards a resolution or a movement towards more understanding. Yeah, I think for me it's just a question of more understanding, you know? And I don't expect there to be any resolution because I don't think there is one.

Well, you think there's one. Yeah, it's death. That's the big resolution. But it's really not a resolution. It's just the end. Of you. Yeah, and that's not the That's the big resolution. But it's really not a resolution. It's just the end. A view. Yeah, and that's not the same thing as a resolution. The resolution is perhaps for people

who have been left behind, let's say. Right. And I find that's interesting now because with this movie, some of the criticism that is basically negative is exactly that. That there's no resolution, that they feel that the film wanders off into conspiracy theories that are not relevant and all of that. And I find that that really brings up the question of what does somebody expect from a movie?

What do you expect from a narrative? Do you, is it really like the old Victorian well-made play where every string has to be tied up at the end and every conflict resolved? Is that what you expect and you want? Or is there more open-ended kind of thing from a film? Yeah, well, I mean, but the way that people, I don't know why anybody would approach, you've done several types of movies.

I mean, there are movies that you do that have a narrative resolution. Yes, that's true. And whether they were jobs or of your own intention, but the expectation from cinema along those lines, it seems naive to ask that of you. Well, I think it's wrong-headed, actually. Each, as I say, each film is its own little universe,

and some of them demand to be resolved in some way or not, and others have a very open ending, which I feel the Shrouds does have. Well, that's the sort of stark poetry of what you do, right? Is that, you know that with a movie like, the resolution, and it wasn't your script, or the resolution of both Maps of the Stars and of Cosmopolis was your script.

I mean, that marriage at the end of Cosmopolis doesn't resolve itself. No, correct. And that's an intentional moment to let them linger there. resolve itself. No, correct. And, you know, and that's an intentional moment. Yes. To let them, like, linger there. But in this film, I guess what I wanted to discuss, having been through a situation myself, is that it is informed by grief.

Yes. Which was yours. Yes. And there seemed to be an attempt to somehow not explain it, but to acknowledge that it is part of this human process, and what the hell do you do with it? I would say that's accurate, yes. That was why I made the movie, basically. It's not to, a lot of people think,

has it lessened the grief? Has it been therapeutic? Has it been cathartic? And I say, no, absolutely not. It has not changed any of that. But I did have the desire to discuss it with myself, let's put it that way. And then I invite the audience to come along

and watch me discussing it with myself and see how it feels to them. it with myself and see how it feels to them. So in some ways it's, quote, autobiographical and in very important ways it's an invention. These are fictional characters and so on. But also the zone of, because you go out of your way near the beginning of the film to talk about Jewish burial. And something very specific about it that I couldn't even find in,

I didn't go deep enough into Kabbalistic explanations for rituals, but being a Jew myself and understanding the need to get people into the ground quickly in something that can reenter the earth organically and the shroud from what my brief research was, kind of an equalizer, that everyone, no matter what their status in life

is wrapped in the same fabric. But the idea that the reason the Jews buried people so quickly is so that the decomposition can have a similar kind of period of the soul detaching. Yeah, I mean, the way it's structured is, and it's explained is, you don't cremate the body because that doesn't give the soul, which used to reside in the body, it doesn't give it enough time to say goodbye, to say goodbye, to detach from this body that it loved and it lived in and experienced life.

And so you want the body to slowly decay with the soul kind of hovering around it. In the movie, it's a sort of a soul that looks a little like a firefly fluttering over the body and illuminating the body with its innate light to look at it, to think about it. And eventually the soul gradually accepts that the body is decaying and it must now detach itself from that body and ascend to heaven. Now as an atheist, I don't believe that literally,

but I did find that a quite beautiful metaphor. And it occurred to me only recently that in a weird way, Karsh is that soul. He is the soul of his dead wife. He is fluttering, he is hovering over her. He is trying to allow the body to decompose so that he can try to detach from her and from that grief. So for me, it's a metaphorical thing.

And Karsh does explain in the movie that he is an atheist. But somehow he does have this kind of religiously structured dream. And that's the connection that I made between those two things. Well, it's still interesting to me that you make room for the soul in the film that I will have to rewatch again because there is an intentional lighting effect that to you represents the soul. But you don't fundamentally believe that.

I don't. And yet, the idea of the shroud is sort of loaded too. Because I, at the beginning of the film, because of my brain, is sort of loaded too, like, cause I, at the beginning of the film, because of my brain, it's sort of like, well, is the shroud a, something that is going to absorb the soul? Yes. And then we go from there with whatever technology's gonna,

is that where we're going with this? But it didn't go that way. No, it didn't. And as I say, I sort of think of Karsh himself as that soul. Right. But why the shroud? I mean, what was the beginning thoughts on this film in terms of that?

But basically, the shroud is a camera. I mean, it's allowing you to continue to have a discourse with the body of your loved one as it decays. And so that you haven't, Karsh says he wanted to get into the box with her, with her body as it was lowered into the ground. And I had that feeling myself. I mean, that's how I got, had that understanding.

But of course you can't get into the box with the dead person, you would die yourself and that's not really what you want. Karsh being a high tech entrepreneur and that is his creative outlet, he would look to technology for a way to maintain a connection with this body even though he's not literally in the ground with her. And so he came up with the idea of a shroud which is a traditional burial device. But in his case it's also a sort weirdly, it's a surveillance device, you know,

if you want to think of it that way. But something that provides more detail than just a camera in a box. That's right. That's right. It's more like it's like a combination MRI, x-ray and so on. And I must say, the technology exists. You could do that now if you wanted to do that. It's quite possible.

So this isn't even sci-fi. It's quite literal right now. Well, a lot of it isn't sci-fi at this point, you know, in terms of... No, I know. Yeah. Yeah. And I think some of your movies are relatively prophetic in terms of... They were sci-fi when I made them and they're now just reality. Yeah. But it did strike me that, you know, as something that I have thought about in, well, like,

you know, the Ernest Becker's book, The Denial of Death, had a profound impact on me. Yes, I know the book. Yeah. In terms of transference and the need of people to feel part of something larger than themselves. Yes. In terms of belief to justify their existence and push back the terror mortality. Yes, yes. Right?

And I think it's a question of meaning too, because a death is meaningless if you're an atheist and you really accept the absurdity of life in general. But we are really, I think we have evolved to need meaning. I mean, that's what's made us such a powerful species. But how do you accept meaning for an event so earth-shattering as a death when you think it is meaningless? And one of the ways that you can do that is through conspiracy. That's exactly right.

That there's a dogma to conspiracy-minded thinking that builds on itself. Yes, that's right. Like religion. Yes, and it's a sort of replacement for religion really. Right. Yes. Well, I definitely saw that.

The thing was when my partner passed away quickly, tragically, without any warning, my first thought was, this is not unusual. It's tragic, but it's not unusual. That's correct. But no matter how intellectual you are about that stuff, you know, you don't factor in the profound trauma. That's right. And it's profound.

Of loss. And it's every nerve in your body, every cell in your body feels it. Uncontrollable. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and paralyzing. Yes, and it doesn't go away. I mean, this is the other thing.

It's however many other relationships you might have and you go on with your life, that is still there. It won't go away. No, it just integrates. Yes, that's right. And you know, I'm doing a piece now on my stage show about that, about like it never goes away. It's something you live with and it does, you know, integrate itself,

but it's right there. Yeah, so I mean, that's sort of what the meaning of the last scene in the movie is, when they're on the airplane, and there seems to be a fusion between Karsha's new girlfriend and his wife, his dead wife. Right, in the plane, like she appears. Yeah, and he kind of dreams it.

It's kind of a dream of a fusion of the two women. And he understands that any woman that he makes love to, his wife will be there too, in some way. Because that was the lovemaking of his life, you know. So that's basically how I imagined it, sort of, to deliver that idea cinematically. Oh, interesting. And also, there's, like, the different ways

that one, you know, tries to relieve themselves of grief. Yes. And I think in the movie, Karsh, I think he's accepting that he's not gonna, it not going to be alleviated. It's not going to go away. Well, he doesn't want it to. And that's the other thing, is to do that would be an abandonment and an identity trail, and would cause guilt, which often is also one of the basic things behind the conspiracy

theories of guilt. Did we do the best? Did we find the best doctors? Did we find the best doctors? Did we find the best clinic? Did we do everything that we could do? There's always that trace of guilt. Well, that's interesting because then, like, you know, with your own guilt around those questions, you know, once you play those out, you have to put something in that is emotionally founded in judgment in order to

sit with it. Like the idea whether, you know, how it's presented in the movie that his wife had been betraying him. Yeah, that she's been having an affair with her oncologist, for example. Right. Yeah, that she's been having an affair with her oncologist, for example. Right, so there you have the anger. Yes. Which will give you a reprieve from self-flagellation. Yes, but on the other hand, it's also a kind of self-flagellation as well because of the

sort of the guilt aspect of it as well. Right. So yeah, and it's, you know, can you question her existence that way? You know, is it thinking that she betrayed you with somebody else and you didn't know about it until after she died? I mean, I actually have known of situations like that. That a woman was a neighbor, I mean, I was just a kid there, but her husband died and only then did she find out that he had had a mistress for so long,

and suddenly all of her grief was put into turbulence by her anger and the sense of betrayal and shock that she didn't really know him. I mean, it goes on and on, you know? Yeah, how do you negotiate and navigate that? That's a tough one. Well, I think that's like the area that's, the human area that you deal with in terms of desire

and violence, played against these technologies or disfigurement or whatever, or violence in a literal sense, it is the human journey of a lot of your characters. Yes, yeah. Although I must say the Shrouds is pretty nonviolent, really, compared with some. No, absolutely. But in the third act, whether it did or didn't happen, an intimate violence...

Yes, there is that. There is that. ... occurs in order to sate these problems of grief and lack of control. Yes. I agree with all of them. Yeah. Yes. And so, but what I think where I started with this was that, you know, in place of a spirituality that has a structure, you know, this sort of moving through technological relationships, conspiracy-minded thinking, and, you know, dreams or non-dreams, kind of in a chaotic way, is the spiritual element of the film. Yeah. Well, you know, when it comes to spirituality, I have red flags that come up with that word.

Well, even though it just, it's when it really becomes another word for religion. Sure. I mean, you know Christopher Hitchens, the sort of polemicist journalist. And he said three words. He said, death causes religion. And I thought, oh, that's pretty accurate. I mean, if you're going to summarize it, it's death. Every religion offers a reprieve from death.

And to me, it's a delusional thing. But if people need it, they have it. Of course, billions of people believe in various religions. Well, it's sort of like Carlin. And I tried to do a bit about this until I realized it was too close to Carlin's. Like, if you believe in God, you'll kind of believe anything. And that's where you get spirituality.

Yeah, well, yes. You've got to be pretty vigilant about that door that you let God into. That's exactly true. If you're gonna lead a rational life. I think that's, so that's what I meant when I said there's a red flag there. Sure.

Not that I, if somebody said, this person is very spiritual, in some ways I can completely understand what that means, but I also wonder if it means religion or not. Well, I guess what I'm using it is in your first impulse about what that means is that it fills a void. Yes. So what you have here, and maybe I misspoke

in terms of the semantics of it, is that whether it's artificial reality, the dream state, the shroud, or whatever the engagement with conspiracy's, the dream state, the shroud, or whatever, you know, the engagement with conspiracies, real or not real in the film, that is filling the same void as kind of, you know, hypothetical explanations of religious experience. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I take it to mean, usually spirituality means

empathy, sensitivity, awareness, good things, you know, without referring to a transcendence of human existence. That's interesting, empathy, because I'm trying to think of moments in this film where it happens. Yeah. Does it? Yeah, I think, I mean, between Maury and Karsh, there is empathy because they have both lost sisters.

Yeah, that's interesting. They've lost their lovers, each in a different way. And the casting of Guy Pearce as a nebbish, or a shwepp, was kind of, I think he did a great job. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I mean, he was pretty excited to do it. I remember, I was just talking to Brady Corbett in New York and he said that while they were shooting The Brutalist,

that Guy said he was very excited to play this role that you just mentioned. Yeah, yeah. Because it's very different from what he normally kind of thing he plays. Kind of a nerdy, schleppy Jewish guy. Yeah, nerdy, schleppy Jewish,. Yeah, a nerdy, schleppy Jewish paranoid, you know? Yeah, neurotic.

Yeah, but I was really impressed because when you see an actor like him, who can get a lot of mileage out of his looks, you know, have to play totally against it, you can really see what they're made of. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, he was not afraid. Trust me, he was happy to do it. Oh, I bet you had a great time. But it makes me think about, like, Trust me, he was happy to do it. Oh, I bet you had a great time. But it makes me think about, like, you know, even watching movies from early on,

even, like, even stereo, the first film. Yeah. You've seen that? Yeah. Okay, I'm impressed. That, you know, there... Because, like, there was something about the way you shoot that, like, was curious to me. Because it's very matter of fact in a way.

I don't know if that's the right way to frame it, but there's a starkness to it. And you know, in going back, I was like, is this always intentional? And it is. Yeah, I sometimes think that as a sort of a Samuel Beckett kind of element, you know, pairing things down to an essential simplicity.

And as I, you know, became more and more experienced as a film director, I realized that I didn't have to cover everything from every angle and every lens. And I ultimately knew what I wanted from each scene and each shot. It could become simpler and simpler and simpler. Right. But the simplicity adds a menace. Well, that's nice to hear, actually. But yes, it can be.

I mean, it's forceful and it really directs the audience in a specific way. Right, but from the very beginning, the themes of what we don't know about the meat, the human being, the human mind, has been sort of a portal for you all the way through. Yeah, well, I do think of, first of all, of course, as a filmmaker, the thing you photograph most

is the human body. That's your material. And that is how you discuss the human condition. And I do feel that the body, as in my last film, Crimes of the Future, there's the mantra, body is reality. And I believe that to be totally true. I mean, just the way that we perceive reality has to do with our eyes and our ears and how our nervous systems respond different from other creatures. So the body is my medium.

There's no question about it. But in the mental landscape, because even in the shrouds, the idea of dream and artificial reality and manipulation of those things technologically and then the you know, whatever, I didn't read much criticism, but the idea that some of that stuff about China and whatever goes unresolved, there's no need for resolution. I agree with you. I'm glad to hear you say that, because that's my attitude.

It needs to be spoken and acknowledged. It doesn't have to be resolved. Yeah, and also, it doesn't have to be real. So, positing the idea that, because like in the film, there's no reason not to believe most of it. That's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, it's still the whole movie would work if it was all real, all of the conspiracies were for real.

Right, and it leads the viewer to react to it not unlike one would react to a conspiracy theory. Like there's enough meat here to believe it. Yes. And it's relieving to do so because I don't want to do the homework that would refute it. Yes. Yeah, I like that interpretation. I really do.

And I think it's accurate. I think it works. But going back, you know, like when people talk about horror, like, I literally kind of was on a mental, you know, like a spin yesterday with watching the work, that, you know, the definition of horror is very, very specific and short. Yes. You know, it's like, like, it's...

I agree. I mean, body horror is not a term that I ever came up with. I just was reading somebody who had done research and found that it was first used by some critic in 1983. About you? About me. Yeah. It's not, to me, it's very minimalizing. It's very, it's giving short shrift to what I was doing. And I didn't really, I didn't, of course, I understand what they mean, but I didn't really relate to it at all. But that's a film term, it's a sub-genre,

it's a genre term when they're talking like that. Well, that's right, that's right. And of course, critics love to play with that. But as I say to them, just thinking about genre does not give me anything to work with as a filmmaker. I don't think about it, I can't use it. You know, and you think, well, Eastern Promises was a gangster movie, a Russian gangster movie.

So, but the, within the genre, I think it's more a marketing and a critical question. Is how do we sell this movie? We'll sell it as a horror film or we'll sell it as a- Or how do we approach it critically? Yeah, that's right. But the definition of horror is an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust, period. We'll sell it as a horror film or we'll sell it as a- Or how do we approach it critically? Yeah. Right. That's right. But the definition of horror is an intense feeling

of fear, shock, or disgust, period. Yeah, well, that's a big universe right there. Right. Yeah. So why not just work with that? Yes, I agree, I agree. Because I don't, my girlfriend's a big horror fan, but I don't really think in those terms. I don't seek horror out.

Yeah, yeah. But I've always watched your movies, because I don't really think in those terms. I don't seek horror out. Yeah, yeah. But I've always watched your movies. Yeah. Because I didn't categorize them. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I mean, a movie that I've made, Dead Ringers, is that a horror film? It has, I guess, horror film elements, sort of. That's a crazy movie. Yeah. Well, it's crazy, but is it a horror film?

It's funny because I didn't re-watch that, but the one thing I remember, which is sort of a classic reveal, it probably goes back to, if I'm thinking in my film history studies class to Rome Open City, is the reveal of the tools. Yes. Right?

Yes. And then I realized that, you know, that my family, my aunt, had that book that was based on, of those two doctors. I think the book was called Twins, wasn't it? Yes. But you know, it was really, we had to use that, you know, acknowledge that novel Twins. But it really was not the basis of the movie. There was actually an article in Esquire called Dead Ringers that was much more the origin of my movie.

So was it more of a twin story outside of medicine? It was a very accurate description of the Marcus brothers who were actual, you know, Jewish doctor, twins, gynecologist in New York. And the novel went quite in a different direction which my movie does not go into. So, as I said, it's really that article, Dead Ringers was really the basis of the... I guess if you were a critic and you wanted to categorize it,

you could put it into the horror category. Yeah, and in fact, I don't think many critics do, though, actually. It's sort of like a based on a true story kind of thing. Because my girlfriend is just like, she was like, oh, the brood. And that's like a horror movie. Yes, but once again, it's sort of somewhat autobiographical

in that I had experienced a very devastating divorce with a kid involved. And so when people talk about, you know, autobiography or not, I say really, the brood was my first involvement, let's say, with my real personal life ending up on screen. Oh yeah, how did your ex-wife respond to it? Sorry? how did your ex-wife respond to it? Sorry?

How did your ex-wife respond to it? Well, I have no idea actually. But let's just say we're not very close. Because like, you know, I read that that was the impetus of it and, you know, to sort of materialize causes of childhood trauma based on the divorce as these little monster kids. Yeah. Well, you know, at the time, there was a movie, Kramer versus Kramer, with Dustin Hoffman. Right.

And it was about a divorce and how they all were sort of supportive of each other and all very loving. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said that the brood is more realistic, even though it's a horror film, than Kramer versus Kramer was. Well, because I think what you were left with at the end

is a traumatized kid. A traumatized kid and two very angry people. Yeah. Yeah. But there is resolution in the brood. Yeah, well, yes and no, yes and no. But he legitimately has incentive and reason to kill his wife.

Yes. And of course, you might want to kill your ex-wife, but normally you don't actually do it, but you might think about it. Why not make it a horror movie? Exactly. Exactly. But from movies, like, where do you feel, because like, you know, in terms of disfigurement,

and then kind of moving through the Ballard stuff, you know, with and and the sort of mutation of desire that comes from you know disfigurement. Yeah. When do you think that that that portal was opened for you because I have an experience with with with a book called Very Special People, which was about P.T. Barnum's anomalies. Oh yes, yes, I don't know the book, but I... And then, you know, but many of them were in the movie Freaks,

Todd Browning's Freaks. Yes, that's right, yeah. And then I sought out the few existing sideshow performers. Oh yes? That were still touring when I was like in junior high, I went to the state fair to see Ronnie and Donnie, the only living Siamese twins. And you'd go there and you'd just, they'd be, you'd walk up on a platform

and you'd look into a trailer home and the two of them were just sitting there watching TV from behind, but you could see the connection. But what I realized at that time, and also the work of Joel Peter Witkin, I don't know if you know him, he's a photographer. I don't. That there is a window into humanness

that is profoundly affecting that either you gravitate towards it or you don't. Do you remember where you first gravitated towards that? Well, I certainly remember seeing Freaks, the movie Freaks, and being very impressed by it. It's still a very unusual movie, there's no question about it. But it really had to do more with the desire

to change the body. You know, humans have never really been accepting of their body as given. They know that we will always be doing tattoos and changing things. And even 3,000 years ago, people were doing operations on each other's brains and so on. I mean, it's so, it's, to me, it seemed like

a sort of normal part of human existence that you would change the body, that you would not, it wouldn't just be aging that would change your body. You could actually will your body to be changed. And I think tattooing is part of that. But also the medical, you know, once you're enmeshed in the medical structure because of some disease, some chemotherapy, some surgery,

then you are having to deal with the changing of the body of somebody that you love, and how does that affect your relationship, you know? That... Well, that was in this movie, the new one. It's very specific. That's very specific. Yeah, you have a breast amputation, you have an arm amputation,

you have staples in the body, and is this person still the same person? Is it still a person that you could desire sexually? staples in the body, and is this person still the same person? Is it still a person that you could desire sexually? Does it turn you off? Does it turn you on? So I'm thinking more in that way than what you talk about with freaks,

which is a more natural kind of occurrence of bodily dysmorphia. Well, that's interesting. So that kind of feeds into the idea or the reality of the film, The Substance, being an homage to a sensibility or a concept. Yes. I mean, I know the director, Cora Lee Fargeot. I met her.

Yeah. And undoubtedly, you know, she says very straightforwardly that she was very influenced by my movies. Also, Julia Ducournau with Titane, which also is a movie that is sort of connected to my films that way. And it's lovely, I mean, I love the idea that I have these sort of cinematic daughters

who are influenced by me and so on. It's really, it's very sweet. It's the way art works. It does, it absolutely does. Well, I guess then the sort of the peak experiment in that idea of yours before it became personalized in this film was the fly, really. Yes.

And that becomes like an accident, right? Yes. That the desire to just, you know, teleport becomes this other freak accident of changing the body, accepting it initially, and then realizing that the hubris involved. Well, hubris is the name of the game for human beings. I mean, we are always challenging in a very arrogant way, I suppose, from some points of view, and just sort of a kind of,

sort of physically challenging kind of way from other points of view. That is what we do. I mean, we don't accept our bodies as we don't accept the earth the way it is. We are always altering it, changing it, manipulating it, and so on. That's what we do. Yeah, can't never be happy. Yes.

Exactly. Well, but then, like, so was the underpinning of, like, a movie like Scanner is really just a fascination with the side effects of a medication? Did that where that started? Yes and no. I mean, but it was an acknowledgement of what was happening there with thalidomide.

Yeah, that's what I mean. It was, I suppose, young filmmakers right now wouldn't know about that era, but that was people were really quite traumatized by the effects of thalidomide. Which was primarily disfigurement. It was basically disfigurement and a complete production of human beings

who were really quite different from what we considered normal human beings. What was the original intent of th Lone Mide for pregnant women? It was, I think it was for pregnant women and it was to, I think it's like a, it's a tranquilizer basically. Oh really? Yeah. Yeah.

And so, and that became sort of the foundation of that being a telepathic gift. Yeah, I thought okay, if it's something that causes strange anomalies with unborn children who then are born and become quite different from normal people, instead of it just being sort of physical disfigurement, what if it was sort of psychological nervous system, strange brain disfigurement that is not obvious. If you saw this person, you wouldn't think that there was anything unusual.

Yeah, yeah. But they were able to, they were telepathic, basically. Which is like, you know, that was, your first movie was a telepathic movie. You're kind of fascinated with telepathy. Yes, yeah. I mean, it was, Scanners wasn't my very first movie. But I mean, like going back to stereo. Yeah.

Was a telepathy movie. Yes, always that idea of what, I mean, if you consider the brain and the electricity in the brain, why not? Why could there not be an extension of the electrical aspects? Yeah, how do you feel? Because I, it has to be possible.

You would think, you would think. And in a way we do it anyway, we do it through, so the brain controls what we speak and what we see. Yeah, but also it's so nuanced, like, you know, I own cats and like a cattle, like no matter how you're acting, two days before you leave, they know you're going. Well, maybe all cats are kind of scanners actually. Of course they are.

But it's like, it doesn't have to be as kind of sci-fi as like reading your mind. Well, that's the thing, because as soon as you say reading, you're really restricting the possibility to something familiar. Right. But it's quite different from reading. It's a sensing, it's maybe beyond verbiage, it's beyond words. Yeah. But yeah.

Yeah, but it's there. So what is your, what was your relationship with William Burroughs work? Because I just talked to the guy who did Queer. And you know, his approach to Burroughs were, because I just talked to the guy who did Queer. And, you know, his approach to Burroughs was very human. Yes. You know, in terms of his life in the one book that was, you know, very much autobiographical. Yes, that's right.

And I thought it was kind of a beautiful movie. I did too. And I've talked to Luca about that. Yeah. Yeah. And he's seen the shrouds and he was very complimentary about it. But he was worried that when I saw Queer, that me having done Naked Lunch,

Yeah. that I would be critical of something. But actually I did think, I did think it was a very effective and very beautiful movie. And quite different from mine, even though there's a monologue that the Burroughs character speaks that's exactly the same monologue that my Bill Lee character speaks in Naked Lunch. Because I did, when I talked to Burroughs, I said, you know, William, I'm gonna have to,

I wanna, I can't make a movie out of just the book, Naked Lunch. I need to incorporate some parts of your life, like the fact that you shot your wife accidentally. That's so funny. That's the one part. We gotta start with that? Yes. And then, and then I also wanna use some of what you wrote in Queer, because it's very interesting to me. Yeah.

Uh, you know, there were some, uh, the gay community, some members of the gay community were very negative about Naked Lunch because it suggested that at some point he was denying his gayness. But in fact, if you read Queer, you know that he did go through a period where he wasn't, he didn't know that he was gay, or he couldn't accept that he was gay or queer or whatever.

So I did incorporate all that into my movie, Naked Lunch, which is quite, and it became quite a different movie, of course, from Lucasfilm, which as you say, is very physical and very human, and quite a very biographical in terms of Burroughs. But also like, you know, the idea of being closeted in the 40s and 50s was, you know, it was, you know. Yeah, Burroughs was not exempt from that.

Yeah, it was illegal. Yeah, it was illegal and socially not acceptable period. So there is that element in my movie. But what you chose to do is kind of, again, break the wall between reality and the visions. Yes, yes, because I mean, in a way, his drug-taking was his way of escaping the boundaries of reality.

Yeah, and also his intelligence around, you know, archaeology and symbolism and his fascination with bugs. Yeah, well, actually, he wasn't as fascinated by bugs as you might think. How would we not think? Because I was, but I see that, and what happens when you adapt a novel... Like that.

Like that is there's a fusion between you, the filmmaker, and Burroughs, the writer of the novel. And he knew that. And he was very fascinated by my insect typewriters. But he, that doesn't exist in Burroughs. There are no insect typewriters. That was my version of a fusion. And I asked him, I said, William, do you, you know, insects, were you ever really interested in insects? Cause he talks about Venusian insects, you know, the insect creatures from outer space and then the planet Venus. And he said, well, I like butterflies.

You know, he wasn't really, he wasn't into insects at all. Well, there's later in, in books, you know, I'm not sure, it was part of the trilogy, you know, Cities of the Red Knight, the Western Lands, and Place of Dead Roads. So there is, in one of those books where, he goes pretty in depth into the toxins available. Yeah, of course, yes, toxins would be, and yes, he was interested toxins available. Yeah, of course.

Yes, toxins would be, and yes, he was interested in centipedes, of course. Centipedes, man. A lot of centipedes. Yeah, although centipedes are not insects. I was rereading the Western Lands recently, because the trickiest part, and I think you probably had to deal with it,

obviously, with Naked Lunch, is that where's the story? Yeah. Yeah, and I wasn't worried about that. No. Right. Yeah, I mean, I didn't feel that that was the game that he and I were playing, you know, wasn't the story resolution, you know.

Yeah, I just talked to Weller a couple weeks ago. Oh, yes, really? Yes, yeah. Oh, how lovely. Yeah, he had- Where was he? Peter, he. Oh, how lovely. Yeah, he had... Where was he? Peter, he was here. He's here.

Oh, because I think he lives in Italy, doesn't he? Sometimes. He just wrote an art history text. Oh, really? Yeah, and I had him in here, and he had nice things to say about you, but he's very, you know, one of those guys that's just hungry, intellectually hungry. Yeah, he's a lovely guy. Yeah, great.

It's interesting how his career veered away from acting. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he's like, he got his PhD in art history. Yes, and he's teaching, it's not... Yeah, yeah, and he just wrote a book. I did, like, tell me about, so your relationship with Burroughs,

you were fortunate to have him alive. Yes. But you like the work. Yeah, I mean, and he and I got along very well. It was lovely. We went to Tangier together. Oh, wow. He hadn't been there in 17 years.

Oh, wow. And I went there with him and with Jeremy Thomas because we were planning to shoot Naked Lunch in Morocco and in Tangier, which is sort of becomes interzone in his book. And we hung out with Paul Bowles. They hadn't seen each other in so many years. You know, these two cagey old guys who were brilliant writers kind of being kind of fencing with each other, you know, they had a sort of

love-hey relationship, I think. Uh, and it was fantastic for me to see that and be there with them. But, uh, he, we got along very well, you know, and there was a, he had a tough guy persona when he was sort of lecturing or speaking. Yeah, hombre invisibale.

But he was, there was a sweetness though, a real sweetness to him that he wouldn't let people see very easily. But it was definitely there when we were talking together. I think that's what Luca was. And Luca tapped into that. Yeah, yeah. Luca did tap into that, yeah.

And what was, so what was your relationship with J.G. Ballard? We, very congenial. I really liked him very much. What struck you about his work mostly? Well, the fact that, I mean, he was very different in person from what you might think if you read Crash. Yeah.

Because Crash was a very tough, very difficult film. Yeah. And not, you know, and the characters are not very sympathetic and not very attractive. But Ballard primarily came to Cannes when we premiered Crash. And we were attacked by many journalists. It was a big scandal.

What was it? About what? I mean, there was an English, very famous English journal, critic who said that, this is a movie beyond the bounds of depravity, he said. And we were attacked for being... Good for you. Yeah. And at one point, so I was a Ken, I had my whole cast there, James Spader, everybody,

and Ballard was there. And he said, you know, David, this is very intense for a writer. You know, most writers are not, don't have this experience of the publicity and the glamour and the pressure and everything of a film festival like, you're mostly at home in your room writing alone.

Yeah. But he was there to support the film, which was terrific. He loved the film? He loved the film, and this is the thing. There was a journalist who I think was Scandinavian, Swedish, or Norwegian, who got up to attack the film in a different way. Rather than saying it's a perverse, horrifying movie,

he said, you have betrayed the book. This is not really the book crash. You should be criticized and be ashamed to have made a movie like this from the book. And then Ballard said, well, actually, I think the movie's better than the book. And the guy just sort of said, oh, okay. He just kind of sat down and shut up.

So that was very sweet of Ballard. He's right, I mean, in the sense that the, once again, it's a fusion. I mean, the people in the movie are very beautiful and they're beautifully lit and they're very sensual and sexual and that's not the way you would experience the book crash where it's very clinical almost, very cold and clinical. And it's just the way that it evolved when I was

writing the screenplay based on the book. And Ballin responded well to that. I mean, he didn't feel at all that it was a betrayal. He really loved the movie. So that was the kind of, you know. What a rare and amazing moment. It's like that moment in Annie Hall when he's online and the woman, the guy behind him is talking about Marshall McLuhan.

And he brings Marshall McLuhan out. What happened to Mr. McLuhan right here? Absolutely like that. Absolutely like that. What a victory. What a beautiful thing that is. Well, I mean, it's difficult because I'm working with a guy right now who's one of my best friends and he wrote a book that I'm trying to make into a movie. And, you know, getting him to write the script, which he wanted to do, you know, it becomes a tricky undertaking. Yeah.

And so I said to him, I said, I said, Sam, look, the book exists. This is the movie. Yeah, exactly. You have to, I've often said, and I still mean it, in a way you have to betray the book to be honest, to be honest with the book. Well, yeah, because- Because it's a different medium.

Right, the freedom you have in novels to go off on things is much different. The whole structurally different. Structurally different. You have to choose your story within the novel. You do. You have to, it's a betrayal that's not really a betrayal. No.

And if you try to be literal, you're going to have a dead movie. Oh, my God. Yeah. That was the gift of having Bruce Wagner write that movie. Because that book is huge. Yeah. The Maps to the Stars.

Yeah. Yeah. And I was amazed because I just read his Marvel Universe and the two books from that trilogy. It doesn't matter. We already talked about Bruce. but the fact that he had control and I guess he had a lot, it was his script, right? Yes, it was. It was tight as hell.

Yes. And yeah, and I think I had some input, but not much. I mean, Bruce is, he's an expert screenwriter also, so that really helps because he knows all that. He's not trying to protect the book in some weird way. He knows that this is a different medium and it needs to be something else. And also, that's a movie with resolution that's horrendous. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not a resolution that makes you feel good about your... Not an uplifting marriage at the end. Not at all. Oh, my God. So I just, I also, and I'm sorry if I'm just going, you know, jumping around, but I, you know, I watched Eastern Promises recently. Now, when you decide to direct a movie,

because I know, and this is another thing that I didn't bring up, it's like, how was, you know, I talked to Mel Brooks years ago and it was great. Yes. And we talked about Lynch and then we, you know, and I didn't, I don't know if I, you know, realized that you worked with him for, with the fly, right? Yes, that's right.

That's right. And, you know, what was that exchange like? Well, Stuart Kornfeld was his guy. His guy. Yeah. And he came to me and he said, Mel, and I would love for you to make, to do a remake of the Fly. And we have a script, and would you read it? And I read the script and I said, look,

the first thing I would say is we've got to throw away the first 17 pages. And then secondly, the dialogue, I would have to rewrite it all, you know? And I said, probably you don't want to do this. And they said, no, we do want you to do this. And I said, well, let me think about it. And I was thinking about it.

And then finally I decided, yes, okay. Yeah. As long as you accept that I'm gonna rewrite the whole thing and it's gonna be completely different because it was in that script that existed. To me, the only really good thing about it was the absorption of the concept of DNA, which of course, when the original movie, the 1950s, they didn't know anything about it.

And so, that was interesting, that it was a fusion of the fly's DNA with human DNA, which is technically, you know, feasible. But the rest, you know, the relationship of the characters and so on, I didn't find it very interesting. Once Mel said, absolutely, you have the freedom to rewrite this completely, we want your vision and so on and so on, that's when I did it.

And Mel was lovely, I mean, he really was very amenable and amiable and we had lots of discussions about things, but basically I got to make the movie the way I wanted it. Howard and I talking about the music for the flog said, okay, look, this is really three people in a room. Howard Shore. Yeah, Howard and I are saying this movie is really three people in a room. Howard Shore. Yeah, Howard and I are saying, this movie is basically three people in a room

and it's very operatic. So let's treat it like an opera and the music will be operatic. And so there's a point where Jeff Goldman is walking down the street and the music is huge. And Mel says, David, you know, the guy's just walking down the street. Why is the music so huge? We've got this big orchestra and stuff.

And I said, Mel, he's not just walking down the street. He's on his way to meet his destiny. And he said, oh, yeah, you're right. And so that was that discussion. He was funny. I can't remember exactly what he said, but I was asking him about Lynch and he had seen a racerhead before. He wanted him to do Overman.

And he's like, it's about a horrible baby. All babies are horrible. Like this movie that people have been wrestling with for decades. You know, like, got it. Yeah, yeah. No, he, of course, he's a very smart guy and he still is. Okay, so I know, okay, you gotta catch a flight, but I guess the list of movies that you're almost involved

with like, you know, Witness and Return of the Jedi, Flashdance, Top Gun, and stuff like that. But whatever the stories are around why things do or don't happen, you do make choices about which ones that aren't your material that you do for specific reasons, I would assume. Yeah, sometimes they fall through. Yeah, but did you really have interest

in doing flash dance? No. I really, there was a studio who had a woman, whose name I can't remember right now, who really was convinced that I was the one to direct flashdance. And I said, I said, you know, if I direct this, I will actually be destroying it and you won't be happy.

I knew it wasn't for me. But you did in Butterfly. And Butterfly is a very different kind of story. It's quite interesting, quite multicultural kind of, you know, quite an interesting story. Yeah, yeah. Because it's interesting, the ones that I brought up earlier, but even like something like a history of violence,

which was a graphic novel, which like lends itself perfectly to the way you shoot. Yeah, although honestly, I abandoned the essence of that graphic novel. If you look at it again and look at my movie, my movie is much more almost realistic because the graphic novel went off into some strange stuff that I didn't, I wasn't convinced of, I must say.

But outside a story, the idea of placing humans at the center of how you shoot, what we talked about earlier, that there's a starkness to it because there's an economy to it, really worked with those characters. Yes, I agree. Because the characters were so well-defined because they come from that.

Yeah, I think that is accurate. And it was sort of an exploration of a different type of transformation of a human being. And that's true also, yes. I love that movie. Oh, thank you. I was very happy. Oh, yes, no, I was very happy. I mean, it was lovely because

That's how I met Vigo. Yeah, and we got along obviously very well We've done many movies a bunch of movies seems like a great guy and he is a wonderful human being He really is a great guy never talked to him But but also like it says American psychos on this list. Yes I really was interested in doing American Psycho and- But you did it, Cosmopolis is pretty close. Yes, it is somewhat close, although there's some violence in American Psycho

that is not in Cosmopolis. That's right. Yeah. Well, look, it was great talking to you. I don't want to have you- Well, no, I'm very, We could sit here all day, actually, if I didn't have a plane to catch. And I thought the movie, the new movie was beautiful

and challenging and it got my brain working and as all the work does, and thanks for taking the time. Well, thank you for having me here. -♪ -♪ There you go, David Cronenberg, that was interesting. Again, The Shrouds is now playing in theaters nationwide. Go see it, there's a lot in it, a lot happening there.

Hang out for a minute, folks. You sailed beyond the horizon, in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled crackens and navigated through storms. Your spades struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest while you cooked a lasagna, there's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. Poo-thoria. That feeling you get once you've finally pooped. Using the power of natural Senna from the Senna plant to promote bowel movement, Senocot

laxative gently relieves occasional constipation, typically in 6 to 12 hours. If it is hard to pass, try Senocot S. It uses natural Senna plus a stool softener to help you achieve pooforia. Hey people, on Thursday, David Harbour is back in the garage, mostly because I had such a good time talking with him the last time. That was back in 2018 on episode 921. I remember being made fun of, and I remember like around eight months in, these like little dizzy spells where I'd just be so mad at the audience for laughing at me because I had so deeply like I realized I spent more time in that house like I Would spend three hours a day eight shows a week. So I spent like so much time actually in that house. Yeah

Experiencing that yeah. Yeah, it was almost like oh, yeah, you crossed over. Yeah It's almost like you're actually living that life more than you are your own. So the upside down was a prophecy. Exactly. The upside down was actually theater for you. Exactly, exactly. There was funny stuff that happened too though.

Like we would, like about like eight or nine months in too, this was crazy. Like you do a play, it's the same play, you know, for eight shows a week. And I remember about eight or nine months in being ready to make my entrance at the door. Yeah. And like having this like heart-stopping fear

and going like, somebody get me a script. I don't know any of my lines. Someone get me a script. I don't know any of my, and they would open the door and it would just come out of your mouth. And you'd just be like, for some reason, this fear would just wash over me that I didn't know you'd been doing it for so long.

Somebody get me a script. That's episode 921 with David Harbour. And you can go back and listen to that before Thursday's episode. It's available for free on all podcast platforms. To get every episode of WTF ad free, sign up for WTF plus. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to WTF pod.com and click on WTF plus. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by a cast. Here's some jam noodle. So So So So So So So So So Boomer lives, monkey and La Fonda, cat angels everywhere.