Director Profile: David Cronenberg

Canadian-born filmmaker David Cronenberg is someone synonymous with film buffs and students worldwide. With a critically acclaimed career lasting nearly five decades, Cronenberg’s work has become both cult and popular by preying on people’s fears. Often acknowledged as one of the creators of the ‘Body Horror’ sub-genre, his films explore psychological and metaphysical horrors and phobias, usually within the confines of science fiction.

Cronenberg’s Point of View

Cronenberg’s career started with an early partnership with Ivan Reitman, who’s notably well known for his work in comedy, something rather at odds with the content in Cronenberg’s films. He produced Shivers and Rabid, the breakout successes of Cronenberg’s early filmography. Cronenberg has often worked under the radar of Hollywood, with none of his formative features having big budgets like some of his affiliates.

He frequents the collaboration of the cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, who has worked on every Cronenberg film since 1988’s Dead Ringers. Suschitzy is famous for being the director of photography on The Empire Strikes Back, which pushed Cronenberg to pursue a working relationship with him. Cronenberg has come close to working on big-name projects, having been considered to direct Return of the Jedi and work on Total Recall before leaving the project due to creative differences with the producers.

His Signature

Genre

Cronenberg has become the most associated with films such as The Fly, or Videodrome, the former being a perfect example of Body Horror within cinema. Body Horror is usually based around the degeneration of the human body, whether it is through mutation, disease, or other equally uncomfortable manners.

The natural human instinct to be repulsed by this is capitalized on within Cronenberg’s films, often using practical makeup effects to concoct bizarre imagery, such as Seth Brundle’s transformation in The Fly, which won an Academy Award for Best Makeup.