David Cronenberg is shorter than I expected. Standing in front of him during the Tribeca Film Festival red carpet for the 50th anniversary of Shivers, a nasty film about parasitic sex freaks, I hype myself up to look into the 82-year-old's eyes instead of at his Saint Laurent jacket. There's something I've been dying to know for years: does he think his 1999 warning against virtual reality eXistenZ predicted the current video game industry, or technology in general?
"Well, it's sort of not my job to figure out what I got right or wrong," Cronenberg replies like he's tired of saying it. I take his tone to heart, like he's my dad – he's got a point, "figuring out" art is my job as a critic, isn't it?
"Same with Videodrome," he continues to say about his 1983 film that denounces the depravity of the TV set. "I think people interpret things they see in those movies in anticipation. I mean, I've never been a great games player" – me neither, I assure him with the realization that I think I actually want David Cronenberg to be my father.
"Yeah, but I was interested in [video games]. It can be another art form – creating another world that is immersive, and so on," Cronenberg says. "It intrigued me because, of course, in a way, movies have always been that as well. So people who think that eXistenZ anticipated some things about game playing – well, that's lovely. But, really, I don't think of art as prophecy."
He's made this point before, having responded to suggestions that his sci-fi body horror films are "prophetic" with the honest observation that "everybody has antennae. [...] If your antennae are sensitive enough, you pick up some things that are an anticipation of the future whether you want to or not," as he told The Guardian in 2013.
I nod at David Cronenberg, who I am not related to, but whose films did instill in me a familial fondness for prosthetic makeup that looks like cow teats or a buttery abscess.
"The game is to try to understand what life is now," Cronenberg says, "what is the human condition now? And that, to me, is what art is all about." Our conversation winds down, and I exhale the breath I've been holding in the form of an eager confession – The Fly (1986) is my favorite romance film… "I don't know if you think of it that way," I add sheepishly. Fuck, but isn't analysis my responsibility?
"Definitely!" Cronenberg says, animated. "That's a yes!" And now I know I can die with self-respect. Cronenberg may be a five-foot-something grandfather, but he's colossal to me.
Learn more about why by reading through our list of every David Cronenberg movie, ranked.
