The B-Side Ep. 170 – David Cronenberg (with Veronica Fitzpatrick)

Welcome to The B-Side! Here we talk about movie directors! Not the movies that made them famous or kept them famous, but the ones that they made in between.  Today we discuss David Cronenberg, one of the truly great Canadian geniuses and the filmmaker credited with the advent of “body horror” (a distinction he bristles against, for what it’s worth). Our B-Sides today include Fast Company, The Brood, M. Butterfly, and Spider. Our guest today is the incomparable Veronica Fitzpatrick, professor at Brown University and Editor-at-Large and Podcast Co-Host at Bright Wall/Dark Room.  We talk about how handsome Oliver Reed is in The Brood, how Cronenberg’s films often start with a bang, how misguided M. Butterfly is, and how Fast Company was, in fact, a movie directed by David Cronenberg. There’s talk of his novel Consumed, his multiple collaborations with certain great performers like Jeremy Irons, and his incredible, intellectual mind. This is a man who has adapted Stephen King, William Burroughs, Don DeLillo, J.G. Ballard, and Patrick McGrath. What range! There’s the real-life French diplomat on which M. Butterfly is based, as well as the metatextual nature of both Cronenberg’s adaptation of David Henry Hwang and his later picture A Dangerous Method. It’s Cronenberg taking stock of the psychology of his own films! Fascinating. Veronica mentions B.D. Wong’s Tony speech, we all marvel at the fact that Adrian Lyne remade Lolita (with Jeremy Irons!) in 1997 and it barely got a release! There’s a lot in here! Happy Halloween!