The directors stomach-turning new movie has him back in the festivals good graces.
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The first thing I ask David Cronenberg about are the abdomens.
Nothing more exotic than that, Im afraid.
He apologizes for the sunglasses hes finding it very bright.
(I am bionic for sure).
If you want to get into somebodys body, this is where you would naturally go.
(Something everyone else seems to care about more than Cronenberg: Ive won enough prizes.)
Cronenberg insists it wasnt that serious.
I didnt really say that, he says.
I said, IfMaps to the Starsis my last movie, itll be okay.
Some fans got very upset by that, which is very sweet.
He lost his wife of 43 years and for a while didnt have the heart for directing.
Ultimately, he says, he didnt change a single word inCrimes of the Futures script.
I think people have caught up in a sense with Cronenberg, Mortenson says.
We dont have to do that now for a few years.
For his part, Cronenberg is relatively blase.
Id rather they didnt walk out, because I didnt make it for people to walk out.
But if they feel that way?
Ive had it happen before.
It didnt kill me.
At the premiere, Cronenberg and his cast look blissful on the carpet.
The director, in a pair of white gogglelike sunglasses to block the camera flashes, sips a Perrier.
Later, she tells me that the shirt was so tight that it hurt her.
I walked out with these red, like, fuckin lacerations on my stomach.
It was very in keeping with the movie, she says.
I cut myself open.
Most of the audience seems rapt, though two people next to me fall asleep.
As the credits roll, the theater is silent and its unclear whether its in reverence or disgust.
I was like,Ooh, people dont know how to feel, Stewart tells me later.
A cameraman inside the theater thrusts a mic at Cronenberg and projects his face onto the screen.
Im very touched by your response, he says to the still-applauding crowd.
I hope youre not kidding.
I hope you mean it.
But clearly there are very big fans of him here who are freaking out.
There were thousands of people trying to get tickets to the screening and couldnt.
(Shes referring to the hordes of teens waiting outside the theater for a glimpse at Cronenberg.)
At the after-party, the consensus in the room is that the screening went well.
Nobody calls for Cronenbergs head or even his kidney.
I know Cannes was a tough crowd, but it seemed okay?
Seydoux sips rose in a corner.
Cronenberg is seated quietly on a couch away from much of the hullabaloo.
I am trying to relax, he says.
I ask the director if the food is meant to evoke the films bodily visuals.
He looks me right in the eye.
Hes clearly feeling spunky and irreverent he jokes about how Mortenson is his eternal slave.
The press conference host pleads with them: Just dont lie on the table.
He takes a long pull on a hand-rolled cigarette, staring off into the middle distance.
Whats the harm in stopping and talking if you have time to do it?
Seydoux, on another couch a half-hour later, is a bit more philosophical about the whole thing.
I give something of myself thats very intimate, and they fans do whatever they want.
I find Cronenberg again, whos sitting near a sunny spot on a patio, soaking in the moment.
We keep trying to suppress you, and you keep popping up!
he says by way of greeting.
The audience really, I think, have felt it in its complexity, he says.
And thats really quite sweet.
Its understood and felt.
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