David Cronenberg Breaks Down Cannes Walkouts, His New Film’s Sexuality, and Why Netflix Turns Him Down
Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentEight years after “Maps to the Stars,” David Cronenberg is coming back to the Cannes Film Festival with what looks to be a big bang. Weaving together equal parts body horror and dystopian panache, “Crimes of the Future” instantly became one of the most buzzed-about competition films after Neon dropped the trailer on April 14, the day of Cannes’ press conference. The lushly-lensed film, which reunites Cronenberg with his muse Viggo Mortensen (“A History of Violence,” “Eastern Promises”) along with Kristen Stewart and Lea Seydoux, could prove as divisive as the Canadian master’s 1996 cult film “Crash” which went on to scoop Cannes’ very first Special Jury Prize for “its audacity, daring and originality.” Ahead of the start of the festival, Cronenberg sat down with Variety in Paris to talk about the long-gestating “Crimes of the Future,” the making of the picture, its underlying themes, while speaking candidly about the difficulty of financing challenging films, as well as his stance on streamers and U.S.