The Canadian director talks to "Vima" about his new film, the film adaptation of Don DeLillo's novel Cosmopolis, for the money, technology and the financial crisis
"The movie trailer is very interesting", is the first thing I say to David Cronenberg after introductions on the roof of the Noga Hilton hotel in Cannes. The Canadian director, dressed in black, with sneakers and a white T-shirt, he looks at me puzzled. He tries to understand. "The first film for the new millennium" I repeat the motto and ask him to develop the advertising philosophy for me. And I fall from the clouds: "It's better not to always believe the ads. Not even in the trailers".
But how is it possible?, I wonder out loud. After all, it's not his film; "I don't disagree, we all watched the trailer, we voiced our opinions. But advertisers work very strangely. They have a raw material in their hands and the result of the processing they do to sell the product often puts the creator himself to sleep. Other times it doesn't represent the film, other times it represents her". But for Cronenberg, the goal of this particular message is true today, it wasn't so real when he first saw it.
“It's an aspect of the film – maybe because’ I had no objection to that," he explains. “You would say that the film, against a stranger, very special way, is a documentary about the era in which the story takes place, at the beginning of the new millennium. But nothing was done on purpose from the beginning".
So what exactly is going on in "Cosmopolis", which turns out to be very similar to Don DeLillo's classic novel, where the script was based; We are in New York at the beginning of the new millennium. Eric Parker is a 28-year-old economist, undisputed ruler of Wall Street, who, while dreaming of living in a different civilization of the future, he sees an indeterminate shadow over the galaxy of his empire.
It will all happen over the course of a day as he drives across Manhattan to get a haircut at his father's old barber shop.. His eyes remain glued to the gen rate: rises dangerously high, despite everyone's expectations, destroying his investments. With each passing minute Eric sees his empire slipping from his grasp. Meanwhile, wild fights break out in the streets of the city. The real world threatens the cloud Eric has been living in and his odyssey escalates.
The cinema of consumption
It was the dialogue in Don DeLillo's novel that inspired David Cronenberg to create his Cosmopolis. "As a director you are a dramatist, you can't help but think of actors talking and acting. The most famous film image is of the human face while speaking. Reading DeLillo's novel I was constantly looking ahead, ecstatic, actors to speak his words. That was my key, that's what I want from the viewers as well: to allow the dialogues to carry them away".
That doesn't necessarily mean the audience will "absorb everything the first time," says the director, even referring to his immediately previous work, "A Dangerous Method", also a film “with dialogue from room to room. Not of course, and I want people to see my films twice. But I guarantee you that after the second viewing many things become clear".
For Cronenberg, a gentle man who speaks slowly and softly, it is rather disappointing that in large part modern cinema is merely consumerist. “Like eating a lollipop. When the lollipop runs out, you have enjoyed it, but also forget. My goal is to make a cinema that will not grow old over the years, on the contrary, will become richer and richer, deeper and deeper. For’ that's what I like to put a lot into my films".
"Money shows us who we are"
"Money is technology and as you know technology interests me" says Cronenberg. "Contrary to what many people think, technology is ultimately a human condition, it is the expression of the human body. The voice, the ear, the eye, all tools of the human body. As is money. It is not an invention of animals, but of man. In a sense money is the expression of man to man. Money shows us who we are. The financial crisis we are experiencing is not something like the tsunami in Japan. It's not a natural disaster, made by humans".
For him, the economic crisis can lead "to something optimistic, if it forces the whole world to work collectively. They say that if Greece collapses, everyone will be torn down. That to me is good, because it means that everyone should try to find a solution so that Greece does not collapse. The collapse of Greece is frightening," he says, conveying the concern of the Greeks of Toronto, where he resides. "I believe in optimism, as long as it's not an optimistic fantasy".
And the victims; Collateral losses; It's hard to tell if the director's response is cynicism or emotion: "There is no war without casualties and we are currently living in a state of war. I certainly don't think it's the end of the world, but pain and suffering, these are real".
"I'd be bored if I knew in advance what film I was making"
Shortly before my meeting with director Robert Pattinson, starring as Eric Packer, it was confessed to me that, just read the script and the novel, told Cronenberg that he was hesitant to accept the role because he did not understand what the novel was trying to say. Cronenberg replied, “no problem, I don't understand either". I mention it to the director.
“What I actually said is that we don't have to understand everything right away, because there are dozens of different readings of the same thing anyway. Even when I write my own original scripts, I would have to shoot the film first to fully understand why I made it or what I wanted to say by writing the script. Because I don't know everything and I'd be incredibly bored if I did. It would be boring to make the movie.". All he wants to know is if he found the book interesting and if the idea of turning it into a movie intrigues him, so that he also learns something more while filming her.
When & where:
The movie "Cosmopolis" is shown in theaters by Thursday 27 September in Village distribution
Source : tovima.gr
