In praise of David Cronenberg

Except for a brief, unfortunate era when Canadian government grants fueled Hollywood copycat movies in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Canadian film industry has never had a single voice or an acknowledged style.

To clarify, we have never embraced an identity like the Neo Realism wave that energized Italian cinema after World War II – with evocative films that focused on the working class. Similarly, we have never launched what iconoclastic French filmmakers called La Nouvelle Vague – or New Wave – in the late 1950s. Nor even what those same French filmmakers dubbed Film Noir, while analyzing Hollywood cinema that inspired them.

Empowering new generations

Instead, Canada has many voices, styles and our own set of iconoclasts who challenge conventions. None is more prominent, influential and fascinating than David Cronenberg.

Now Cronenberg is helping to empower new generations of filmmakers that reflect the true nature of Canadian society with multiple voices, different cultures and a diverse set of values, pre-occupations and socio-political agendas. I say, hurrah!

Now 79, Cronenberg recently revived his film career with Crimes of the Future, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May. After his 2014 film, Maps to the Stars, he told me definitively that he was retiring from filmmaking to write novels, which he did. But, directors direct, and he could not help himself. Crimes of the Future emerged to shock and intrigue audiences with another investigation of bodily horror and sensuality.

Cronenberg also cannot help but help others. Before Cannes, the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA) awarded him our Company 3 Clyde Gilmour Award for his lifetime of contributions to Canadian cinema. I say “our” because I am a member of the TFCA in the emeritus category.

Pioneering Canadian film critic

The award is named for a pioneering Canadian film critic, now deceased. Clyde, whom I worked with at The Toronto Star in the 1970s, was diligent but conservative. He would have hated Cronenberg’s oeuvre, from his feature debut with Shivers (1975) through his breakout with Scanners (1981) and on to major work such as The Fly (1986), Dead Ringers (1988), Crash (1996) and even Cronenberg’s mature masterworks, A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007).

No matter, Cronenberg got the award named for Clyde. It came with a $50,000, post-production services prize from Company 3 that Cronenberg could pass along to an emerging Canadian filmmaker.

Cronenberg chose Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, known for her award-winning, two-part short film, Black Bodies, which won the 2021 Canadian Screen Award for Best Live Action Short Drama.

Pay it forward

Cronenberg made it clear why the pay-it-forward prize is important: “For me, this is a potent award to be giving because it specifically addresses the realities of post-production, which means that a film has actually been made and is being completed. There’s nothing more exciting than welcoming a new filmmaker with a strong new creation, and that the Company 3 Award has contributed to that emergence in a substantial, professional way is especially satisfying.”

For her part, Fyffe-Marshall reinforced the strength of new Canadian cinema: “Making an Indie film is often the only way to tell marginalized stories. But these stories, our stories, don’t deserve to stay on the sidelines. The success of When Morning Comes allows us to make ripples in the Canadian film landscape opening the doors for so many to follow. I am so thankful and appreciative to David Cronenberg for championing my film.”