I met my friggin idol – David Cronenberg…
…Like a month ago, but I’ve been busy with PhD apps OK? One of the great things about living in New York is that you have access to all sorts of random screenings and appearences that often materialize at a moment’s notice. If I hadn’t been at my internship where we get the daily Variety I would have never known about the Museum of Moving Images screening of Eastern Promises followed by a Q&A with director, the illustrious Cronenberg, and the screenwriter Steve Kloves (Dirty Pretty Things). After missing a panel interview with other idol, Wes Craven, due to a bizarre food poisoning incident and getting the date wrong for an interview with Eli Roth, I had resigned myself to never meeting any more of the directors that I admired (except for Tarantino and Spike Lee ages ago). So, when this glittering opportunity presented itself I jumped and bought a ticket the same day.
Of course, my admiration for Craven and Roth is based on nostalgia and my indiscriminate love for all slasher cinema instead of a deep intellectual connection to their work (except for the Elm Street series which is brilliant). Cronenberg’s films on the other hand have inflamed parts of my brain with their bizarre bodily transformation, gender relations, and existentialist themes. Videodrome and ExistenZ alone ushered me into film school, mind ablaze with questions about the nature of reality, representation and how media changes our subjectivity. Needless to say, I was SO EXCITED.
Eastern Promises didn’t disappoint (see www.cinemattraction.com for a review)- its a grave tale of organized crime, violence and rebirth with fantastic performances by all of the actors. But as the credits rolled my heart pounded. He was coming out on the stage. I expected a somewhat pompousand creepy intellectual droning on about theory and philosophy.. I never expected him to be so funny! Cronenberg spent the next 30 minutes poking fun at his pretentions, answering even the most boring questions earnestly and with enthusiasm, and amusing us with anecdotes about the production. Everyone else brought DVDs and pictures to sign but the only thing I had on me was my new volume of Tales from the Crypt reprints. Cronenberg remarked on how cool the book was and how those comics used to scare the shit out of him when he was a kid. I muttered something about Videodrome being the reason that I study film in school and thanked him. He signed it and I left more enamored than I had been coming in. If you ever need a personal assistant Mr. Cronenberg, I’m your woman!
FINAL GIRL POP CHAT 