David Cronenberg on the “catharsis” of making art
The early work of David Cronenberg is largely comprised of films in the body horror genre, where the Canadian filmmaker explores the terrors of the contrasting limits and transformative capabilities of the human body. Films such as Shivers, Scanners and The Fly all delved into the darker side of the human corpus.
But Cronenberg has also delivered some excellent films in genres outside of horror too, and has worked in the erotic thriller category with 1996’s Crash, in the gangster genre with 2007’s Eastern Promises and in historical drama too with 2011’s A Dangerous Method, proving that the filmmaker is far more than just a shock horror artist.
But behind the works themselves is the reason they are made in the first place, and for Cronenberg, there seems to be a catharsis inherent to his process. During an interview with Focus Features, the iconic director explained how he feels about the very nature of art and its creation.
“Catharsis is the basis of all art,” Cronenberg said. “This is particularly true of horror films because horror is so close to what’s primal. We all prepare ourselves for challenges that we can anticipate. It’s only when cultural imperatives require that we avoid the discussion of things like death and ageing that the impulse is suppressed.”
But that very suppression of talking about dying and getting old is alleviated through art, where one can suspend their avoidance of talking about their own particular self that will undoubtedly die and instead put themselves into the position of another to analyse and examine the inevitability of death.
Cronenberg continued: “Humans naturally prepare themselves to meet those kinds of challenges. Certainly, ageing and death are two of those things. One of the ways man has always done this is through art.”
However, the filmmaker is keen to stress that he does not believe in the “psychotherapeutic use of art”.
“It’s like Freud psychoanalysing Shakespeare by looking at Hamlet,” he said. Rather, art is about a given person “trying to take control of life by organising it and shaping it and recreating it. Because he knows very well that the real version of life is beyond his control”.
So rather than art being a way for human beings to describe their particular scenario, Cronenberg rather believes that art is the one thing that we can use to examine and interrogate the universal things that we all experience, the shock and horror and acceptance of our limited time on earth.
