© Faber & Faber

In truth, Cronenberg could give a shit about being popular with the masses. To his benefit, the filmmaker has the remarkable ability to confound critics and audiences alike—possibly because it's impossible to pigeonhole the Canadian auteur into a specific genre.

His 1970's movies (the bodily dimorphic trilogy—"Shivers" (1975), "Rabid" (1977), "The Brood" (1979)) almost typed him as a purveyor of horror and drive-in splatter, yet, despite the bloodshed, these films were loaded with such intelligence and depth, it was impossible to shrug them off as mere exploitation. The '80s ("Scanners" (1981), "Videodrome" (1983), "The Deadzone" (1983)) placed Cronenberg along the fringes of legitimate sci-fi—moving from the physiological to the telepathic. And, in 1986, "The Fly," starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, almost made David Cronenberg a household name with box office totaling $37.5 million—the director's biggest hit to date.

Ever the non-conformist, instead of allowing the studio system to dictate his next move, Cronenberg freaked out audiences (especially women) in 1988 with the very bizarre, very gynecological "Dead Ringers" starring Jeremy Irons, in a dual role as disturbing twin gynecologists who have a thing for Genevieve Bujold. Cronenberg's follow-up was a hallucinatory take on William Burroughs' "Naked Lunch". Seemingly impossible to film, "Naked Lunch" became a cinematic metaphor for writer's block and drug addiction with typewriters morphing into giant cockroaches who communicate telepathically. 1993's "M. Butterfly" was a little too late with its gender-bending twist as Neil Jordan's "The Crying Game" (1992) beat it to the punch. Besides getting banned in the U.K., "Crash" labeled Cronenberg a pornographer—a tag he could care less about but found laughable just the same. "eXistenZ" (1999) was the director's supposed "comeback," yet it was really another piece of the vast Cronenbergian canon—the morphing evolution of body, mind and technology. Unfortunately, 1999's "The Matrix" overshadowed the film even though "eXistenZ" was superior in complexity, more frightening, more real.

Cronenberg's films are both artistic and visionary—he's an auteur in the truest sense. His vision prevails, expounding his philosophies (that to be human is to constantly evolve for better or worse) and fears (the dissolution of mind, body and spirit into something horrifying yet beautiful). In Cronenberg's vision, technology and the flesh will merge into a real entity. "eXistenZ" introduces a video game with controller pods made of a fleshy organism that literally plugs into the base of a player's spine, transporting the gamer to an alternate universe. In "Rabid" a medical breakthrough (the discovery of a new method of internal skin grafting) turns an accident victim into a rabid vampire spreading the disease so fast that the fate of mankind is at stake.

Once referred to as the "venereal" film director, Cronenberg, as a child growing up in Toronto, watched his father die from cancer. The process of the spreading disease saddened yet fascinated Cronenberg so much that he decided to study science in college. Eventually, he turned to film making which provided an artistic outlet for his obsession with bodily dysfunction and change. All of his films deal in a morphing body and the eventual battle of flesh vs. mind. Throw technology into the mix and chaos is the result.

Director Filmography:
Spider | Review 1 | Review 2	2002
Camera	2000
eXistenZ	1999
Crash	1996
M. Butterfly	1993
Naked Lunch	1991
Dead Ringers	1988
The Fly	1986
The Dead Zone	1983
Videdrome	1983
Scanners	1981
The Brood	1979
Fast Company	1979
Rabid	1977
Shivers	1975
Stereo	1969
From the Drain	1967
Transfer	1966
Full IMDb Filmography