David Cronenberg

'David Cronenberg' (qv), also known as the King of Venereal Horror or the Baron of Blood, was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1943. His father, Milton Cronenberg, was a journalist and editor, and his mother, Esther (Sumberg), was a piano player. After showing an inclination for literature at an early age (he wrote and published eerie short stories, thus following his father's path) and for music (playing classical guitar until he was 12), Cronenberg graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Literature after switching from the science department. He reached the cult status of horror-meister with the gore-filled, modern-vampire variations of _Shivers (1975)_ (qv) and _Rabid (1977)_ (qv), following an experimental apprenticeship in independent film-making and in Canadian television programs.Cronenberg gained popularity with the head-exploding, telepathy-based _Scanners (1981)_ (qv) after the release of the much underrated, controversial, and autobiographical _The Brood (1979)_ (qv). Cronenberg become a sort of a mass media guru with _Videodrome (1983)_ (qv), a shocking investigation of the hazards of reality-morphing television and a prophetic critique of contemporary aesthetics. The issues of tech-induced mutation of the human body and topics of the prominent dichotomy between body and mind were back again in _The Dead Zone (1983)_ (qv) and _The Fly (1986)_ (qv), both bright examples of a personal film-making identity, even if both films are based on mass-entertainment materials: the first being a rendition of a 'Stephen King' (qv) best-seller, the latter a remake of a famous American horror movie.With _Dead Ringers (1988)_ (qv) and _Naked Lunch (1991)_ (qv), the Canadian director, no more a mere genre movie-maker but a fully realized auteur, got the acclaim of international critics. Such profound statements on modern humanity and ever-changing society are prominent in the provocative _Crash (1996)_ (qv) and in the virtual reality essay of _eXistenZ (1999)_ (qv), both of which well fared at the Cannes and Berlin Film Festivals. In the last two film projects _Spider (2002)_ (qv) and _A History of Violence (2005)_ (qv), Cronenberg avoids expressing his teratologic and oniric expressionism in favor of a more psychological exploration of human contradictions and idiosyncrasies.::Marco Rambaldi<[email protected]>