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Conspiracy of the Dead: David Cronenberg on The Shrouds
The shroud in The Shrouds “Long live the new flesh.” The most famous line in any Cronenberg picture, uttered by Videodrome’s Max Renn (James Woods), is also something of a mission statement for much of the Canadian master’s work. The technological and corporeal fuse across his filmography, resulting in new sensations, desires and ways of being in the world. In Videodrome, unusual orifices form, as stomachs become insertion points for violent VHS tapes. Real and virtual worlds blur in eXistenZ as videogame controllers jack directly into spinal cords; more recently, in Crimes of the Future, the surgical removal of surreal organs is the latest form of performance art.
But in The Shrouds, the flesh is not new or even living. Six feet under, the bodies in the bleeding-edge cemeteries of tech startup GraveTech are just dead, which is not to say that they are unchanging. No, they transform by the second, not in ways that speak to some transhumanist reimagining of the body but through autolysis—the scientific name for the post-mortem breakdown of cells that follows death. The Shrouds wouldn’t be a Cronenberg film, however, if some form of desire mediated by technology wasn’t involved, and what GraveTech offers mourners is the continuous ability, via gravestone video screens or a smartphone app, to watch their loved ones as the flesh slowly melts off their skeletal remains.
For the families that seek out its services, GraveTech offers a way of staying connected; for its entrepreneur founder Karsh (Vincent Cassel), the invention is a form of “dogfooding”—the tech term for using yourself what you invent. At the picture’s start, Karsh’s wife Becca has been dead for seven years, and even as he goes on dates to meet new potential partners, he logs into GraveTech to gaze at her remains. As he prepares to franchise GraveTech, seeking investors for cemeteries around the world, the image of his wife begins to provoke concern. Is that just a shadow on the video screen or some sort of surgical implant, a foreign object that might point to a cause of death other than cancer? When GraveTech graves, including Becca’s, are mysteriously vandalized, Karsh begins to believe there’s a conspiracy afoot. Does some shadowy force want to take over GraveTech? Are secrets buried with, and within, the bodies themselves? His consciousness rewired by grief, Karsh pursues the answers in a journey that entangles him with unstable hacker friend Maury (Guy Pearce)—the ex of Terry, a dog groomer who’s also the near-identical sister of his own late wife. (Diane Kruger plays Terry, along with Becca and Karsh’s AI chatbot Hunny, in a trio of tour de force performances.) Then, there’s Soo-min (Sandrine Holt), a beautiful blind woman whose erotic appeal may deflect from her role in the GraveTech mystery.
Crimes of the Future (2022) was based on a script Cronenberg wrote in 2006, which makes The Shrouds the first feature the director has fully originated since the passing of his own wife, Carolyn Zeifman, in 2017. With his black clothes and shock of white hair, Cassel’s Karsh is very much an avatar for the director, and while Cronenberg says in our interview below that he doesn’t view filmmaking as “therapy,” he does view the making of The Shrouds as “necessary.” Below, we talk about the roots of that need, how lived grief informs character and storytelling, not rehearsing with Diane Kruger and much more. The Shrouds will be released by Sideshow/Janus Films in the United States beginning on April 18.
Filmmaker: My partner of 32 years died in 2017, the same year as your wife, so I found your film emotionally very legible even as, I believe, in grief, everyone’s experience is different. The timeline of your film is quite specific—we are meeting the character Karsh seven years after his wife Becca died, and he’s still deeply impacted by her loss. There are so many films and other works dealing with grief set in the immediate aftermath of loss, or during that one year of “magical thinking” in which, writes Joan Didion, you are actually insane. But it’s not often you see a work dealing with grief and loss multiple years later as the person is still attempting to take these next steps. How were you thinking about how Karsh has changed in these seven years?
Cronenberg: Well, a lot of it is built into the film. This is not made a big deal of, but peripherally you understand that he’s put the matrimonial house up for sale and moved into a very Japanese-style apartment. He’s saying, in a way, that he needs to become someone else; he needs to live in a different way. I personally had the absolute opposite reaction. People said, “I guess you’re going to sell your house and move into a condo,” and I said, “Absolutely not.” The idea that it would be unbearable to be living in the house [my wife and I] had lived in, at that point, 25 years—it was actually quite the contrary. I wanted to be there. So, [Karsh] is already different from me because he becomes a fictional character. Once you start writing, you are writing a fiction, so however much it’s powered by emotions that you felt and incidents you experienced and dialogue that you’ve spoken, you are now creating fictional characters, and they start to go in different places than perhaps where you would go.
Filmmaker: I was completely arrested by the first scene of the film, in which Karsh is at the dentist’s office and the dentist says, “Grief is rotting your teeth.”
Cronenberg: I kind of liked it. Not too many movies start with a line like that.
Filmmaker: Thematically, you start off by saying that there are two bodies decomposing here, not just one. And, of course, there is much research on how grief affects the body.
Cronenberg: I mean, I absolutely felt like I was dying. Whether I actually was or not is a different thing. But there’s no question that grief puts a huge strain on your body, and the body reacts to it in terms of increased inflammation, cellular deformities, neurological defects and all of that stuff. It may seem to some a romantic notion that if not long after one person dies, the partner of that person also dies, but that does happen because of the stress of grief and the inability to bear life without that other person. Art has never been therapy to me, and making this movie was not cathartic for me, but it was necessary, nonetheless. In a way, Karsh is making his cinema of the cemetery, and I am making my cinema of the cemetery as well.
Filmmaker: Why do you say it was necessary?
Cronenberg: Because—and this obliquely connects with the whole conspiracy element in the film—there is unfinished business with this person who has died, with whom you really can’t have any more business but nonetheless feel the need to continue the relationship. How can you do that? The whole conspiracy thing partly is that there were words not said that maybe should have been. There were words that should not have been said and you want to discuss those, and you cannot. So, it’s a continuation of the relationship. Karsh does it as an entrepreneur—he owns a restaurant and a cemetery—and I make a movie about him. That’s my version of being Karsh.
Filmmaker: There’s also, as you’ve discussed elsewhere, the way the conspiracy storyline connects to the desire in grief to find or create a coherent narrative. After a loved one dies, there’s that desire for certainty, some explanation for what happened.
Cronenberg: There are so many ways to grapple with grief, none effective, because it seems impossible—my daughter and I still say we can’t believe it. It cannot be the truth, and if it’s not the truth, then you’re looking for [the reason] why this impossible thing happened. Some person, some force made it happen because why would it happen otherwise? Even though you know that death is inevitable, and because of that, it’s meaningless. Everybody dies, so nobody’s death means anything, yet it seems unbearable. That’s the existentialist anguish.
There’s a conspiracy of the deceased, and that [concept relates] to general conspiracy. Were the doctors experimenting, were they not attentive or experienced enough, or were they just incompetent? And this is Karsh’s version of a conspiracy: did [Becca] have an affair with the doctor? Was something going on? Again, it’s an attempt to assign meaning to something that is basically meaningless. Though it might drive him crazy to think that she had an affair with her cancer doctor, it also would give some meaning to the fact that she died the way she did.
Filmmaker: The conspiracy narrative also speaks to how rules of the world become confusing after loss. Karsh is confused for much of the movie, which, for a filmmaker, is a challenge.
Cronenberg: It is. The character is basically reactive. Vincent and I discussed it. Yes, he’s creating this cemetery, so that’s the positive thing, but on an emotional level he is reacting constantly.
Filmmaker: Were you concerned that he’s too reactive and not engaging enough to an audience?
Cronenberg: I assume that I’m going to make a character who is charming or attractive enough to withstand this kind of betrayal of the traditional dramatic structure, and I hope that I can be seductive enough to keep the audience interested. I don’t worry about it beyond that because if I really want that, then I really want it, and it was crucial to me to have him be in that phase. He’s the most vulnerable and most transparent this way, and I wanted to see that.
Filmmaker: I understand that The Shrouds is an outgrowth of what was planned to be a Netflix series at one point.
Cronenberg: I pitched them [The Shrouds as a series] because I wasn’t sure I wanted to make any more movies—that’s part of how I reacted to my wife’s death. I was very interested in the phenomenon of Netflix and [long-form] series. I’ve seen some good directing in series, so I knew it was possible. It would be quite a different challenge from making a movie. Do you direct all of it yourself? That’s exhausting, like making a 10-hour movie. Do you oversee other directors? How does it work? I thought the best way to find out is to do it, so I went to Netflix and pitched it to them, and they were interested in it enough to finance the writing of the first episode, liked it enough to finance the second episode and then decided they didn’t want to do it. They said a very Hollywood thing to me: “It wasn’t what we fell in love with in the room.” Well, in the room I think I told them exactly what I was going to do. Then, I realized they fell in love with me in the room—the story of me and my wife—but didn’t really see what I was trying to give them. Nonetheless, bless them, they gave me the project to play with, and I decided that I liked what I’d written too much to let go of it.
Filmmaker: The series would have had different cemeteries in different countries?
Cronenberg: Yes. I thought every episode would take place in a different country and involve different local politics, religious issues and burial considerations.
Filmmaker: The Jewish burial tradition and the natural decomposition of the body is so central to this film. Did you do much further thinking about other traditions?
Cronenberg: Oh, yes. For example, the [Zoroastrians] build these towers, and on top of the towers they put the bare corpses and leave them for the vultures to eat and pick apart. To them, that’s a proper religious way of recycling. If Karsh wanted to build a cemetery for the [Zoroastrians], how would that work? Of course, there’d be resistance because it’s completely against their religion, but would there be a way for him to incorporate [GraveTech] into their culture in such a way that it was acceptable, or would it not be worth the effort? Perhaps he goes through that [process] and decides whether it was worth it. Is it a crusade for him to [build] these cemeteries or just a sort of a techno version of burial that pleases high-tech nerds? Maybe it’s becoming more of a religious thing, or more of an emotional crusade, for him to get more of these cemeteries in place.
Filmmaker: The idea that technology produces new desires has long been present in your work. We’re now in a time when there’s an expectation that more and more things will become visible because of technology, whether inside the body as seen through deep scans or outside as seen through surveillance cameras. Do you see GraveTech as something that would change the ways people want to grieve and remember?
Cronenberg: I think that’s part of what [Karsh] is offering. He’s saying, “I’ve had this very strange experience. I wanted to get into the box with my wife. I didn’t want to let go of her. And [to do this], of course, would be my death, and it’s ridiculous.” [GraveTech] is another way of staying with her, with her body, and seeing what happens to it. And that is a ritual—not a communal ritual, like a religion, but a personal ritual that perhaps you and your family would develop together. You would all go every Wednesday to see what’s happened. Or you could look at your phone anytime, like if you’re in a boring meeting, and see the body. You could see Mark Zuckerberg, maybe, coming up with something like that: a little bit of autism, a little bit of tech nerd, and you suddenly end up with GraveTech.
Filmmaker: Could you talk about working with Diane Kruger, who has such a complex job playing three different roles? Was it obvious from the beginning that the same actress would be playing Karsh’s wife and her sister?
Cronenberg: You might think so, but at first I thought I’d have two separate [actresses], then somebody said to me, “Of course, you’re going to want her to play both.” And it suddenly seemed great because you only see Becca naked and in distress in the dream sequence. I wasn’t really interested in doing the traditional “flashback to the happy moment on the beach with the kid.” And you definitely feel a separation between [Terry and Becca]. Diane loved playing Terry because she is very disruptive, naughty and corrosive in her own way. But it wasn’t obvious from the beginning that they’d be the same. I’ve seen people writing that they’re twins, but I never meant them to be twins.
Filmmaker: To be honest, I did imagine they were twins.
Cronenberg: I think I wrote at one point [Terry] talking about “my older sister.” But even if your sister is born five minutes before you, she is still the older sister, so they could still be twins. I didn’t think it was important to make a big deal out of trying to convince the audience that they were not identical twins.
Filmmaker: The casting does open up this other range of possible meanings around how much Karsh is projecting a vision of his wife onto his outside world.
Cronenberg: I didn’t want to get into Dead Ringers territory, but the difference from any other woman that he might have had an affair with is that Terry was very close to Becca and had a past with her that no one else would. So, it’s no accident [Karsh becomes attracted to her].
Filmmaker: The memory of Becca that Karsh is compelled to return to is the one of her after she’s lost her breast in a mastectomy. As you say, there’s no happy memory that’s returned to of her on the beach. I thought about the soldiers Freud treated at the end of World War I, who were compelled to relive their most traumatic moments, and how this led to his theory of the death drive. For Karsh, why is that image the one that lingers?
Cronenberg: Because it’s the most painful moment in his relationship with her, and it’s towards the end of her life. It’s like a sore you keep picking at that you can’t let go of. If I were to have made a series, would I have given in and done some of those flashback scenes? Maybe I would have thought that there was some episode in her life revealing something that needed to be seen by the audience. But at this point in the timeline of the movie, since he’s joined the bereavement dating pool, some issues might come up provoked by some new relationship where he has to deal with what he had or did not have with Becca. Perhaps something in a new relationship that he never had with Becca would make him feel guilty. Is that a betrayal of Becca? I could see those things coming up—you could do an endless series.
Filmmaker: Why was it important that the character of Soo-min be blind?
Cronenberg: Because I knew a woman like that. That’s all. It really was not necessary dramatically; it’s not meant to be symbolic. It’s just that in your life you meet people and one of them is blind. There doesn’t have to be an artistic reason for it. I didn’t mean it to be significant—that because she’s blind she’s more sensitized in other ways. [She is] just an interesting character for him to be attracted to, and it’s interesting that he’s willing to accept the fact that she’s blind [while] he is so visual. He is intensely attracted to her. Could it be that that she’s more attractive to him because she’s blind, or is it just happenstance that she’s very seductive and is interested in him? There’s also the connection with her husband, a wealthy man who might finance [GraveTech]. Is he being exploited or not? I can’t say more than that.
Filmmaker: I definitely thought about this person who is very visual, who obviously has a self-image and who, as you said, has this really beautiful Japanese-style apartment, and here is a woman who can’t appreciate those things visually. Her mode is touch, which, of course, is the one thing Karsh can’t do with his wife. His relationship with her is purely visual, mediated by a screen at this point.
Cronenberg: It’s really that level of dynamic, I think, more than a heavy symbol.
Filmmaker: Diane Kruger has mentioned in interviews that you do very few rehearsals.
Cronenberg: Zero rehearsals.
Filmmaker: Over the course of your career, do you think you’ve changed the way you work with actors?
Cronenberg: No, not really. I experimented briefly in The Fly with doing rehearsals, like a table read, and found them completely useless and, in fact, counterproductive. There are many issues. You sometimes can’t afford to have all your actors there because you have to put them up and feed them. You get into little arguments about details of dialogues, or the actors are being competitive with each other. But I found that as soon as you get on the real location or set and in the real costumes, everything changes, so it’s all wasted energy. I know that there will be actors who completely disagree. I had dinner with Paul Schrader in Toronto, and he said, “Rehearsal is everything,” and I said, “For you, it’s everything. For me, it’s nothing.” I don’t really want to interfere with [the actors]. In a way, I have more respect for their intuition than they do. I understand that Woody Allen is like that. It’s an approach. There are an infinite number of ways to be a director, and everybody finds their own way. If Paul really feels that he’s doing important creative groundwork in the rehearsals, who am I to say no?
I guess Diane had more experience with rehearsing, and she has mentioned she was kind of shocked, but, for me, I want to see what your instinct is for this character. What does reading the script and thinking about the character do without my interfering and shaping it? If I feel what you come up with is wrong, I will absolutely step in and guide and shape it with you, but she was spot on. She didn’t need rehearsal. I also had that with Léa [Seydoux] on Crimes of the Future. I had worked with Viggo [Mortenson] many times, and after the first couple of takes, she said to Viggo, “Is David liking what I’m doing?” And [Viggo] said, “Oh, yeah. If he doesn’t like it, you’ll know, and he’ll do another take.”
Filmmaker: When you do that second take—
Cronenberg: I often don’t, which is another thing that I like about digital. We used to say, “Let’s do one take for the lab,” because the lab would always screw something up. Since digital, I’ve felt completely released from that worry, and if the first take is great and I don’t think there’s something missing, I don’t feel the need to do a second take. It’s not because I’m in a hurry. I mean, my budget was $13 million, so I didn’t have a lot of time, but the way I direct, I had enough time. When I was younger, I would do many different angles and many, many takes, and eventually I got to the point where I knew what I wanted, and if I got it I didn’t worry about finding some mysterious other thing.
Filmmaker: There are a lot of two-handers in this movie in terms of dialogue scenes. Is the blocking and coverage of those scenes something you discover on set?
Cronenberg: Absolutely. I think the only time I did storyboards is on The Fly, when the effects people were very worried that I would ask them for something they couldn’t do. Basically [at the beginning of a scene], I’m there with my cameraman and continuity person, nobody else, and they’re just watching. OK, let’s figure out how we’re going to do the scene. Are we sitting there, or are you standing at the window first and then you turn? But I don’t say that—that’s what we’re thinking, right? And so, we feel our way through the scene. What if I sit here, what if I stand there and what if I walk in? The first time I hear the dialogue spoken, other than [me speaking it to] myself, is when we’re blocking the scene on the day. For me, that’s the rehearsal. I’ve done it that way since the beginning.
Filmmaker: I’m assuming you don’t audition formally?
Cronenberg: We do auditions, sure, and that’s interesting because that’s directing also. I even have said, “What you did in the audition was perfect, do that.” Sometimes, [actors] don’t remember what that is and then I can show it to them on my phone.
Filmmaker: There’s a taboo element to being open about grief. People can be uncomfortable around you. Some people have an expectation that after, say, a year, you must be fine, moving on. I think if you’re an artist making grief part of your work, you become a kind of receptor to people, fellow grievers, who want to have dialogues with you about it. I’m thinking of someone like the singer Nick Cave, who has made a series of albums dealing with grief and even done a speaking tour where he’s discussed it with the audience. You’re obviously on a publicity tour now discussing this work, and I’m curious how you feel now about discussing grief as a broader topic in a such a public way.
Cronenberg: Well, you talked to me about grief, and other people interviewing me would say they’ve experienced this or that. I wouldn’t avoid [these discussions], but I wouldn’t want to make a career out of it. I’m not saying Nick Cave has—I’m not aware of what he’s been doing—but it’s no taboo for me to talk about it, and then you find that induces other people to also get rid of whatever taboo they might have and who want to talk about it. But, I mean, it’s hard to get to any age without [experiencing loss]. You’re correct that each grief is unique, but to lose a lover, someone you’ve made love to… I have a very old friend who was married to my cousin, a very beautiful woman. Someone [said to him], “My father died two years ago.” And he said, “Well, did you fuck your father? Because that’s not the same.” However much you might grieve over your parents, unless you’ve had an incestuous relationship with them it’s different than the person who was your lover and there for the physical relationship. It’s quite different to lose that [person] than to lose an uncle or a parent. That’s a basic and different kind of grief, and it’s not really a matter of judging which is more potent or valuable. It has nothing to do with that—it’s a matter of quality. Can you really empathize with this, can you really understand, if you want to, what my grief is? In the movie, I’m basically trying to, amongst other things, just express what grief can be in that particular circumstance because perhaps you, the audience, will never experience quite that, so this is a unique way of you experiencing it.
