David Cronenberg: “The Shrouds was born from the loss of my wife, but the pain still follows me”

«I don’t feel alone, I’ve never felt there. Even now I am here, in my house, that I speak with you ». David Cronenberg He welcomes us in his home in Toronto via Zoom to talk about the film The Shroudsafter an unexpected health that prevented the tour in Italy. Previewed at the last Cannes Film Festival, then passed to the Busto Arsizio Film Festival 2025 and arriving in the room from April 3, the work starring Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger was born from the elaboration of the mourning of the Canadian director and screenwriter after the death of his wife Carolyn Zeifmanwith whom he was married almost forty years. Precursor of issues related to technology grafts both in society and in the bodies of people themselves, the author has never felt the solitude of those who are predestined to do something great, even if with his way of doing cinema he has definitely started a way of experimenting that had never been seen before.

“I find it very tender that new talents like Julia Ducournau And Coralie Fargeat they see in me not only an influence, but an inspiration, “he declares after saying he met the directors of Titan And The Substancewhich almost believes spiritual daughters. Filmmakers who took from the imaginative basin of Cronenberg, who does not back away even with his latest film, presented at the age of eighty -two years.

What is it about Tea Shrouds?

The Shrouds And The story of Karshimpersonated by Cassels, magnate and High-Tech entrepreneur who invents the aforementioned with which he can observe the bodies of his loved ones who are now dead and hear them in some way close. An invention born from the need of man to stay in touch with the deceased wife Becca (Kruger), of which the tomb will be vandalized together with the others, making Karsh enter a world of mysteries and conspiracies. “I am an atheist and existentialist. I don’t believe in life after death and it is the reason why, despite being fascinating, my characters are almost never religious, “explains Cronenberg.

“There was a mistake when it started to promote The Shroudsthat is, to pass it as a film that talks about the afterlife and the connection that we can establish with the dead. This is not the case. There is a mantra in which I believe and which is also said in my film Crims of the Future: The body is reality. Therefore, when we finish existing, we are no longer there, even if this is scary. So much so that the protagonist Karsh at the beginning research A connection with his wife after deathbut soon he understands that the only way to have it close is to stay in connection with his body ».

And, exactly like many other titles of his filmography, what pulls the ranks of his stories is a mix between human and technology, also explored in The Shrouds and used for this relationship between wife and husband. Topic that can only bind to the current affairs of artificial intelligence. “People are frightened, But the IAs have always existed in cinema “says the director and screenwriter. “First they were used less and were not as strong, but universes like those of Marvel are built starting from artificial intelligence, which can be useful even when you have to clean an image, arrange the light or remove a microphone left in the frame”.

David Cronenberg takes for example the lawsuit around The brutalist and to the Hungarian accent of the protagonist Adrien Brody: «I too in M. Butterfly I used it for the character played by John Lone, making his voice lower when he was a man and higher when he was a woman ». What the author invites us to concentrate It is the ethics on the use of the IAs: «The important thing is that they are not used to hurt, for fraud or for something illegal. It must be understood that technology has always gone fast and, given that it is inevitable, the company remains to understand how to integrate it, while the show industry will have to make decisions about it, such as if it is correct or not to use it to bring back actors or incomplete actresses “.

David Cronenberg and the mourning impossible to overcome

Meanwhile in The Shrouds Not only does Cassel becomes the protagonist for Cronenberg, but it also seems to resemble him vertiginously. A choice that was not dictated by the director’s will, but wanted by the actor who felt he could get in touch with the character more. “That we had the same hair is a coincidence », Irons the filmmaker. «The film was born from a personal fact, but when I started writing it soon became fiction. I’m certainly not a high-tech entrepreneur who owns a restaurant and a cemetery. I was not looking for my clone, but speaking with Vincent I understood that he felt comfortable taking me as a reference. He also told me that it is the most spoken role he played in his career. Diane, however, was at the beginning shocked because I didn’t want to test before turning. It’s my method: I prefer to hear the jokes of my actors on the set instead of preparing them before ».

And despite The Shrouds He arrives in Italian theaters a year after his premiere in Cannes, for David Cronenberg the pain of his wife’s loss is not at all past: «Being the film has not helped at all. Pain will always continue. It is different for everyone, but what you learn is that it is something that remains. There is no way to eliminate mourning. Some time ago I was talking to an Italian psychotherapist who came to my house here in Toronto to discuss A DANGEROUS METHOD. At one point he asked me how I felt and I said that I suffered and keep suffering. He replied: that’s okay. We understood ourselves. And this is the meaning: such a great pain will never pass, just know it ».