David Cronenberg certainly has enough experience to know when the audience is not connecting with a film.
David Cronenberg says Cannes' response to 'The Shrouds' was thoughtful, meditative
Case in point: The Shrouds' world premiere at Cannes last May, the 81-year-old Cronenberg's latest foray as a writer-director. "They didn't get the film, partly because of the language and the cultural issues and the fact that people might think they were being disrespectful or something if they laughed," he said. "It's the pressure of the Cannes Film Festival. We didn't get the kind of laughter that I knew we would get at, say, the Toronto Film Festival or that we would get here."
Cronenberg shared his thoughts after The Shrouds premiered Saturday night in the U.S. at the New York Film Festival (after bowing in September in his native Toronto). "I wasn't there when it was on, but I hope you guys had a few laughs," he told the audience at Alice Tully Hall. "A life without humor is something I couldn't bear."
Moderator Dennis Lim, the festival’s artistic director, assured him that there were plenty of laughs and frequent laughs throughout the film, which is hardly a comedy but shows Cronenberg’s laconic sensibility in many scenes. It tells the story of a tech entrepreneur who devises a way for the deceased to stay in touch with their loved ones, who can watch their bodies decay via a video-equipped shroud.
