Page 10 - Fujifilm Exposure_19 Spider_ok

WEAVING A TWISTED
WEAVING A TWISTED
David Cronenberg brings Patrick McGrath’s chilling Spider to the big screen
W ith films like The Fly, Dead Ringers
and Existenz, David Cronenberg is known to cinephiles everywhere as a master purveyor of
dark visions and twisted nightmares. But the easygoing Canadian
auteur had a nasty shock himself when the funding for his latest film, Spider, fell apart while he was involved in pre-production.
Thanks largely to the sterling efforts of producer Catherine Bailey, alternative sources were found. “It took me five years to finance the film the first time,” she says with a smile, “and four and a half weeks to finance it the second.”
In many ways Spider is a labour of love for Bailey, who was shown Patrick McGrath’s original book by the author’s wife, actress Maria Aitken. Bailey was hooked and accepted McGrath’s offer to tackle the screen- play adaptation himself.
“This was a book very close to his heart,” the producer adds, “and he wanted to keep it here in the UK, keep the essence of it so that it might be true to his original concept. On that understanding we took the project on.”
At the time, Bailey was working on a radio production of Man & Superman with Ralph Fiennes and after she showed him the script he threw his weight behind the project too. But still financing proved elusive, the dark nature of the material putting off companies who doubted its com- mercial appeal.
The story tells of a disturbed man, Spider, who grows up believing
that his father has killed his mother and replaced her with a prostitute. Thinking he will be killed next, Spider takes bloody, misguided revenge for which he is imprisoned. Upon his release he moves into a halfway house, only to find his deluded fan- tasies beginning again.
Co-starring with Fiennes, as the adult Spider, are Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, John Neille and 10-year- old newcomer Bradley Hall, as the child Spider.
“This is very different in many ways from what I’ve done before,” the director states. “You could see it on one level as a Freudian melodrama – not something I’m particularly known for – and it’s relatively naturalistic too. But when I read it I immediately identi- fied with Spider.
“That was me as I would really rather not be and I’m not talking about the family drama part because my fami- ly had no connection with that. The way he is, Spider’s parents were probably quite okay. There’s probably nothing wrong between this guy and his wife, maybe there’s a little tension, maybe he did flirt with somebody in a bar and his wife was a little pissed off at him.
“But Spider, being the kid that he is, built this whole fantasy as a reac- tion to his own sexuality, and his par- ents’ sexuality, and that’s the really twisted part of it. But I have to say I found him a very sympathetic charac- ter. I thought he was like a character from Samuel Beckett. For whatever reason, all of that made sense to me.”
Helping him to translate the ideas into images for the sixth time is Cronenberg’s trusted DP, Peter Suschitzky BSC, who has won three of
Canada’s Genie Awards for Best Cinematography for his earlier work with the director.
“Peter and I have a shorthand, we know each other’s tastes and we have
many, many reference points over the years. And we’re also very close friends. It’s not just a pro- fessional relationship, it has many different levels to it.”
“That also means I feel free to suggest things,” adds Suschitzky, “and because of that, we arrive at a conclusion very quickly. It’s very stimulating and conflict free. I think both David
and I share an aesthetic sensibility as well as a psychological one.”
For screenwriter Patrick McGrath, the idea that your work is
Photos main: David Cronenberg (in baseball cap) on set of Spider with DP Peter Suschitzky and Ralph Fiennes; above: Ralph Fiennes as Spider
EXPOSURE • 8 & 9